Sermon Lent 5

Lent 5, April 10, 2011 John 11:
Courtney Strain died of brain cancer last summer at the age of 25. In the months before she died she met weekly with a hospice worker Suzanne Doyle. In those meetings she revealed one constant frustration, feeling like an outcast. People didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing at all. “You know I’m thinking Courtney, that you can be a teacher,” Suzanne said, “ You know what dying people need and I’m wondering if we can’t come up with some sort of a teaching tool. The tool they came up with was a simple guide they called, “What you Can Do When a Friend (Like Me) Faces the End of Life.” Some things Courtney wrote. “Hallmark doesn’t fix it all or say it best.. Write a letter or send an e-mail. Talk to me when I’m strong enough to sit and laugh or cry with you. Don’t pretend everything is going to be OK . Don’t abandon me at my most vulnerable times. Sit and pray with me. Don’t just pray for me. Instead of asking, “What can I do for you? Offer some concrete suggestions- Like bringing a meal or a treat, Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I’m any less capable of being your friend.”

The story of the raising of Lazarus is really a story about friendship. As Cortuney implied when death comes around it has a way of sucking the life out of friendships. It is in viewing this story in terms of friendship, that I find ways to connect to it and apply it. A friend who is there in our need, is a friend indeed. The friendship is between Jesus and Martha, Mary and Lazarus. It is plain to hear in the message the sisters send to Jesus. “Lord he whom you love is ill.” Notice the order of the words. It doesn’t begin with a frantic call such as we might phrase some of our prayers. Lord, we’re in a heap of trouble here, Lord we’re really needing your help, Lord Lazarus is ill. The need gets first place. Instead what we hear is that the friendship is first in their minds. “Lord the one whom you love…” So front and center is this friendship, that the Gospel writer feels compelled to add the comment that Jesus really did love Martha, May and Lazarus, and his delay should not be seen in any other way that in that love.

We see that friendship in Martha’s going out to meet Jesus on the road before he even reaches Bethany. In her remorse, that if only Jesus had been there. In her slightly hopeful “But even now I know God will give you whatever you ask.” But then she begins to lose her focus when Jesus says, your brother will live again. She shifts from Jesus a true friend, to some general principle or belief that there is life after death. Jesus keeps drawing her back to the bond of friendship to himself. “I am the resurrection and the life. Who ever believes in me even though they die they shall live.” Martha isn’t alone in loosing her focus on Jesus. especially in the face of death. It is one of the great challenges of the faith. Listen to what people say when a loved one has died. They talk about life after death as some inevitable certainty, much like gravity or the law of thermodynamics. They talk about the person who has died and what that person meant to them. What I find strangely absent, is any mention of Jesus. Can they also say, “Lord the one whom you love…” Do they live in a friendship with Jesus?

That friendship is underlined in the story by Jesus’ tears at the tomb. So much so that the bystanders comment, “See how much he loved him.” At a minimum we should remember, and if we don’t our friends should remind us by being present with us, “he carries our sorrows,…. He weeps with those who weep.” This is our point of application, that we be the embodiment of Christ for those who live with the stench of death. It may be as Courtney longed for, faithful friends for the dying. It may be faithful friends when I’m unemployed, or when I’m at loose ends as to what my life is for, or when life is becoming unraveled because of broken marriage, or friendship. All those times when we don’t know what to say, and so we withdraw. In withdrawing we imply that our Christian faith is cowered into hiding in the face of life’s struggles. If nothing else, Jesus is a faithful friend who shows up.
How often have you not found as I have in my ministry that showing up in those challenging places, actually blesses me. As I face with them these challenges, my stammering words draw us back to Jesus, where our focus should be. The wonder is that often I have the privilege of witnessing their power in giving faith and life to the person in the bed. I leave having come to a new appreciation of believing in the resurrection from the dead.

But more than that, he who opened the eyes of the blind, does more than prevent this man from dying, he opens the tomb of the dead. This goes beyond what friends can do, but it shows that with Jesus it’s not only showing up but bringing to life. This bond of friendship will not be broken, not because I cling to him so firmly, but because he clings to me. So strong is his friendship that even death cannot break it. That is a friend indeed!