Romance

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 9, 2008.

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I have been thinking about romance lately. Sort of a Valentines Day hangover if you will. I’m sure part of it has to do with Marie’s niece Valerie getting married in Portland next month. It reminds me of our wedding and the romance of our lives. I hope this recollection is helping you remember the romance in your life, whether it be the puppy love of days long ago or the touch on your cheek when you awoke this morning. There are few more wonderful feelings than romance. The love that sprouts from romance should forever nurture the joy of our relationships.

As I read the story of the rising of Lazarus from the depth of his tomb, I was struck by the love Jesus shares with his friends, and his friends with him.

“Lord, he whom you love is ill.” The sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, send word of his illness to Jesus. “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” Lazarus is very ill, debilitatingly ill. He is weak and needs assistance.[1] Mary and Martha hope and pray that Jesus will come before it is too late to save their brother.

Jesus declares Lazarus’ illness does not lead to death. Instead his illness is for God’s glory, so that the Son may be glorified through it. And somehow it is for this same glory that Jesus spends two more days in the wilderness before going to Lazarus’ side.

Jesus knows it will be dangerous to go to Judea to see Lazarus. The previous chapter told the story of how the Pharisees tried to stone Jesus the last time he was in Judea. Just so that we don’t forget this nugget, the disciples remind him of this too.

But Jesus is the light of the world; he reminds the disciples they must travel while it is still light so they do not stumble.

So when they arrive in Judea, Lazarus has been dead for four days. His body has been prepared and was laid in his family’s tomb. The stone over the mouth of the tomb has been replaced and his body has begun to return to nature.

Hearing that Jesus was on his way, Martha goes to meet him. Our reading goes like this, “Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” I read this and I can’t help but feel the emotion welling up within her. Is she angry at her Lord for not coming sooner, before Lazarus died? Was she in deep sorrow and grief that he had passed? Was she worried about her future now that her brother had died? Anger, grief, sorrow, uncertainty; yes I am sure she felt all of this. And in addition scripture reflects she felt a deep abiding love and trust in Jesus.

She trusts in the resurrection, a resurrection that will one day be known by all who trust and believe in the Lord. But Jesus tells her something new. He tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die.”

What more profound love can Jesus have for his people than to give them the gift of life eternal? Such is a love, broader and deeper than we can ever hope or imagine. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”[2] Those who believe will never die.

When Jesus asks Martha if she believes, reflecting the love of the Lord, she said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
Martha returns home to Bethany to tell the grieving Mary the teacher is calling for her. She leaves and finds Jesus in the same place Martha found him.

Weeping, she repeats her sister’s lament word for word, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

On his prompting, Mary takes Jesus to her brother’s tomb. Mary was weeping. The Jews who accompanied Mary were weeping. Now, Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”
God’s love can defeat anything the powers of earth and hell can place against it, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. The Pharisees say to no one in particular “If Jesus could restore the sight of a blind man, surely he could have prevented Lazarus from dying.”

When we think of romance literature, we think of stories of great love and sacrifice. Webster calls romance “a narrative dealing with heroic or mysterious events set in a remote time or place.”[3] The story of the rising of Lazarus qualifies as a romance tale. There is love and sacrifice. There are heroic and mysterious events in a remote time and far away place.
Yet, it is important to separate this sort of romance from a Harlequin romance. This is an epic tale of devotion in the face of death, a tale we tell again and again. This is a tale of great romance, of legend and lore and so much more.

In his touchstone work “Life Together,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of the difference between human love and the love of God. “Human love lives by uncontrolled and uncontrollable dark desires;” he writes, “spiritual love lives in the clear light of service ordered by the truth.” The love of God creates freedom from the dark and uncontrollable desires humanity is so apt to seek.[4]

Using botany to illustrate theology, he says that human love breeds “hot-house flowers,”[5] the sort of flower with huge buds, but with stems that cannot support them. “Spiritual love creates fruits that grow healthy in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God’s outdoors.”[6]

Jesus said that Lazarus’ illness would not end in death rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” That possibility seemed to fly out the window four days ago. So at Lazarus’ open tomb, Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” He confirms his place in the world and as the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world; and he calls us to believe by his words and deeds as he approaches the tomb crying with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

And Lazarus does. Because Lazarus is raised many believe.

When we read this passage, the obvious question is “did this really happen?”

It’s like last week when we read in John 9 when the disciples asked Jesus “who sinned?” “Who sinned” is an interesting question; it just isn’t the important question. The question “did this happen” is one of history. If we use the tools of historians; considering the oral tradition and the recording of events in its day, historians can’t deny that these events happened in the way they are described.[7] But of course, considering these questions in the light of reason verses faith, reason will always be able to raise the specter of doubt.[8]

But you know, this really isn’t the question we want answered, is it?

The question we want answered is beyond the history, the question we want answered is not “did this happen.” The question we want answered is the one Jesus asks: “Do you believe this? Do you believe I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that those who believe, even though they die, will live, and that everyone who lives and believes will never die?”

We want to know that the breath of God can breathe new life into these old bones just like the prophet Ezekiel describes.[9]

We want to know that as Paul told the Romans, we are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in us and though we are dead to sin, because Christ is in us the Spirit is life.[10]

Martha said that she knew her brother would rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus tells Martha and then shows the world that he is the resurrection and the life. This is the first of the last days; and the power of God walks the earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. “His full share in God’s power over life and death marks the beginning of God’s new age, the age in which God’s hope for the world becomes reality.”[11]

The miracle is glorious, but it is only a sign. The promise that Jesus is the resurrection and the life is the reality of our lives and the truth we must live. It is the truth, not the miracle which we must keep dear. Only because of the truth that Jesus is the resurrection and the life can we answer the question: “Was the hope of the miracle of new life possible for Lazarus two thousand years ago and is it still possible for us today?” Because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, our answer is yes and amen.

By the truth of the resurrection, Jesus identifies himself with the power of God. By this power, through his love, our sickness in sin will not end in death. Rather we receive the gift of life eternal for the glory of God.

The white hot heat of romance cannot burn forever. It was never intended to burn forever. If it did it would consume everything in its path, especially the lovers. If the love of God was a human creation, it would produce buds our stems could never be able to support. It would never be able to bear the fruit of the Spirit. The love that sprouts from God’s romance with creation forever nurtures the joy of our relationship with the Lord. The flames of that romance put the glow of the fire of Christ into our eyes.

It is by hot wind off of these flames that our dry bones feel the warmth of God, and by this breath from the Lord we live the life in the resurrection. May the glow of this romance continue to warm us as we live the eternal life of the resurrected people of God. May the witness of our lives reflect the warmth of the fire that burns in the fire and the love of the passion of Jesus Christ.

[1] “asthenew,” The Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, edited by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, in cooperation with the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Münster/Westphalia, Fourth Edition (with the same text as the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition of the Greek New Testament), Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft; Stuttgart, 1966, 1968, 1975 by the United Bible Societies (UBS) and 1993, 1994 by (German Bible Society)
[2] John 3:16, NRSV
[3] Merriam-Webster Dictinary. Henry Bosley Woolf, Editor in Chief. Pocket Books, Springfield, MA: Simon and Schuster, 1974, page 607.
[4] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Life Together, New York: Harper and Rowe, 1954, page 37.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 684.
[8] Ibid 693
[9] Ezekiel 37:5-6
[10] Romans 8:9-10
[11] Ibid. New Interpreter’s Bible, page 693.