This lovely prayer was in the worship at home for our mission area this week:
Lord Jesus, at the tomb of Lazarus you did the unexpected, you brought him back to life.
Thank you for your promise that you are the resurrection and the life. Help us to hold on tightly to this promise, especially when things
are hard. Enable us to look around and see the signs of new life that you bring: in nature, as the flowers begin to bloom and the birds sing. In our community, in our church life, and in our families and fellowship: Lord, we rejoice at births, successes in school (no matter how
small), new jobs, healing, birthdays, weddings and engagements… Lord, forgive us that we are often so focussed on the difficulties of life
that we forget to thank you for the joys.
Help us this week to look for where you are at work in our lives, to close each day with gratitude for the good things you have done. Nothing is too small for us to be grateful for. Into our times of difficulty and sadness. Breathe new life and hope.
Today in our worship we are celebrating life. We’ve celebrated new life as we’ve baptised little Evelyn Maria. The whole of life awaits her, an adventure of endless possibilities. To begin her journey well, we’ve made promises as parents and family, as friends and as church to be there for her. We don’t know how Evelyn’s life will work out but we’ve given her a good start by dedicating her to God. Life is ahead of her. Wouldn’t you like to be a child again? Or a young person with dreams?
One of my folk was telling me about the day her son graduated from Durham University when Bill Bryson the author was chancellor. Bryson gave a speech to the young people about to go into the world after a marvellous education and he said all would be fine because they would never have to live through another American President as bad as George W Bush… um!
We all want to find life. We all want things that excite us and bring us joy. Some people find it through music – yesterday we were at the Harrogate Choral Society performance of the Creation by Haydn, a few hours later I was listening to ladies and one man at the back called Yorkshire Voices sing Don’t you want me baby by the Human League with great enthusiasm in a concert at Harrogate Road. Some people find it following a football team - I’ve a friend who is a passionate Newcastle supporter – when they win the whole city comes alive, I’ve been in the city centre on a Saturday night - it’s an experience – and then they lose 7 – 2 to Barcelona this week. Some people find it in eating with others, or laughter with friends, or a walk in the countryside or an engaging hobby or playing with grandchildren. We want to enjoy life and have many blessings. We find life together in our churches. You know I’ve nearly done all my spring church councils, four done and two to go this week and I’m greatly encouraged how much life there is about. Come to our mission area gathering here at 7 on Wednesday evening and let’s celebrate what God is up to amongst us.
But what if life stops? What then?
By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. In those days the belief was that the soul lingered in the body for
only three days, so by the fourth the body was definitively dead. He is met by the impetuous Martha and the weeping Mary. When Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he himself began to weep, being "greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply
moved." This is not just about Jesus being human, it shows how God can cry with the world's crying. Here is the man of sorrows, acquainted with our pain and grief, sharing and bearing it to the point of tears, meeting us where we are. In many parts of the world, people still mourn the dead in much the same way that they did in Jesus' time.
There would be a procession, carrying the coffin down the streets to the place of burial or cremation with cries and wails. Wild, sad music, a strong process of grief, where grief is communicated one to another.
I don’t want on a baptism Sunday to talk too much about death but Evelyn will experience little deaths throughout her life. She needs, as we all need, a Jesus who gets the hard bits and brings life out of impossibility, as the Psalm for today says “out of the depths.” Jesus wept. If nothing else, take these two words home and sit with them in this fifth week in Lent and see what they stir in you.
I invite us to hear these words by the Methodist poet Steve Garnas-Holmes:
For Lazarus, for Mary and Martha,
for Jerusalem, for us—Jesus weeps,
and invites us into the spiritual discipline of weeping
Tears come when you have gone beyond yourself,
embodying a divine bond, severed yet still holding.
Weep; for even if you have not suffered
you have loved a suffering world.
Break the seal.
Feel the aliveness of a good cry.
For if you can weep you can hope.
If you can weep you have loved and will love again.
You flow with God, who weeps for us in grief,
and weeps with joy.
Standing before the tomb, Jesus calls out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” And Lazarus emerges—still wrapped in burial cloths, still bearing the marks of death. Jesus then turns to those standing nearby and says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
The miracle is not only that Lazarus is raised. It is also that the community is drawn into the work of restoration. The bindings of death must be removed.
This story from John’s Gospel is not about one man brought back to life long ago. It reveals something essential about the character of God. It shows a God who enters places that seem beyond repair. A God who arrives not before pain, but in the midst of it. A God who does not wait for the moment to be safe, convenient, or understandable.
Jesus comes when the flame of hope has flickered and gone out, when everything seems lost and the world has fallen apart.
Jesus shows up when there are no more treatment options. When the bottom has dropped out and there is nowhere left to fall. When the end of the rope has been reached and let go. Jesus shows up when everyone else has given up. When all that can be seen and smelled is death. When all that is left is a tomb, tears, grief, anger, and disappointment. I pray Evelyn may know this every day of her life. There is life every day of life.
Her baptism is a reminder to us and a renewing. By baptism we become children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus. Hence, by baptism, all who are baptised, are called to continue the mission of Jesus of establishing true justice on earth; to become co-creators with God in building his Kingdom of compassion, justice and love; to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And to say death is not the end.
On Wednesday, Dame Sarah Mullally will be installed as the next Archbishop of Canterbury. She’s been on a pilgrimage this week from London where she was bishop to Canterbury. She says this as she begins a new ministry: “”As Christians we are called to liberate others – liberating people to live into the fullness of a life that can only be fully found by following Jesus” In the midst of chaos, acts of kindness and love are what matters.” We pray for her this week.
There’s a final point I will make:
The people round Lazurus tomb thought he would be a bit smelly. Jesus does not deny that death stinks. It does. It always has.
Instead Jesus asks us to release the life, the fragrance, that is wrapped in death. “Unbind him, and let him go,” Jesus commands. To unbind another or let ourselves be unbound means we must trust the perfume of life more than the stink. They did that for Lazarus. With each strip of cloth they removed death trembled, knowing its days were numbered. The unbinding of Lazarus was a death sentence for death.
Every day we smell death and every day we have the opportunity, by the grace of God, to change and be changed, to unbind and be unbound, to let go and be let go.
On this baptism day we celebrate life, life every day to be lived, life every day that Jesus can transform, life beyond the grave, eternal life for ever. For Evelyn we pray this prayer I found last night:
Dear God,
Sometimes life is good and sometimes it’s not.
Help us to know that you are with Evelyn in all of it.
When she feels sad, comfort her;
where she is afraid, strengthen her;
When she feels she’s had enough
Give her strength to try again.
For we are on an amazing journey of faith,
and we know that you never leave us.
Bless her today
And let your peace be known in her, in us, and in the world.
In Jesus name, we pray.
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