Sermon 3/13/05
Now and Later - Psalm 130, Ezekiel 37:1-14, John 11:1-45
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Instant gratification. That’s probably a phrase that you’ve heard before, and probably one you can sometimes relate to. Many people who complain about the continual and inevitable decay of society and morals in general will point to our desire for instant gratification as a tell-tale sign of how bad things have gotten. Instant gratification means wanting something, good things especially, right here, right now. We don’t like to wait – we want it sooner and faster. Immediately. Instantly. Perhaps you can relate. For me, my desire for instant gratification comes primarily in dealing with my computer. There’s nothing I hate more than waiting for a page to load on the internet. Forget dial-up internet connections. It’s high-speed for me. And even that feels too slow sometimes. I don’t want to wait 10 or even 5 seconds for the information I want to appear on my screen. I want it now. If you’re not a computer addict like myself, perhaps you have your own instant gratification need. How about the microwave? I can still remember when my family first got a microwave. I think my mother is still using the very same one. My microwave is newer than hers – my popcorn bags pop in two minutes, not four, like hers. But do you ever find yourself wishing the microwave could be just a little faster?
Yet, even as much as we seek instant gratification, there are also some thing for which we are willing to wait. According to one study I found, the average person will spend five years of life waiting in line, two years playing telephone tag, and six months sitting at red lights. (1) That’s an awful lot of waiting. What is it that we are willing to wait for all that time, when we demand to receive other things so instantaneously? Where do you spend time waiting? Waiting in the doctor’s office, maybe. Waiting in line at the grocery store, or at the bank drive-thru. Waiting on hold. We can wait.
We’re constantly torn between right now and waiting for later. How do we decide? What things are worth waiting for, and what do we have to have right now? How do we decide? How do we prioritize? Every day, I have a mental, if not an actual written list of things today. And on no day do all of the things on my list get done, I can assure you. So how do we decide? What can wait, and what has to happen right now? Believe it or not, these questions are biblical questions. The bible is a book that frequently concerns itself with time. I think our first reaction is perhaps to think that the bible’s sense of time is heavier on the “not yet” side than on the “right now” side. God’s time never seems to move in the way we want it to. But in our gospel lesson today, Jesus teaches us something about telling time.
We return again to the gospel of John, with another lengthy text that maybe makes you wonder if I even need to preach by the time I am done reading it to you. Don’t worry. I’m still preaching. This is a story of a family with whom Jesus seems to be close, some of the only people that seem to be personal friends of Jesus, outside of the disciples, and perhaps his cousin John: Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha of Bethany. Our story opens with word coming to Jesus from the sisters that Lazarus has fallen ill. Jesus declares that the illness won’t lead to death, but is for God’s glory. He seems unconcerned about Lazarus, and stays still two days longer where he is. After this, they head toward Bethany, with Jesus saying that Lazarus has “fallen asleep” and “will be alright.” But then Jesus tells them ‘plainly’, “Lazarus is dead.” He says he is glad that he was not there, so they “might believe.” When Jesus finally arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has already been dead and in the tomb for four days. Many have gathered to console the sisters at the loss of their brother. Martha confronts Jesus with accusation in her voice: “Lord, if you have been here…if you had been here my brother would not have died.” But she adds that she believes that God will give to Jesus whatever Jesus asks. And Jesus tells her, “your brother will rise again.” Martha thinks Jesus is speaking of Lazarus rising up later, at the resurrection on the last day. But Jesus lets her know he has a different time frame in mind. “I am the resurrection and the life,” he says. Believing in him equals life, always. Martha declares that she believes Jesus is the Messiah, the one “coming into the world.” Next Mary comes to meet Jesus, and her first words are like Martha’s: “Lord, if you had been here…” Jesus sees her weeping, and sees the crowds weeping, and we read that he “was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” And Jesus begins to weep. “See how he loved him!” some say. But others echo the sisters’ words: Couldn’t Jesus have stopped this from happening, if he had been here? Finally, Jesus, still greatly disturbed, has the stone rolled from Lazarus’ tomb, gives thanks to God, and calls Lazarus: “Lazarus, come out.” The man who was dead emerges from the cave, still bound in cloths. Many, witnessing the sight, began to believe in Jesus.
There is a lot of waiting in this passage. Lazarus’ sisters are upset with Jesus because he waited so long to come to Bethany. The crowds are upset because they know that Jesus has healed others, and are convinced he could have healed Lazarus if he’d come sooner, when he first heard that his friend was ill. “Lord, if you had been here” is the phrase that echoes through the text. Jesus’ words throughout the text, however, suggest his timing is not without purpose. Jesus is obviously very upset by Lazarus’ illness and death, as we read repeatedly how Jesus was greatly disturbed by all he was witnessing, and see the only time in the gospels Jesus weeps. Wouldn’t it have been easier for him to just heal Lazarus right off the bat, as he had with so many others? Jesus wouldn’t even have needed to be present – we read other places in the scriptures about Jesus healing someone from afar, someone who is not even at the scene. So why doesn’t Jesus just end his own struggling to heal his friend? Jesus is waiting – waiting, so that God’s plan can unfold in a way that is better than anyone could have imagined.
But there’s also a sense of right now in this passage that I think we too often overlook. John’s gospel is noted for the “I AM” statement Jesus makes throughout the chapters. I am the bread of life. I am the way. I am. In this text, Jesus says to Mary. “I am the resurrection and the life.” Perhaps we’re not struck by this claim of Jesus. It makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, Jesus, after being crucified, was resurrected, and lived again. But remember where we are in our story. This scene takes place midway through John’s gospel. We may know what happened next, but Mary and Martha and the rest of those gathered didn’t. So what is it that Jesus means by saying that he is resurrection and life? Certainly, Jesus alludes to the future to some degree. But Jesus tells Martha that he is the resurrection and life now, he has power over death and life now. Jesus reorients our understanding of resurrection. Jesus brings life not just in the future, not in heavenly eternity. Jesus saves, heals, and resurrects us now. As Martha says, Jesus is the one “coming into the world.” Jesus dwelling among us here in the world means that Jesus can change our lives, resurrect us, here, in the world.
As Christians, we struggle with the waiting and right now of our relationships with God. On the one hand, it seems that God is never doing things fast enough for us. When we pray, if we remember to pray, we want God’s response to our demands instantly. And we, like Martha and Mary and the crowds gathered have a tendency to blame God when things don’t happen the way we want, when we want. God, if you’d only been here, if you’d only taken action, if you’d only… We try hard to be followers, but we have a hard time figuring out the plans and reasoning of God, our leader. If we were in charge, we’d do it differently, get things done faster and more efficiently, right? But God asks us to wait – wait for the plan to unfold, wait for the blessings God has in store for us. Today, our Psalm that we shared in the call to worship puts us on track: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits.”
On the other hand, it’s not all about waiting. There’s right now, too. As much as we claim we want God’s immediate action in our lives, we fail to take advantage of the right now life that is offered to us by Christ. Jesus says to us: I am the resurrection and life. That means that are lives can be resurrected, brought back to life, much like the dry bones in our text from Ezekiel – right now. We can be made new, transformed, redeemed, refreshed, remade, right now. But only so much as we are open to that possibility. We get ourselves so stuck in thinking of the eternal life that Jesus’ offers us as something that happens much much later, something that we only might get to be part of, that we forget to live it up here and now, enjoying the life that Jesus tells us is ours for the taking. Again and again Jesus insists to us that God’s kingdom is here, at hand, on earth, right now. That is instant gratification at its best. Are you taking advantage of it? Will you live as someone who was once dry bones, but now has new life, fresh breath coursing through your body and soul? Will you live as one, like Lazarus, already called from death to life, called out of the dark cave and back to the light of this day? Right here, right now, Jesus is resurrection, and Jesus is life. Let us answer with Martha: “Yes, Lord, I believe – you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” Amen.