John 11:1-45 “Wild
Hopes”
Last week, in the Disciple
Bible Study that we have at this church on Tuesday nights,
we got into a discussion of what I sometimes call
“churchy” words.
Words like justification. Sanctification. Righteousness. Grace.
We had a whole list.
The question came up about
what some of these words mean,
words which we throw around so easily in the church.
And so, I got out a Bible
dictionary and we proceeded to look up definitions.
But when we got to grace, I
realized that a dictionary and definitions
were just not going to be enough.
So I asked people to share
stories.
Where have you seen God’s
grace in your own life? I asked.
As we shared stories, we
began to understand more about grace
than we could ever get from a dictionary.
Hope is another one of those
words.
We could look up the word
“hope” in a Bible dictionary and it would read like this:
“the
expectation of a favorable future under God’s direction.”
But that would not tell us
nearly as much about hope as stories do.
Today’s story is a story of hope.
This is the story of Jesus, who brings his friend
Lazarus back to life,
after being dead four days.
It doesn’t get any wilder that this in the Bible,
except on the morning of the third day,
when the women go to the tomb and find that
Jesus is risen from the dead.
But this is not wild as in
outlandish or impossible.
This is wild as in God’s hope
- big and beautiful hope like God’s hope always is.
Because
God’s ways are not our ways.
This is the fourth in our
series from John’s gospel,
which explores some of this gospel’s most well-known
characters and stories.
John’s gospel is full of
contrasting images -
birth and rebirth, thirst and living water, dark and light,
death and life.
Today’s scripture is no
exception.
In raising Lazarus from the
dead, Jesus confronts death,
and offers the promise of resurrection and life.
This is a story of life in
the face of death, life now, and life eternal.
It begins with the news that
Lazarus, friend of Jesus and the disciples, is ill.
The message comes from his
sisters, Mary and Martha.
Yet Jesus waits two days
before he goes to their home in
By the time he gets ready to
leave, Jesus knows Lazarus has already died,
a fact which he tells his disciples in the plainest of
language.
“Lazarus is dead.” But his purpose is not as clear to his
disciples.
How could the son of God be
glorified thru death?
Besides, Jesus was in clear
danger from the Jews,
who had tried to stone him in
But with resolve and courage,
they go, led by the voice of Thomas,
who says “Let us go, that we may die with him.”
In a later story from this
gospel, Thomas is not so full faith,
which is where he gets the reputation of Doubting
Thomas.
But here, in this story,
Thomas is Faithful Thomas.
When he arrives Lazarus has
already been dead 4 days.
This is significant because
in Jewish belief,
the spirit stayed near the body for 3 days after death,
only leaving it on the fourth day.
So Lazarus was not only dead,
he was really dead.
Martha goes out to meet Jesus
first and she says
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
Then she adds “But even now I
know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
What was Martha feeling? Sorrow, certainly.
Was she hurt that Jesus had
delayed in coming? Or
angry even?
Was she in denial, not really
believing that her beloved brother was really gone?
Was she bargaining here with
Jesus, trying to negotiate new terms in this painful reality?
Jesus then responds to
Martha: “Your brother will rise
again.”
Martha answers in the
language of traditional Jewish teaching
on the resurrection of the dead,
an event that for Jews would occur one time at the end
of time.
“Yes, I know, he will rise
again in the resurrection on the last day.”
But here is where we begin to
see a glimmer of hope in this story because
Jesus once again is
challenging traditional expectations about
life with God.
“I am the resurrection and
the life,” Jesus says.
“Those who believe in me even
though they die will live
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never
die.”
What Jesus is talking about here is more
than life eternal -
it is life abundant right now.
It is not just the absence of death. It is the never
ending presence of God.
Last week I attended a
preaching workshop led by Dr. Fred Craddock,
a retired Disciples minister and seminary professor,
a free workshop he does twice a year at Cherry Log.
He asked us one of those hard
questions good teachers ask:
“What is the central image
for ministry?”
150 of us just sat there,
hoping we might be the one to give the right answer.
But thankfully, he answered
his own question for us: “You’re an
interpreter.”
What he meant was an
interpreter of the gospel,
an interpreter of life’s joys and sorrows,
and interpreter of our challenges and struggles.
I thought about that question
all week.
As an interpreter, one of the
most important things I do is to point to the hope.
But I’m not talking about
mere optimism or simple positive thinking.
Hope is not about us.
It is about what the never ending presence of God can
do through us.
What do I know of hope?
Hope comes in small packages
sometimes.
As small as
a babe in manger.
Sometimes
in the actions of young children.
A story is told of a little
boy – only four years old –
whose elderly neighbor had recently lost his wife.
One afternoon, as the little
boy and his mother
took a walk around the neighborhood,
they both noticed the elderly man sitting on his porch.
Usually it was their practice
to stop for a while, and talk to the man and his wife.
But the man was alone now,
and the boy and his mother noticed he was crying.
Not wanting to embarrass the
man,
the mother thought it best to leave him alone with his
grief.
But the little boy had other
ideas.
He went into the yard,
climbed the steps of the porch,
and then up onto the elderly man’s lap, where he just
sat, for many minutes.
Eventually he returned to his
mother’s side, where they continued their walk.
When his mother asked him
what he had said to the neighbor,
the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him
cry.”
That day there was hope brought to an old man by a
little boy.
What do I know of hope?
Hope appears in hopeless
places.
Hopeless as
a cross or a tomb.
Hopeless as
a prison.
There is another story of a
priest who was imprisoned
along with thousands of other political prisoners,
not for crimes against persons or property, but because
his preaching and teaching
had offended the authorities.
In this hopeless place, where
men had lost everything -
homes, jobs, everything they owned, and sometimes even
family,
he described the first Easter he was in prison.
“Today . . . a score of
Christian prisoners experienced the joy
of celebrating communion without bread or wine.
The
communion of empty hands.
The non-Christians said, ‘We
will help you; we will talk quietly so that you can meet.’ Too dense a silence
would have drawn the guards’ attention
as surely as the lone voice of a preacher.
‘We have no bread, nor water
to use instead of wine,’ I told them,
‘but
we will act as though we had.’
‘This meal
in which we take part,’ I said,
‘reminds
us of the prison, the torture, the death
and final victory of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
The bread is the body which
he gave for humanity.
The fact that we have none
represents very well the lack of bread
in the hunger of so many millions of human beings.
The wine, which we don’t have
today, is his blood
and represents our dream of a united humanity, of a just
society,
without difference of race or class.’
I held out my empty hand to the
first person on my right,
and placed it over his open hand, and the same with the
others:
‘Take, eat, this is my body
which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me. Afterward, all of us
raised our hands to our mouths,
receiving the body of Christ in silence.
‘Take, drink, this is the
blood of Christ
which was shed to seal the new covenant of God with
men.
Let us give thanks, sure that Christ is here with us, strengthening us.’
We gave thanks to God, and
finally stood up and embraced each other. “
(A Guide to Prayer, R. Job,
That day, the communion of empty hands brought hope in
this hopeless prison.
What do I know of hope?
Hope is persistent.
Hope does not give up.
Because God
does not give up.
In the story of Jesus raising
Lazarus from the dead, Martha talks to Jesus first.
Then she sends her sister
Mary to see him.
Mary says the same thing
Martha does:
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
This time, Jesus does not
engage in a theological discussion.
Instead he is moved to
tears.
This is a difficult verse to
translate. We don’t know what Jesus was expressing here.
He was greatly disturbed in
spirit and deeply moved.
Is Jesus mourning his
friend? Or the lack of
understanding of his followers?
Is he weeping because of the power death holds over
our lives,
or because we cannot recognize the power
of the life Jesus offers over death?
However we understand this,
in the final scene,
Jesus goes to the tomb,
commands the stone to be taken away,
and calls “Lazarus, come out!”
He brings that which was dead
- really dead - back to life again.
And God is glorified, just as
Jesus said he would be.
Don’t search for science in
this scene. This is bigger than science.
What’s there is the good news
that in the dead places of our lives,
Christ offers us hope - a
persistent hope that never gives up.
What do I know of hope?
Hope is wild. Not wild as in outlandish or impossible.
Wild as in God’s big and
beautiful hope as God’s hope always is.
Wild as in not limited to our
human possibilities.
Wild as in
God’s hope - because God’s ways are not our ways.
Hope is not about what we can
do - it is about what God can do through us.
I came across a poem recently
that I want to share with you:
“Do you have any wild hopes,
or tame ones for that matter?
The possibility of acorns
becoming towering oaks,
or caterpillars blossoming into butterflies,
or that dawn will chase away
Wild hopes!
That all creation will learn
the dance of joy,
and all humanity might taste the wine of peace,
and that our loving God will become transparent through
love.”
(A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God, ed. N. Shawchuck,
R. Job, p. 156-157)
We Christians are a people of
wild hopes.
How can we be anything
else?
We worship a God who sent us his Son to dwell among us,
our Lord who whispers to us still: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
Do you have any wild
hopes?
Wild hopes in small packages?
Wild hopes in hopeless
places?
Wild hopes that never give
up?
Wild hopes that God is
calling us out of the dead places of our lives?
Wild hopes that in Christ we
experience the never ending presence of God?
May God shape our hearts and
our lives with nothing less than wild hopes.
Amen.