John 11,1-3.17-27.41-45. 16th Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

John 11,1-3.17-27.41-45 4415

16. Sonntag nach Trinitatis  061

Fausta, Virgin, Martyr; Evilasius, Martyr at Cyzicum, 305-11  

20. September 2015 

1. O Living and Merciful God may those who run from death find You and Your peace so that they may have a new life here and for all eternity. (VELKD Prayer for 16. Trinitatis § 1).  Amen. 

2. Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to Him, saying: „Lord, he whom You love is ill.“ Now when Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had went to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was arriving, she went and met Him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus „Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.“ 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. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet he will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?“ She said to Him: „Yes, Lord; I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is going into the world.“ So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said: „Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, so that they may believe that You sent Me.“ When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice: „Lazarus, walk out.“ The man who had died came out: his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them: „Unbind him, and let him go.“ Many of the Jews therefore, who had went with Mary and had seen what He did, believed in Him.   

3. We have all uttered Martha’s cry of despair: „It’s too late!“ we prayed to Jesus, pleaded with Him and even bargained with Him to hear us and heal someone who is sick,  to grant new life to someone who is dying, to give us what we ask. Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was sick and he was not getting any better. Jesus received the message and had plenty of time to get to Bethany and heal Lazarus before he died. And what did Jesus do? He dilly-dallied around for several days before He set forth to Bethany. By the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus had been dead and buried in his tomb four days. If even Jesus had gotten to Bethany one day earlier there would still have been hope for dead Lazarus because the popular Jewish piety of Jesus’ day believed that the soul hung around the dead body for three days hoping beyond hope to be reunited with that body before the soul resigned itself that all was lost and it travelled to the bosom of Abraham. It was too late. Lazarus’ life ebbed away, died and now death reigned as Lazarus' body was rotting and decaying in the grave. 

4. The only hope Mary and Martha had, and it was a solid hope, was that on the last day Lazarus would be raised up and his body would be reunited with his soul. This was the common belief among 1. century Jews (except for the Sadducees who denied the resurrection). Their faith was the same faith we have as Christians; we confessed it with our Creed today: I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. We believe and confess this because Jesus proclaimed to Martha: »I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet he will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.« 

5. Unfortunately you might not know this if you attend a Christian funeral today. Some pastors forget the message that needs to be proclaimed at a Christian funeral: Jesus is the resurrection and the Life. Instead they speak about how good a person the deceased was, encourage people to keep the deceased in their hearts and maybe remind them that the deceased is in heaven with Jesus. These are true sentiments, but they fail to proclaim the gospel. These kind words to the mourners do not provide any hope for their sorrow. Even proclaiming that a person’s soul is enjoying the bliss of heaven misses the most important Biblical truth that Jesus proclaimed in John 11: resurrection.

6. Jesus speaks about resurrections and life. Jesus declares that He has the Divine power and authority to raise up people and give them life. First Lazarus, then Himself. Jesus raised Lazarus a little more than a week earlier before His own death and resurrection. Jesus raised the decaying corpse of Lazarus back to life, and He raised His own crucified body from His tomb. The Apostle Paul proclaims that Jesus is the first of those raised in the new testament of the last day: »Christ has been raised from the dead; He is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep in death. But each in his own order: Christ the First-fruits, then at His second advent those who belong to Christ. Then the end arrives, when He delivers the reign to God the Father after destroying every rule, authority and power. The last enemy to be destroyed is death« (1. Corinthians 15,20.23-24.26). 

7. Many pericopes in the Gospels show us Jesus’ humanity and Divinity, but the raising of Lazarus does so even more because it is in the context of humanity’s greatest loss: the death of a loved one. Jesus went to Lazarus’ grave and he wept at the death of His friend. Mary, Martha and Lazarus were three of Jesus’ close friends. Jesus shed  real tears of sorrow and grief because His friend had died. „Jesus wept over the great suffering, pain, and despair that death brings into this world. The world into which Jesus was born is no longer what it once was originally intended by God, for this world is deeply marked by death that cannot be easily undone“ (Martens ¶ 9). 

8. Valar morghulis (A Game of Thrones). All men must die. We know this truth at the core of our conscience, in the depth of our bones and experience it nearly every day. No person can escape death and the grave, not even dear Lazarus. But Jesus entered this world to serve. The resurrection is Jesus’ greatest service to men and women. Today, Lazarus’ resurrection. A week later, Jesus’ resurrection. On the last day, your resurrection and all the world’s. 

9. Jesus conquered death by dying. Jesus transformed the tree of the cross into the tree of life. At. Matthew tells us in his Gospel that when Jesus died: »The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and going out of the tombs after His resurrection they went into Jerusalem and appeared to many« (Matthew 27,51-53). Jesus unlocked the gates of hades and opened the gates of heaven. Jesus rose from the dead and will raise all people up on the last day. The Apostle Paul describes this last day in his epistle to the Thessalonians: »“For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the advent of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord« (1. Thessalonians 4,15-17). This is Jesus’ promise of everlasting life to all who believe in Him.  Amen.  

14. Let us pray. O Compassionate Lord, who has redeemed His people; sustain our faith in You, Thou our Resurrection and Life so that we may enjoy eternal life and peace with You.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 

Soli Deo Gloria

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.  

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. 

Martens, Gottfried. A sermon preached on 27. September 2009 (16. Trinitatis) in Berlin-Zehlendorf, Germany on John 11,1-3.17-27.41-45. Copyright © 209 St. Mary Church in Berlin-Zehlendorf (SELK). All rights reserved. The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind, Tr. © 2015. 

VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.