"Between Lightning and Thunder" March 18, 2018

John 11: 17-44 John 12: 20-33 When you see Lightning flash across the sky, what do you listen for? Many of us are so busy with our business, we do not hear the Heavens rumble. Many of us get caught up in nature’s beauty, as if God’s own Fireworks display. Many are so fascinated by our own knowledge, we are certain lightning is a static electric charge seeking to ground itself in the earth, that it breaks the sound barrier by traveling faster than the speed of light, we listen to hear what we know comes. Still others, knowing more about science, know that as the light travels to ground itself, radiating back a heat signature from the earth to the sky like ripples in the sea. Many learned as children that every 5 seconds between flash of lightning and the roar of thunder represents a mile of distance, so we calculate our security. But when the Savior speaks to God, at his Baptism, Transfiguration, Lazarus’ Burial, when Jesus considers whether to go through with his own sacrifice or not, and at the Crucifixion, at all these THERE IS LIGHTNING / IS THUNDER, and in that charged space, those moments of time in between, THERE IS GOD. This morning’s two readings are only in John; not Matthew, Mark, Luke or Acts and I believe the Evangelist identifies these two as the final reasons for Jesus’ Crucifixion. All the rest of the Gospels describe Jesus challenging the Religious Authorities, Overturning the Tables of Commerce, as the reason for his arrest. But John recalled from Isaiah, prophecy that through Judaism the Word of God, like Light in the Dark, would go out to all the world, like a flash of LIGHTNING across the sky, and all Creation wanting to respond to the Love of God in Christ, would come to Jerusalem, to kneel at the mountain of God reverberating like THUNDER… According to John, when Faith in God reverberates beyond the disciples, beyond the crowd of followers to Greeks and Romans, to heathen Gentiles, to all the world, this was too much. The story of Lazarus, rivals the resurrection of Jesus, for being the most often used at funerals. What greater message could depict the love of God for us, than that when he came to Lazarus’ Tomb, “Jesus Wept”? It is the shortest verse in all the Bible, and what we most desire to say about the deaths of our loved ones: God Wept. The beauty of this story of faith, is that every person responds to death differently. As 21st Century Americans, we have too much tendency to get stuck in our heads! 2,000 years ago, before the Enlightenment, before Einstein, before Stephen Hawking, before Google, human beings experienced life through our senses. Like the disciples, many of us, when a friend comes down with a Cold, reason “Well, if only a virus, if he has only fallen asleep, he will get up again.” But tarrying to respond to relationships, putting off our concern and faith, avoiding our feelings, rationalizing, it can be too late. Like Martha, many of us cope with our emotions by thinking “Resurrection is the Christian Ending on the last Day”. We imagine life as a Story, and if there was a day of Creation, Once upon a Time when you were born, there must come a final time of Resurrection, when all the Cemeteries will be opened, when all will be gathered home, when The End is written and the book of life closes. The End! When first I came to this Church, I heard a recurrent concern from the older women, that they believed centuries from now Jesus would open the graves, calling everyone from death to eternal life. But after that many years of sleeping, of decay in the dirt, they were afraid they would not be very attractive… “Lord, it has been 4 days, there is gonna be a stink.” Jesus challenged Martha to not accept easy religious answers, but to wrestle with what trust and relationship with God in Christ means! “Martha, I Am the resurrection and the Life!” Old and New Testaments, whenever we read the English words: “I AM” for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses at the Burning Bush, Kings David and Solomon, here too, we need to insert: “This is the Holy Name of God!” Do we only accept that Resurrection is a future reality, of an End like Creation’s Start happened long long ago? Or can we live in Resurrection, live in relationship to God, speaking to those who have died as being with God in the here and now? Where Martha is the practical and pragmatic figure, her sister Mary is the Disciple. Odd, that the Bible does not say Jesus was asking for Mary, but Martha comes to her saying Martha heard Jesus was asking for Mary… How often, we have the sense to prompt others to faith, to prompt others to question, when it was not really invited. The crowd of mourners represent all of us. How often, when a spouse, parent/child, loved one dies, there are calling hours, where the ones grieving-most are expected to comfort everybody else. How often, when there is death, we react with adrenaline, rushing to bring a cake, Jello-mold or flowers… and yet a year later, their sons and daughters have gotten over their own adrenaline and are wrestling with the memory of their loved one, the resurrection that they cannot change. Is it up to the crowd of mourners, whether we can find love again, or us, and how soon? Pre-figuring Easter morning, Mary went to the Tomb to see Jesus! Begging the question we all ask: “If you are God, If only you were here and cared, you could have stopped this!” Here and on Easter morning, Jesus does not try to reason with her, but instead acts in love and compassion. He weeps, and he goes to the Tomb. In all the years I have preached this passage, in all the sermons I have heard, I have not before considered this passage from the perspective of Lazarus. What does it feel like to be in a dead relationship, to go on after others no longer believe in you, no longer trust what could be possible through you? Here death is like depression. Lazarus became more and more ill, weaker and weaker, closer and closer to giving up life. We try to deny reality. Like sleep, in the past we always got better. There are moments of believing: this is all a bad dream, and we will wake up. But there comes a point when you cannot fight, when you know fighting makes it harder on those around you. Besides after death, they wash the body with water, a reminder of baptism, washing away all the sin, washing off the residue of life, of sickness, preparing the dead to be forever grounded. Sealing everything in a cave behind a stone, in a grave beneath a headstone, that marks the dates of birth and death as if that was all there was to life, past tense. Death is dark. Death is lonely. Death is being buried away, away from the light, away from those you care about, away from life and possibility.At death, others talk about us as if we are no longer alive, of value, as if we no longer hear them. I wonder if death is silence, or if we can hear and listen as we do not in life? Then miraculously, the stone was rolled away, shafts of light enter the crypt and Jesus calls “Lazarus come out.” Like God in Genesis calling “Let there be light” Jesus called “Let there be LIFE!” and there was. What would Resurrection smell like? After the taste of Death, what doesLife taste of in our mouths? There is no record of how many months or years Lazarus lived after being raised from death to life. Did he die again? This is not one of those Zombie movies or Walking Dead television shows, this is the story of Christian faith, the story of life. When Jesus opens the Tomb of Lazarus, we need to know that not long in the future Jesus will be the body in the Tomb, and God will raise Jesus from the dead. I have to believe there was an electric charge in the air. Where instead of people checking their watches, each experienced this moment as living with God! How long until the light enters into the darkness again, or the Thunder rumbles Creation? (Largest pipes of Organ rumble with the sound of thunder)