The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Everywhere we turn we see death.

This morning's Scripture readings are full of death. Ezekiel, in exile in Babylon, has a vision of a valley full of dry bones. "The Lord made me pass among the bones in every direction," he says. "The bones covered the whole length of the valley. They were countless in number, and very dry. And the Lord said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' I answered, 'Only you know, Lord.'"

In the Gospel reading, too, death is everywhere. When we pick up the story this morning, Jesus is only days from his own death. He is across the Jordan River from Jerusalem when word comes to him that his friend Lazarus has died in Bethany. And when he tells his disciples that they need to go back to Judaea, the disciples protest. They warn him that the last time he was there, the authorities wanted to kill him. And when Jesus makes it clear that he is determined to go anyway, Thomas calls to his fellow disciples and says, "Come on, let's go and die with him." And they arrive in Bethany and find Lazarus dead, very dead, in the tomb for four days with a large stone sealing the door. And Mary and Martha, unmarried women, without husbands and now without a brother to care for them, are as good as dead as well.

But it's not only in Ezekiel's valley and Lazarus's tomb that we find it. Everywhere we turn, it seems, there is the image and stench of death. "The wages of sin is death," St. Paul reminds us, and the morning newspapers of full of it. From the World Trade Center last fall to Gaza and the West Bank today, from the trial of Andrea Yates in Houston to murder and mayhem in Manitou and Colorado Springs, from an avalanche near Aspen to the daily obituaries, we see Ezekiel's dry bones, the dry bones of death.

No one escapes death. Death is the sidekick of life. Roy Rogers would not have been Roy Rogers without Gabby Hayes, nor would the Lone Ranger be the Lone Ranger without Tonto. And what would Frodo be without Sam, or life without death?

Some charge that Christianity is not realistic about death, that ours is a Pollyannaish, pie-in-the-sky religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Death is a fact as universal as life, the constant partner of all living creatures. Jesus knew that. So does his Church. Christian faith faces the fact of death squarely.

Truth be told, if there is any place today where people have not come to terms realistically with death, it is modern secular society, not the Christian faith. All you have to do is look around you, says William Willimon. Just look at where we put our money. Just look at our buildings. "This magnificent Gothic chapel was once the largest, most over-built building on [the Duke University] campus," says Willimon. "But not any more. Now it's the University Hospital. What does that tell you?" he asks.

One reason the hospital is so big, Willimon adds, "is that it serves as our biggest hedge against our greatest fear, namely, death. And while Duke Hospital hasn't yet found a cure for our dying, we [now] believe it is the best [hedge] we have, so we put a great deal of resources into the effort."

We human beings, especially we Americans, like to think we are free. But the truth is that death is pulling our strings, jerking us around. The pharaohs had their pyramids, and we have our exercycles, treadmills, hospitals, and health care plans, and jogging, all in an effort to deny death. But the fact is that not even Hillary's health care plan would have solved death. As far as avoiding death is concerned, every exercise program and health care plan we have is ultimately 100% ineffective. The fact is that we die. And while we wait for death, death is pulling our strings, jerking us around, because we fear dying and death.

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman stoic, says that the goal of the wise person is to stop being jerked around, to cease being "whirled around" by things outside himself. Wisdom and freedom occur, he says, at that moment when you take possession of your life and your strings cease to be pulled by someone else, or by something outside yourself.

Like Jesus. Like Jesus, who knew that death was both a fact and an enemy, but who, in spite of it, lived without fear of death and walked his way to Calvary with hope.

How does one do that? How do we get the freedom that Jesus had as he walked his way toward the authorities in Judaea who were waiting to kill him, that freedom which is freedom indeed, the freedom to live without being jerked around by the fear of death? How did Jesus, and Paul after him, look at death squarely in the eye without flinching or blinking and walk away from the experience hopeful rather than despairing, victorious rather than defeated? Where did they get their confidence, their faith, their trust?

H. A. Williams says that "faith is the awareness that I am more than I can know or see." Jung says the same in his book we're going to discuss tomorrow night. Jesus knew it before either of them.

"I am more than I can know or see." That, it seems to me, is the faith that Jesus had, the faith he bequeathed to Paul, a faith that can be ours as well, a faith that can save in the face of death.

Jesus arrives at the tomb of Lazarus. There in Bethany he can see both life and death. He knows both to be real. He can see Lazarus in his tomb today. But his question is: Are we bound by death? Or is there more? Can these bones live?

Lazarus is more than he can know or see, and so am I, Jesus tells Martha, and us. For the One who has power to create also has power to redeem, because he is Lord of all. Not only Lord of life, but also Lord of death.

In the very beginning: God. In the very beginning, God faced death down. Out of nothing, God made the world. In the beginning, God took soil and breathed his moist breath into it and created life for very dry bones. If God could do that then, then God can do it now. Is this not how Jesus saw things that day in Bethany, on his way to Calvary?

So Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died." And Jesus said, "Your brother will rise again." And Martha recited dry bones to Jesus, the dry bones of the creed: "O, I know, Lord, that he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day." And then Jesus said, "I am resurrection and I am life. Whoever has faith in me shall live even though he dies. Lazarus is more than you can see or know, and so am I. Do you believe this?" "I do, Lord," she answered.

So they go to the tomb, where everyone is weeping. And Jesus weeps, too, because he is a man acquainted with suffering and grief, and he just hates death. "Take away the stone," Jesus orders. And good old realistic, practical, pots-and-pans Martha objects. "Lord," she says, "He has been dead for four days. There is already a stench."

But with a voice loud enough to wake the dead, Jesus shouts, "Lazarus, come out!" And the dead man comes out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. He's all tied up, bound by death. Like a mummy. And Jesus says, "Unbind him, and let him go free."

What are we to make of this? What are we to make of this resurrection story here, just two weeks before Jesus himself is to die?

This is what I make of it: God just hates death, and everywhere God meets death, death is conquered. Even during Lent. Even in the tomb.

In the very beginning: God. In the very beginning, God faced death down. Out of nothing he made the world. In the beginning, God took soil and breathed his moist breath into it and created life for very dry bones. If God could do that then, then God can do it now, in Bethany. And in Colorado Springs.

Jesus, removing the stone from Lazarus's tomb and unbinding Lazarus and letting him go free, is a sacrament of what God does wherever God meets death. And just a few days later, Jesus, spirited by God from his own tomb and walking free, is the sacrament of what God does wherever God meets death. Wherever God meets death, death is defeated and life and freedom are created.

It has been that way with God from the beginning. God will not be bound by death. Jesus will not be bound by death, because Jesus is aware that he is, by the grace and power of God, more than he can know or see. And death, real though it is, is denied the victory it seeks.

So what about us? What about us now? Can these bones live? Death remains a fact of life today. Are we bound by it?

Thomas More, the sixteenth-century English martyr, refused to be jerked around by death. Like Jesus, he refused to blink in the face of death, because he was aware that he is more than he could know or see. Like all the martyrs, when death was thrust upon him, More faced death in confidence and hope, because he was aware that to deny the truth was to deny himself, which would have been a death worse than death, a living hell. So he chose to ascend the scaffold rather than kill the self God had created him to be. He chose, in other words, to live, even though he died. To live by the grace of God.

It is said that as More was climbing the scaffold, his last words were, "See me safe up. For my coming down, I can shift for myself." Marvelous! What a wonderful prayer! What we really need help with is life, not death. "See me safe up my path of life. For my coming down, I can shift for myself."

Is it possible, when all is said and done, that our greatest fear is not so much death as life? A fear of not being who we really are? A fear of never having lived the gift God has breathed into us? "Lord, see us safe up. Help us to live, so that death, when it comes, does not sting." This is a prayer for all seasons.

Death is gaining on us. It is a fact of our lives. Death is a consequence of being bones and flesh. But what is that to fear? For God, if he is Lord, is Lord of death as well as Lord of life, and he has given us what we need for both, the gift of faith, that faith, that confidence, which is the awareness that we are more than we can know or see, more even than the deaths we can see. So we need not be bound by death.

Like Ezekiel, we cannot see beyond death. The Lord asks, "Son of man, can these very dead, dry bones live?" And we must respond as Ezekiel did, "I don't know, Lord. Why do you ask me? You alone know the answer to that."

But we can hope beyond death. "For I say this," says the Lord. "I say 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. I will make my Spirit enter you, and you will live.'"

Is that not the hope of Jesus, a hope founded on the promise of God, of which the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus are signs along our way, signs that God will give life even to these very dry bones of ours!

Jesus gave Lazarus a few more weeks or months or years of flesh and bone. But that's not really quite as extraordinary as it sounds. God gives you and me the same gift right this very moment. The question is: Can these bones live?

Will we accept the gift now, the gift of the Spirit and breath of God, and live the life God gives us, the life of truth and integrity that Thomas More lived on his path to his death on the scaffold? Will we accept the gift now, the gift of the Spirit and breath of God, and live the life of love that Jesus lived on his way to his death on the Cross? Will we accept the gift now, the gift of the Spirit and breath of God, and live the life of truth and love they lived, in faith, in confidence that God is as good as his word, confident that flesh and bone are not the end of us because we are more than we can know or see?

The good news of the Gospel is that, in Christ, God offers us more than a few years of flesh and bone. He promises to breathe life into us, into even these very dry bones. He offers us victory over death itself, new life, life that is more than three score years and ten of flesh and bone. He offers to unbind us from death, to set us free to live, now.

Maybe Frederick Buechner announces this good news as well as anyone. "You are seeing everything for the last time," he writes. "And everything you see is gilded with goodbyes: the child's hand like a starfish on the pillow, your hand on the doorknob, the dachshund's lurching off the forbidden couch when you come through the door...

"You are seeing everything for the last time: the room where for years Christmases have happened, snow falling so thick by the windows that sometimes it has started to snow in the room, Christmas brightness falling on tables, books, chairs...

"You are seeing everything for the last time: the gaudy tree in the corner of the room, the family sitting there snowbound, snowbound to the crazy passing of what they think will never pass...

"And now, today, everything will pass, because it is the last day. For the last time you are seeing this rain fall, and, in your mind, that Christmas snow of long ago: the child asleep, the gaudy tree in the corner, the dog making sheepishly for his pillow by the radiator...

"For the last time you are hearing the house come alive, because you who are part of its life have come alive to it. All the unkept promises, if they are ever to be kept, have to be kept today. All the unspoken words, if you do not speak them today, will never be spoken. The people, the ones you love and the ones who bore you to death, all the life you have in you to live with them, if you do not live it with them today, will never be lived...

"It is the first day, because it has never been before. And it is the last day, because it will never be again. Be alive, if you can, through today, this day of your life. Follow your feet, put on the coffee, start the orange juice, the bacon, the toast. Then go wake your children and think about your life, and living, and the work of your hands...." (The Alphabet of Grace, pp. 39-40)

These bones can live. Think about the life God breathes into you today. Think about the life you can choose today, either adding to the world's grief and pain or, through the grace and breath of God, granting to the world you know and see the blessing and joy and life of God himself.

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.