How would you an answer if I posed the following fill-in-the-blank question to you?   _____ is life.

I saw a young man in the gym recently with a tattoo on his shoulder that says “Hockey is life.”  It’s been said of basketball “Ball is life.”  The NBA and NHL playoffs are on right now for those who are interested.  Countless hours are spent discussing and dissecting games.  This is not an indictment against tattoos, hockey or basketball, I’m simply asking the question. “What is life?”  Family?  Money?  It’s an important question.  By definition, it’s a matter of life and I’d say it’s a matter of death too.  It’s a matter of life and death.  We’ve been in the Gospel of John now for some weeks and we hear the words echo.  “All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” (1:3-4)

May God enable us to proclaim this truth and to live it out as long as it’s still day- in other words as long as we have life and breath here.  We come back to it, and we come back to it, and we come back to it.  Let us come back to a statement of faith that we heard on Easter Sunday morning:

The good news in which we believe as followers of Christ: “I believe that Jesus really has been raised from the dead; that he really is Lord; that death really is defeated; that everything Jesus said is true; that this is the single most important and astonishing fact and event in world history.”

We’re talking about life in Christ.  We’re talking about the defeat of death.  T.S. Elliot wrote some great lines about why we should love the church:  “She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget./ She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they like to be soft.”  So let us be tender where we need to be and stand hard and fast where we need to.   Let us weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice as we consider God’s word for us today.  Let us pray.

We’re on the last of the seven signs in John.  We started with a wedding and are ending with a funeral.  We’ve heard about a new age of abundant grace in Jesus.  We’ve heard about people being made well, being able to walk, being able to see.  These stories have told us about what God is like and what life in Christ is like.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.  This is life!  We’ve heard about abundant food and talked about abundant life lived in communion and fellowship and connection with God in Christ and in the Spirit of God. 

In life and in death.  This is a good funeral.  I was talking about a funeral I was part of recently, and said that it was a good day.  The question was asked, “How can a funeral be good?”  This is a good question.  Too often we ignore the concept of death, despite its inevitability.  Perhaps this is because it could drive us to despair.  Isn’t death the end of all hope?  Isn’t death the end of any expectation of good?  In the face of death, we stand resolutely in Christ and we answer “No!”  We remember those words “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”  We remember those words “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”  It’s a good funeral because God is there.  It’s a good funeral because the one who is the resurrection and the life is there.  It’s a good funeral because truth is being proclaimed about life and death.

Do you believe this?  Let us hear that question addressed to ourselves.  “The Teacher is here and he’s calling you.”  The same way the Teacher called Mary’s name at the empty tomb in the garden.  Hush, somebody’s calling my name. Let us hear those words addressed to ourselves.  Someone has said they should be printed on every pew and pulpit in every church.  The Teacher is here and he’s calling you.`         

The story stands on its own.  Let us hear it. Three siblings.  Mary.  Martha.  Lazarus.  The sisters send a message to Jesus in their trouble.  “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”  What a good way to bring our troubles to God when those that we love are ill.  “Lord, my brother whom you love is ill.”  “Lord, my parent who you love is ill.”  “Lord, my sister whom you love is ill.”  “Lord, my child whom you love is ill.”  Augustine, the North African bishop said of this message:

They did not say, “Come” . . . , but only, “Lord, behold, he whom you love is ill” — as if to say: It is enough that you know. For you are not one that loves and then abandons.

“This illness does not lead to death,” says Jesus, “Rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”  We can say the very same thing about Jesus’ death, which comes about because of this story.  It’s after Lazarus is raised that Jesus’ execution becomes the plan (12:53)  Of course Jesus’ execution is not the end of the story, any more than Lazarus’ death in Jesus' absence is the end of his story.  I have to say that this is a truth that needs to be made known at any funeral.  At every funeral I conduct I say at some point “This is not the end of their story.”  We have Jesus deciding to go to Bethany despite the danger he is facing.  We have a misunderstanding once again when Jesus says that Lazarus is asleep.  The disciples take him literally.  “If Lazarus is sleeping this is good no?  Sleep’s often just what we need when we’re sick!”  We have Jesus telling them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.”  We have Thomas.  This is good for Thomas.  We often focus on the doubting part in John 20 (and don’t get me started on the whole Doubting Thomas thing).  We can’t read Thomas’ tone here.  We don’t know if it’s steely resolve or a hands-thrown-in-the-air resignation.  Look at what he says though, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  Let us go with him, that we may die to ourselves and in so dying find life.  Let us go together with him dear church family.

Jesus arrived and found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Martha goes out to meet him.  The next place that Jesus is going to arrive at is Jerusalem.  People will come out to meet him there too.  We can see the ties between the two stories that are going on.  Martha comes out to meet Jesus and brings to Jesus her “if only.”  “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.”  Martha brings her “if only” to Jesus in faith.  This is honest.  We understand this.  We understand the sadness of “if only.”  If only he hadn’t taken that route.  If only this had been diagnosed earlier.  If only I had worked harder/studied harder.  If only I had known...  It’s like a kind of nostalgia.  Nostalgia can be a type of longing for a past that very often never existed in the first place.  “If only” brings in a sort of present nostalgia.  It’s a longing for a situation to be different now based on something that we wish had or hadn’t happened in the past.  Both Martha and her sister Mary are honest with Jesus.  We can be honest with God.  Let us bring our “if only’s” to God.  In the same way, the Psalmist brings “How long O Lord” to God.  God can handle our complaining about timing or anything else.  The deeper significance is that we are coming to God.  Martha and Mary remain devoted to Jesus, who, we have been reminded, loves them.  In tragedy or situations in which we wonder why, we need especially to be reminded of God’s love.

If only I had… If only I hadn’t…  “If only you had been here…”  “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” (11:22).  Even now.  Author James Baldwin once wrote, “The Lord never seems to get there when you want him, but when he arrives, he’s always right on time.”  Even now.  Martha brings her “if only” to Jesus.  Jesus talks about the future.  “Your brother will rise again.”  Martha answers, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”  This was a common Jewish belief of the time.   A new heaven and a new earth where peace and justice would reign.  “I know that,” says Martha, and it seems to be not a terribly comforting thought in her acute grief.  I understand this.  When my father died, I remember people asking me how I was doing.  I was a little bit cliched, saying things that we are expected to say.  “I’m doing fine,” I would say, “I know I’ll see him again.” In actual fact, I wasn’t doing very well with it and really should have been more honest about that.  We learn, though.  I remember a friend saying to me, “You don’t have to put a bow on it,” and he was right. 

Into the middle of this comes Jesus’ pronouncement and Jesus’ promise.  Resurrection, rising again, new life, is not just something we believe in.  It’s not some vague idea about some sort of life after death.  It’s a person.  He’s standing in front of Martha.  In the Spirit of God, he’s standing with us today.  Resurrection, new life, is a person who brings the future promise right into our present and right into the middle of all our “if only’s.”  “I am the resurrection and the life (again the promise of life abundant – life lived in communion with the divine – in communion with God).”  And then the promise – “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die.”

NT Wright, in his commentary on John, puts it like this – “He is challenging her, urging her, to exchange her ‘if only…’ for an ‘if Jesus…’ If Jesus is who she is coming to believe he is…If Jesus is the Messiah, the one who was promised by the prophets, the one who was to come into the world…If he is God’s own son, the whom in whom the living God is strangely and newly present… If he is the resurrection-in-person, life-come-to-life…”

If Jesus is life who has come to bring life, life who comes to bring life, life who will come to bring life…  Then how should we respond to him? 

We as a church need to be re-evangelized. I believe this.  We need to be brought back to the good news, to fundamental truths about this Jesus who we follow.  If you’re not following him then hear the good news. If you’re following him, then hear the good news.  To follow Jesus is not hedging our bets against the afterlife.  This story is not here to show us simply that Jesus has the power to raise the dead, but that Jesus has the power to give new life.  Resurrection life – rising again life – is not simply something we look forward to, but something we take part in and share now.  To be “in Christ” and for Christ to be “in us” means that the one who is the resurrection and the life is in us as we are in him.  It is the life of the ages, eternal life that begins now and that even physical death cannot bring to an end.      

Christ in us, the hope of glory.  What a marvellous mystery.  How beyond our ability to grasp.  At the same time, it’s something the youngest among us can understand.  Christ in me.  I myself in Christ.  The resurrection and the life in me.  Now.  Always.  Do you believe this?  I believe it.

Do you believe it?  This is Jesus’ question now.  “Do you believe this?”  When we read “believe” as we’re going through the Gospel of John, we can consider words like devote ourselves to, listen, worship, rest in, entrust ourselves to, trust.  “Do you trust me?” asks Jesus.  It’s a very personal matter.  We’re not talking in generalities at this point or merely philosophizing.  The question is before us if we’re hearing it right now.  The question is not “Do you believe in some sort of vague idea of life after death or that there is something beyond this life?” but “Do I trust that Jesus means what he says?”  In one of the great statements of faith, Martha answers, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ – the anointed one, the chosen one – the Son of God, the one who came into the world, comes into the world and will come into the world.

In a little while, Jesus is going to cry with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  Jesus meets death head-on.  An immovable object meets an irresistible force.  Death is swallowed up in victory.  “Lazarus, come out!”  It’s the invitation to new life.  Not the resurrection life which is to come, because Lazarus will live out his days after all and die a physical death at the end of them.  New life in Christ began that day for Lazarus, which would be marked by a life lived in the presence of Jesus.  Look at 12:1 – “Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, who he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served (typical Martha!), and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.”  The invitation is to new life.  The invitation is to take our seat at the table with Jesus.  May this be an invitation we each take up daily, and may this be true for us all. Amen.