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Several years ago, sometime in the 1980's or early 1990's, a Vietnamese logger, walking through the woods, came upon the bones of an American soldier. Time had long since removed any traces of flesh or personal identification. The logger, a Buddhist, buried the American's body with the respect and dignity his Buddhist faith affords to all life, and a Vietnamese poet, Tran Thi My Nhung, captured the moment with these words:
No one escapes death. Death is as universal as time, and time and death cross all boundaries. Death is a fact. This year we accompany Jesus, as we always accompanying Jesus on this Fifth Sunday in Lent, as he moves inevitably toward his death in Jerusalem. This year we join him as, one final time, he reminds the priests and the scribes and pharisees, knowing that they will crucify him for his trouble, that God has a claim on his people that is larger than their faith can imagine. Some years on this Fifth Sunday in Lent we join Jesus at table with Mary and Martha as Mary lovingly prepares him for death with her anointing. Other years we join Jesus at Lazarus's grave, and we find Ezekiel in that valley of dry bones and hear God's eternal question: "O man, can these bones live? Or is it too late now to love each other?" How could we know there'd be such a meeting with Jesus and the prophets this morning, they and we, once so separated by oceans and centuries, by the color of our skins, by culture, by language? But destiny has bound our lives together, and here we are once again on the road with Jesus, on the road to Jerusalem and to death. Death is gaining on us. Death is gaining on us here this morning, just as it once gained on Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and on Peter and Judas and Paul, and on Jesus. It is a fact of life. Death is a consequence of flesh and bone. But God's question is eternal: Can these bones live? Or is it too late now to love each other? It's the question of death, the question of Lent, the question of Holy Week: Can these bones live? Or is it too late now to love each other? "We think of Eternal Life, if we think of it at all," says Frederick Buechner, "as what happens when life ends. We would do better to think of it as what happens when life begins." If so, then maybe the question of death is really the question of life, and what the question, "Can these bones live?" really asks is, "Are we bound by death?" Death is gaining on us. Death is a consequence of flesh and bone. But what is that to fear if we are not bound by death? What do we have to fear from death if, in the meantime, we have courage enough to live? "No," the Lord said to Ezekiel, "No, you are not bound by death. I will give these bones breath and life again, and they will live." "Unbind him, and let him go free." That's the way Jesus put it later at the grave of Lazarus. "Forgive them; let them go." That's the way Jesus expressed it from the Cross. Can these bones live? It's not the question of what happens when life ends; it's the question of what happens when life begins. Is it too late now to love each other? It's not just the question of physical death and life. It's the question of spiritual life and death. It's the question of the life of the Church. It's the question the Bishop's Task Force is asking. It's the question every congregation is asking as we struggle with our life together, the question all people of faith and hope ask at the office and at school and out on the streets and at home: Are we prisoners of the past, bound by the former ways, bound by death and time? Or can these bones live? Can God really do a new thing, even with us, as the prophet has promised? Or is it too late now for us to love each other? The Good news of Lent, the Good News of Holy Week and Easter, is that God is the Lord of death as well as the Lord of life. And he gives us what we need for both, the gift of faith, that confidence which is the awareness that we are more than we can know or see, more than the deaths we can see. We are not bound by death, which we can know and see, because we are more than we can know or see. We are loved, and therefore we can love. We are loved, and therefore these bones can live even though they see death. Like Ezekiel, and like Jesus, we cannot see beyond death, but we do know the promise of God: "'I am going to put my breath into you,' the Lord God says to these bones, 'and you will live.'" When Jesus raised Lazarus, he gave him a few more months or years to live in flesh and in bone. But is that really so astonishing? God gives you and me the same life this very moment. How could we know there'd be such a meeting this morning, Jesus and we, once so separated by oceans and centuries, by the color of our skins, by culture, by language? But destiny has bound our lives together, and here we are as always on this Fifth Sunday in Lent, on the road with Jesus, on the road to Jerusalem. And the question of Lent, the question of Holy Week, has become the question of Easter: Will we accept the gift and live? The Good News of the Gospel is that, in Christ, God offers us more than a few more years in flesh and bone. He offers us victory over death itself, new life, life that is more than three score years and ten of flesh and bone. Is it too late now to love each other? No, says the Lord, it's not too late. And he unbinds us and sets us free, free, if we are willing, to live and to love. Even now. Even at the end of the road. The Bible, if it is anything, is the story of God's people on the road. And at this intersection of time and space where we find ourselves this morning, we meet Jesus as he nears the end of his journey, as he nears the end of the road he began when he first assumed our flesh and bone in Mary's womb. Along the way he learned the Scriptures as a child. Along the way he has treasured the intimacy of life with his disciples. Along the way he has enjoyed the hospitality of friends and cherished the companionship of saints and sinners. But now his hour has come, and the hour has intersected with the place. Now is the time when he is to lay it all down in Jerusalem. And he chooses to die as he has lived. He chooses, that is, to live even as he dies, as a faithful son, confident of the promise he has heard from the prophets, the promise of life that he knows in his flesh and bone as well as in his heart and mind. On the road to Jerusalem Jesus is seeing everything for the last time and saying his goodbyes. And the way I imagine them, those penultimate days of Jesus on the road, they are much like our own, much the way Buechner describes them: "You are seeing everything for the last time," Buechner says, "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 starts 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, the family sitting there snowbound, snow-blind 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 the rain fall and, in your mind, that snow, the child asleep, 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 this 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 the work of your hands...." (The Alphabet of Grace (1970), pp. 39-40) On the road to Jerusalem Jesus was seeing and enjoying everything, and everyone, for the last time -- the hospitality of Mary and Martha; the companionship of his friends Judas and Lazarus, whom he loved; the gate to the city; the old man with the toothless smile; the little boy with the black and white dog; the engagement of his friends the pharisees, to whom he tells a final parable; the intimacy of a meal with his disciples. He was seeing everything for the last time. And now, today, everything will pass, because it is the last day. It is the first day, really, because it has never been before, but 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," he must have said to himself. I imagine all this on the mind and heart of Jesus, even as he walks his final steps to Calvary: "All the unkept promises, if they are ever to be kept, have to be kept today," he must have thought in his mind and heart, but also in his flesh and bone. "All the unspoken words, if I do not speak them today, will never be spoken. The people, the ones I love and the ones who bore me to death, all the life I have in me to live with them, if I do not live it with them today, will never be lived." "Father," Jesus must have asked, "Can these bones do it? Can these bones live?" And he remembered the prophet and the promise: "Do not dwell on the past. Today, now, is the last day, because it will never be again. But it is the first day because it has never been before. Today, destiny binds all lives together, and you have today to live. It's not too late to love. See, I am doing a new thing. Even now I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live." And here we are today at the Chapel of Our Saviour in Colorado Springs on this Fifth Sunday in Lent, 2004. How could we know there'd be such a meeting, Jesus and we, once so separated by oceans and centuries, by the color of our skins, by culture, by language? But destiny has bound our lives together. And today, by destiny's grace, the oceans seem so small, the centuries but the blinking of an eye. How near we are to Calvary! In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. |