The Resurrection And The Life

March 29, 2020

Hope Lutheran Church

Rev. Mary Erickson

Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

The Resurrection and the Life

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Former baseball coach for the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra, once said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

So true! My mother taught me the importance of washing my hands. And since then, I’ve had more teachers and workplace situations repeating that same lesson than I can count. But, boy, am I washing my hands a lot more than I used to! And not only that, but I’m paying attention to how I wash my hands! I’m humming the Happy Birthday tune and interlacing my fingers as I scrub away. Who knew that a video on the proper steps of hand washing could be so fascinating!

Yes, the difference between theory and practice. My mother taught me about germs in theory. “There are germs out there, Mary. You want to wash them off your hands.” But nothing teaches you in practice like a highly infectious disease!

Theory and practice. Lazarus is critically ill. His sisters, Martha and Mary, know that Jesus possesses remarkable healing powers. If only they can get Jesus to come and lay his hands on their brother, Lazarus can be saved. If only Jesus can make it there in time!

They send word to him. And then they wait. And wait. Lazarus becomes sicker. Still no Jesus. And then Lazarus breathes his last.

Four days after their brother’s tomb has been closed shut, Jesus arrives. One by one, each sister has the same words for Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Theory and practice. They know that Jesus possesses remarkable healing powers. But the full scope of his life giving abilities remains hidden to them behind the shadows of their imagination.

Jesus tries to stretch Martha to see him more fully. He tells her, “Your brother will rise again.” He’s declaring this to her. He’s stating it in practice. But Martha can only hear it in theory. Her relationship with resurrection is in theory only.

“Yes, Lord, I know,” she says, “On the last day, he’ll rise again in the resurrection of the dead.” What she doesn’t know is that the very power of the resurrection is standing right before her.

Theory and practice. We come to church. We read our Bibles. We’ve heard the stories of Jesus since we went to Sunday School. But our experience with resurrection is very similar to Martha’s. On this side of death, resurrection isn’t something we have personal experience with. We see it only in part, through a foggy mirror. Like Martha, our understanding of resurrection is imperfect.

On that day, standing beside Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus wants to lift the awareness of his resurrection power from theory into practice.

Jesus walks with the sisters to the tomb of Lazarus. He orders someone to remove the stone from the front of the tomb. Martha tells it like it is. She says, “Lord, my brother has been dead for four days. If you remove the stone, it’s going to smell bad.”

Prior to this, Jesus had raised some other people from the dead. But they hadn’t been dead for very long. Jairus’ daughter had just died when Jesus arrived and took her by the hand. And the son of the widow from Nain had probably died within just a few hours. He was being carried to his burial. People didn’t wait long to bury a body then. It happened very quickly. Even Jesus was laid in his tomb within hours of his death.

So, when biblical scholars look at Jairus’ daughter and the son of the widow from Nain, they say, “Well, they were just barely dead. Maybe these miracles are more like a resuscitation that a resurrection.”

But not so with Lazarus. As Martha said, he’d been in his grave long enough for his body to start decomposing. He was very much dead. There was no chance of resuscitation. There was no CPR, there were no paddles applied to his chest. He was dead.

After the stone is removed, Jesus prays out loud. He tells his heavenly father that he’s doing this so that people may believe, believe in practice and not just in theory. Jesus wants them – and us! – to believe in the resurrection and the life he brings.

Jesus calls to Lazarus. He calls to his friend who has long since crossed over the boundary into death. He commands Lazarus to step from the darkness of his tomb into the light of Jesus’ new day. And Lazarus is given new life.

Jesus had called, “Lazarus, come out!” He calls to each one of us in the same way. Jesus calls us to step into his new life.