Sunday Sermon -The Rev. Joy Carroll Wallis (March 22, 2026)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam. [00:00:49] Speaker B: The holy gospel of our savior, jesus christ according to john. Now a certain man was ill. Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume. And wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was ill, so the sister sent a message to Jesus. Lord, he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said, this illness does not lead to death. Rather, it is for God's glory. So that the Son of Man may be glorified through it. Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. After having heard that Lazarus was ill. He stayed two days longer in the place where he was then. [00:01:47] Speaker C: After this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, rabbi, the Judeans were just now trying to stone you. Are you going there again? Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble. Because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them. After saying this, he told them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I am going there to awaken him. The disciples said to him, lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right. Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death. But they thought he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, lazarus is dead. For your sake, I am glad I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him. [00:02:55] Speaker B: Thomas, who was called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with him. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now. Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away. And many of the Judeans had come to Martha and Mary. To console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. While Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection. On the last day, Jesus said to her, 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. Do you believe this? [00:04:08] Speaker C: She said to him, yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. 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 Judeans, who were with her in the house consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought 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 Judeans 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. [00:05:25] Speaker B: So the Judeans 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's 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. [00:06:24] Speaker C: When he had said this, he cried out with a loud voice, lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in cloth. Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. Many of the Judeans, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. [00:06:54] Speaker B: The Gospel of the Lord. [00:07:20] Speaker A: Sam. Children ages 3 through 10 are invited to follow Katie the storyteller for a [00:08:08] Speaker B: Bible stories, prayers and music. They will return at the peace. [00:08:21] Speaker A: May I speak? In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. Good morning. This week we welcome the first day of spring. I don't know about you, but I am ready to say goodbye to a really tough winter. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Amen. [00:08:44] Speaker A: I have loved watching the snowdrops emerge through the last snowfall. And now I must admit to a spring in my step. As I watch the daffodils dancing in the sunshine, in nature, we are witnessing once again life coming out of death. And in our liturgical season, we are ready to move from the Disciplines of Lent to the joy of Easter, when we celebrate God's power to bring life from death. And our readings today, another lovely long reading from the Gospel of John invite us to go a little deeper into that resurrection life. And I'll start with John's account of the raising of Lazarus. Some of you may be of a certain generation who will be familiar with the British humor of Monty Python. There is a legendary sketch that still lurks on YouTube. It's the famous dead parrot routine. A man played by John Cleese returns a parrot that he'd purchased from a pet shop, claiming that he was sold a dead parrot. The shopkeeper maintains that he was told that the parrot is merely stunned or asleep. It's just resting. And so the argument ensues between the shopkeeper and the customer and becomes more and more heated until the customer finally explodes and he says, this parrot is dead. This is an ex parrot. This parrot is no more. This parrot is dead. I say that because in our gospel reading today, John wants us to be absolutely clear that Lazarus is not resting. He is not mostly dead. He's completely, undeniably dead. And John tells us that Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. And that's an important number because in rabbinical tradition of the time, it was understood that the life breath hovered around the body for three days. And after that, all hopes of resurrection and resuscitation were gone. In the other gospels, Mark, Matthew, Mark and Luke, known as the synoptics, those who Jesus raised, he did it within 24 hours of them dying. So John, by saying that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days, wants us to be absolutely clear that Lazarus was most definitely and irretrievably gone. Now, for this reason and more, this was Jesus most powerful and important miracle, a hint of his own resurrection that we look forward to celebrating as we move towards Easter. To bring life from death is the ultimate sign of the power of God in Jesus, defying human capability. As far as I know, no one has ever been able to raise someone from the dead. George Bernard Shaw once quipped, the statistics about death are very impressive. One out of one dies. Many years ago, when Pepsi, the company, launched their product in China, the directors were quite alarmed when their slogan, you'll remember the slogan come alive with Pepsi had been translated as Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead. An impossible claim and quite comical when you think about it, because in our experience, death is final. Even Lazarus wasn't raised to live forever. He went on to live and die at some point. In the future. So what was the purpose of this incredible miracle? In this story of the raising of Lazarus, I think John wanted to convey some important things about the nature of God and who Jesus was. And in preparing this, I kept thinking about our recent conversations and discussions at the forum about the creeds. And this is a great passage to illustrate how Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. The paradox that the early church grappled with when trying to agree on how we describe Jesus. In this story, John helps us to see the fully human Jesus and the fully divine Jesus. Firstly, the fully human Jesus. We see here Jesus, who identifies with our sorrows as he greets Martha. It's not just the sadness of the grief that he feels from losing a friend. The Greek word, the verse 33 says he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. And the Greek word is a deeper groaning in his spirit. It can also be translated as indignation or anger. Jesus is experiencing what many of us may feel sometimes, that deep feeling of anger and outrage at the cause of death and death itself. The powers of darkness that bring human misery, suffering, loss, pain, parting, and ultimately death. That's a contradiction of the divine purpose. It's not the way things are supposed to be in God's kingdom. In our humanity, we also feel that deep anger at the brokenness that always affects the most vulnerable in our society. Brokenness that's caused by structural and personal sin. Back in November, I found myself taking part in a funeral of a dear friend who died a tragic death. A young woman who was just 40 and was discovered by her two young daughters in the morning. And these girls were very much a part of our family's life. And I sat there and I was angry in my grief at the causes and the mistakes and the bad decisions that had caused her death. I've heard several of you reflect from last week when we gathered for a weekend workshop with Wynton Boyd around our social justice ministries here at St. Columbus. I've heard many of you speak of that same anger, the groaning of the spirit in the face of politics, brutal and unjust immigration policies that tear lives apart, and senseless war that brings death in so many ways. Jesus stands with us in that place. Jesus wept. Jesus fully identifies with our humanity. And then right alongside his humanity, we see Jesus the divine Christ in this miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead that they may believe you have sent me. He is one with God, manifesting the power of God. This isn't just compassion. It's the power of God at work in him. Jesus wasn't just a good man and a good teacher. So it's not about the impossibility of bringing someone back to life. It's about the possibility of breathing life into dead things. It's a sign of the coming resurrection and the coming kingdom of God. Theologians talk about the kingdom of God as here and not yet already and not yet. In our broken world that's ravaged by institutional and personal sin, we work to build the kingdom of God. And there are many times when we can see it. We can see the kingdom of God made manifest in often small and sometimes big ways. We see it in glimpses, moments of healing, of reconciliation, justice, joy, love, breaking through, like when Daniel Krepp's buzzer beater won the game in Jackson Reed's basketball game. That's probably not. It's arguable whether that's a sign of the kingdom, but it certainly brought joy. It's the kingdom of God. We know the world is still broken. The kingdom of God is not here in its fullness. It's another paradox. It's a bit like waiting for a train. We're standing on the platform and we know the train is coming, but we can't see it yet. And every now and then, we hear the whistle blow or we see the smoke in the distance. Those signs remind us and give us hope that what we're waiting for is indeed coming. It's God choosing to give us a sign of his power. We can't expect it or earn it or demand it, but as with the raising of Lazarus, on occasion God chooses to act in powerful ways to fulfill the purposes of his kingdom and give us hope and faith, reminding us that life, not death, has the final word. Now, I could finish there, but we had a long Gospel reading, so I feel I'm entitled to go on a bit longer. There's a beautiful pairing today in our readings, lectionary readings, that gives us Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones. The Israelites were in exile and they had a well known despairing saying, and I could say this in a Monty Python voice as well, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are clean cut off. Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are clean cut off. Without their land, they were not a people. They had no sense of purpose and no future. Ezekiel takes this lament and gives it a message of hope, breathing new life into a hopeless situation. The bones were dead, scattered and lifeless, and yet God breathes life into them. Bone comes to bone, flesh forms, breath enters, and they Live. We don't have to look far to see the dry bones in our world. Places of conflict, displacement, communities that feel cut off from hope. And there are all kinds of applications that a preacher could make with this vision. We may carry our own dry bones at home, at work, in relationships, in parts of our own hearts that feel lifeless or beyond repair. But here is what I want to leave you with at St. Columbus. Here's what I took for us from Ezekiel's vision. And I don't think you'll hear this at any other church. This morning, when Ledley spoke to Hillary about what to expect at St. Columbus, and forgive me if I misquote, he said, St. Columbus has a lot of horsepower. Another way of saying that is Saint Columbus has good bones. Last weekend, many of us did a lot of work to breathe fresh life into those bones. The knee bone of the Water ministry connected to the thigh bone of the Refugee ministry. The neck bone of Wynn connected to the head bone of the Environment Committee. You get how I'm playing with this image of the bones, the good bones of St. Columba's ministry and outreach. The flesh on all these good bones is all of you good people who show up to pack food, volunteer and support these ministries in so many different ways. And now, as we move forward together as a huge team with good bones and strong flesh, we must continue to ask to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. Because without that living breath of God, we will not have the resurrection power to do our work. We will stay tired and angry. So as we move towards Easter, we're not just remembering a past event. We're preparing to encounter the God who brings life from death, the God who meets us in our grief, who shares our anger at brokenness, and who calls us again and again into life. So let us pray for ourselves and for one another that where we are bound, we may be unbound. Where we're dry, we may be filled with breath. And where we feel lost, we may hear the voice of Christ calling us by name. Come out and live. Amen.