Making yourself God

John 11: 28-44, NT page 105 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And 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.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and his feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Sermon Every holiday has its proper greeting. At Christmas it is wonderful to yell out to everyone you see, “Merry Christmas.” So wonderful in fact is this greeting that the idea of wishing someone “Happy Holidays” makes some people angry enough to make bumper stickers. Easter is another holiday with a special greeting. One greeting for Christians at Easter is for one to say, “He is risen,” and another to say “He is risen indeed” in response. And while there’s not an official Mule Day greeting, I received an email from one of our church Elders Joe Kilgore, who was mindful of what gets left behind after a parade featuring hundreds if not thousands of horses and mules – “Happy Mule Day” he wrote, and “watch your step.” “Watch your step” is a good thing for everyone to say on a day like today. For people who grew up on a farm, that’s just part of life, but for someone like me Mule Day celebrates something very new and very exciting because I did not grow up on a farm, and every year on Mule Day I get a taste (or a smell rather) of what I’ve missed out on. I’m not the only one who longs to be more connected to farm life, to food and where food really comes from. In fact, while we were living in Atlanta and I served Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church where our guest choir comes from, it became very trendy to raise chickens in your back yard. Yards were not large in our neighborhood, so the chickens that our next door neighbor raised were cramped and often tempted to jump his fence into our yard. The problem for them was that in our yard they would frequently meet their demise in the jaws of one of our dogs. We had three dogs then, all three we adopted from the pound, and two of the three dealt with these chickens with such cruel efficiency that we suspected they were born somewhere out in the country where they would have developed the skill. The third dog however, she was all city dog, and not only that, she had an under bite, and when she finally had the chance to deal with a chicken all on her own she grabbed it by the wing and sort of danced with it more than anything else, and after about 15 seconds the chicken was huddled under a car, not dead, just roughed up a little bit. I decided that the most humane thing to do would be to put the animal out of her misery, and I had heard from my grandfather about ringing a chickens neck, so I reached under the car, grabbed the chicken by her head and swung her around like a helicopter four or five times. I set the chicken back down, and she weaved her way back and forth back to her place under the car, not dead at all, just really dizzy. You see, I’m not used to dealing with the kind of chicken that has feathers, a beak, and a heartbeat. I’m used to the kind of chicken that comes boneless, skinless, and individually wrapped in plastic from the cooler at Kroger. While any good employee of the Farm Bureau will tell you, “If you eat you are involved in agriculture,” but separated as I am from where my food comes from, I’m not thinking about the chicken coop when I eat at Chic-Fila, nor am I thinking about the heartbeat that stopped beating so that I could have a nice lunch. Death surrounds us, but I’m not always ready to look death in the eye. It might seem from our scripture lesson that Jesus wasn’t always ready to look death in the eye either. He was accused in the chapter before of being a man but making himself God, and that wasn’t true. He was actually God making himself a man, and in this passage we see a striking humanity – he was like us it seems, and it appears that he would rather not go to see his friend Lazarus die. Instead of immediately going to him after hearing that Lazarus was ill, he decides to stay away for two days longer. You may be able to relate. It’s not a pleasant place: the bedside of a dying friend. It can seem better to remember his laugh, not the rattle in his lungs as he breaths the breath that might be his last. It’s better to remember him full of life, not grasping for it. It is easy to stay away, so maybe you don’t go at all until it’s the day of the funeral, and you go then, but it’s not something to be excited about. The funeral home knows that, so rather than focus on the body, now without a heartbeat, there are flat screen televisions covering the walls flashing through old pictures and not much mention of death – a trend today is to call the funeral a celebration of life as life seems better to focus on. We don’t like to look death in the eye, maybe, especially, when witnessing the death of a friend or loved one makes it too easy to imagine our own. After hearing that Lazarus was ill Jesus stays away two days longer, not because he didn’t want to go, but because this death of Lazarus’ was to be so much like the death of Jesus himself. The tomb would be a cave. The door to the cave would be sealed by a stone. And Lazarus would enter a dead man but he would walk out alive. There’s enough in common here, between Lazarus and what Jesus knows is going to happen to him, so just news of the death of a teenager in an accident makes mom’s hold their teenage sons and daughters a little bit closer before they hand over the car keys, just as visiting by the bedside of a lung cancer victim makes smokers stare a little while longer at the cigarette before lighting it, just as seeing a friend lying there in the casket makes your eyes want to look away at something, anything else, you can imagine why, even though Jesus had the power to raise this man from the dead, he was still, our scripture lesson tells us, “greatly disturbed.” He was not a man becoming God. His life on earth is not the process of gaining power, escaping pain, or passing through the clouds and away from you and what makes you hurt – Christ is God becoming man – so he goes to Lazarus, sees the tears of Mary and Martha, and our scripture lesson tells us that seeing their tears he himself “began to weep.” This is our God. He stands outside the tomb, knowing that very soon he will be the one inside it. He calls him by name, in a loud voice, wondering if waking from death will be anything like waking up from deep sleep. And he sees “the dead man came out, his hands and his feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth” and he imagines what it will be like to do the same. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go,” and what had been only a possibility, just a reality that floated around his head without having to be completely real – right then he came to terms with his own death and resurrection, because he was not a man becoming God, but God becoming man – and to be human is to come to terms with death and what lies beyond it. The temptation is so real to turn your head – to keep the casket closed – to remember the good times and shy away from the bad – but Jesus is not a “get out of death fee card,” for we all must go down to the grave, but even there we shall make our song – even at the tomb we are not alone for Christ knows the same fear that you feel. He will walk with you through the Valley of the Shadow of Death – and he will lead you through it because he has walked through it first. He knows the fear that you feel, and here he weeps at the tomb knowing that soon enough the tomb of Lazarus will be his own. He doesn’t ignore it. He doesn’t look away. He doesn’t fight it. And neither should you. As you prepare for Easter it is wise to meditate on the reality of death during this season of Lent, however, you must remember too, that Jesus goes to the grave of Lazarus, but he doesn’t go to preach his friends funeral. Jesus doesn’t preach funerals. He goes to the grave and there he weeps, recognizing, fearing even, the end of one life – but he goes there to ensure that for you, while you must face death, you face it knowing that when the tomb door closes it opens again, and it opens to eternal life. Thanks be to God. Amen.