[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace be upon you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.
Death’s power holds us still in thrall and bears us toward the tomb. Death’s darkening cloud hangs like a pall that threatens earth with doom. But you have broken death’s embrace and torn away its sting. Restore to life our mortal race. Raise us, O risen King, in the name of King Jesus. Amen.
The text is from the Gospel regarding Lazarus’ resurrection. You may be seated. For me, I was 16, and I’ll never forget it because you don’t forget that kind of thing. Just like you will remember when you first saw your first dead person. Maybe it was a grandparent or an aunt or uncle or a great-grandparent, and you for the first time see what flesh and bone look like for someone who is dead, lying in state in that coffin. The funeral home does a very good job of makeup and hair, and you or your loved one picked out already the suit or the dress that they’re going to wear, but you and I don’t forget what it looks like.
And let’s be honest, if you haven’t touched, you will need to touch to feel. It’s very plastic. It’s cold. And flesh isn’t soft. It’s hard. And they don’t move. But like I said, I will never forget that. And even though I have seen many saints die, and I have seen great amounts of travesty on the battlefield, you don’t forget death. It’s very real. Amen.
You can only imagine the grief of Mary and Martha. There’s not a funeral home to come pick up Lazarus, their brother. They have to unclothe him. They have to look upon his naked dead body and clean it. They have to anoint it. They have to wrap it. They have to prepare it for burial. They know and felt death. And there’s nothing in the text that said Mary and Martha had husbands. There’s nothing in the text that said Mary and Martha have sons to take care of them. They are, from that point of their brother’s death, completely life-changed. Now they’re responsible. They don’t have their brother to care for them. And all that the brother had gained over the years is all that’s there to sustain them.
So they’re torn between two different emotions. On one hand, they’re looking at that body and grieving over their brother whom they enjoyed laughing with and whom they enjoyed memory sharing of growing up in the same household, the idiosyncrasies of their parents, the goofiness of an older friend of the family and so forth, and their own faults and foibles. And then at the other time, they’re worrying about the future. There is so much spinning in their head that maybe you can relate too.
Now on the other hand, we can only imagine what Lazarus went through. It wasn’t one of those lay down and die on their bed like we pray happens to us. It was a few days before death finally took Lazarus. And in those days, what was going through Lazarus’ head? One moment he was thinking about his sisters. Who’s going to take care of them? Giving all kinds of, here’s where you’re going to find this amount of money. Here’s the person you need to always trade with. You know how people do before they die. Getting everything lined up in order so that you take care and are taken care of.
And then at the same time, his mind is spinning to himself because he’s the one dying. He’s the one who’s got to face this, that we all will face, but we will always face it alone. Yes, someone is with us, but they’re not going through it, just us. So at the same time, Lazarus is one moment thinking about them and other people, and then the next moment he’s thinking about himself. He himself is scared. How does he reveal that to his sisters? He himself is worried. How does he reveal that to his sisters?
We all think our sisters and brothers want to see us in a certain way, and we don’t want to unfulfill that, what our brothers and sisters think. And yet we are pretty fleshly, you and me, kind of hard. Right? And in fact, it would be good for us to share fear and uncertainty. Then our siblings know that we’re real, very real. And we don’t have everything tied up in a pretty little package. It’s very clear from the text that Martha is in great grief.
Now if you noticed and looked at the verses, this is an excerpt. The whole 11th chapter is about this. And if you read the whole chapter, it wasn’t just Martha who said this. You read the whole thing, Mary says these exact same words. Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. Now we can’t overanalyze Martha, but I’m sure some of it is just plain emotion. Exactly how you and I feel. Part of it also was Martha saying to Jesus, Lord, I believe, but this is more than I can handle. Yes?
I believe, Lord, but I need to know you’re right here beside me as I’m going through this. Whether I’m Martha or Mary, or whether I’m Lazarus. Because I’m scared, Lord. For those of you who… This brings up too much emotion. I’m not trying to bring up that emotion. All of us have to face it, though. Sounds like a funeral sermon to me. That’s because the text is about a funeral.
And isn’t it interesting? The other resurrection stories, there is no funeral. There’s nobody wrapped in cloths yet. There’s nobody except the widow’s son who’s actually in a casket, but no one has been placed in a tomb except Lazarus. Four days. And that climate over there can be a little like the coast, pretty humid, pretty warm.
Jesus responds to Mary’s statement because she doesn’t stop there. And this is the beautiful thing about the Holy Spirit. She just said, Lord, if you’d have been here, my brother would not have died. And then the Holy Spirit gives her the words, just as he will give you the words. Amen. She says, but, and this is a beautiful statement that the Spirit gives her to say, and I bet if we were to ask her, do you remember saying that? And she would have gone, no, I didn’t. Did I really say that?
She said, but even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give it to you. And do you know what Jesus says to that? He gives her the answer. He gives you the answer. Sweet and simple, your brother will rise again. You and I are on the other side of the story. We know there are two resurrections referred to. The resurrection that happens right then and there for her brother Lazarus, and then ultimately the resurrection that all of us will be a part of on the last day.
Martha does not. So God is giving Martha the same thing that God is giving you when you are sitting in this pew up here and your loved one is here where the baptismal font is at covered with that beautiful red pall. And you’re trying to figure out, what in the world am I going to do now? Or I can’t even begin to imagine all of the things I’ve got to accomplish in taking care of their estate. As soon as he says, your brother will rise again, she then says, I know, I got it, Lord.
Kind of like whenever you tell a truth to somebody and they go, I know, I know, but they really aren’t acknowledging the truth. She kind of did that. I know, I know, he’s going to rise again on the resurrection of the last day. So she does understand the resurrection of the last day. It is not a New Testament thing. She’s before the New Testament was written. This is Old Testament time still. She understands the resurrection of the dead.
Jesus adds this as the final card on this laying of cards down for this card game. I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, and I would love to have seen where Jesus looked if he didn’t turn and look at the tomb. Though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me, and I’m sure he’s looking right at Martha’s eyes. Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. These are the final words of Jesus to Martha.
Well, except that little last bit. Do you believe this? Do you believe this? And sitting in the pew, listening to the preacher preach, do you believe this about everything you’re seeing and smelling and feeling and everything that you observed over the last several days dealing with the death of your loved one? Do you believe this? And notice what Jesus says. He does not say, do you believe this and can explain it to me correctly? Because if not, you really don’t believe this, do you? He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t quantify, qualify anything. He just says, do you believe this?
Yes or no answer, yay or nay, true or false. That’s all he asks. He does not say, do you believe this without struggling? Do you believe this without doubting? He just says, do you believe this? That’s it. Living and believing go together. Whoever lives, believes. Whoever believes, lives eternally. They go together.
This is what God gave you in your baptism. At the beginning of every funeral service, at least while I’m here, in the back when we put the pall on, what’s going to happen is I’m going to say, in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And everybody’s going to say, Amen. Because that’s the name of the God in whose name we were baptized. We just read that in the catechism. Then from Romans 6, it’s going to be said, if you have been buried with Christ by baptism… And Christ died, just as Christ was raised from the dead, because you’re joined to Him in your baptism, you too shall be raised.
That’s before we ever get the body in here. That’s the whole theme of the service. Your baptism into Christ. Jesus didn’t just talk about it here with Lazarus in this text this morning. In the rest of John, there are some beautiful things that John records for us of Jesus speaking about this very topic.
So, for example, Jesus makes it very clear in John 6, No one, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Your parents may have brought you to baptism. God be praised, but it’s the Father who brought you to his bosom. You and I may have been brought by our parents, but it was the Father who did the drawing through the Son in your baptism. So that it’s not your parents and it’s not you. Everything centers on the Father.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And, and, he’s wanting to make this very clear, I will raise him up on the last day. I will raise him up on the last day. He goes on, another place. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. Remember that? Believing and living. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
He’s saying the same thing here. Whoever believes has eternal life. The two go together. Then he goes on in John 6. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Life, not animation like you and I are used to seeing, but life like the bones that were raised up. Life, that kind of life that only God can give. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And, and, I will raise him up on the last day.
He goes on. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. That’s the baptism. There is this union. It’s called communion. A common union. Christ dwells with you. You dwell with Christ. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I abide in him. Tabernacle. Together in one place. God dwells within you. Christ, that is.
And then one more. As the living Father, notice he says the living Father, he doesn’t just call him the Father. As the living Father, because we’re talking about he who believes lives. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on me, he will also live because of me. I will bet you dimes to donuts you will never hear that in any other church in America other than a Lutheran one. God be praised because that’s not seen that way always.
Resurrection is, of course, seen. I got that. This is about the Lord’s Supper as well and the union of which God is bringing us into. So when you confess in the creed, I believe in the communion of saints, you are saying very clearly that my daddy or my mama or my great grandpa or my great grandma who I see dead there is still in one fellowship with me because the church, which is all believers in Christ, is never split or fragmented. It is one. That’s why we say one holy Christian and apostolic church. Not one here and one in heaven. One holy Christian and apostolic church.
When death crashes into your and my personal world, these promises are all that we have, aren’t they? We do a lot of eulogizing, and that’s good to do with memories, but not in the service. There’s no place for eulogizing in the service. It’s all about Jesus, not about you or me. I know my sons and daughters are going to talk about me when I’m dead, and they’ll laugh about this, they’ll praise that, but they better the you-know-what and remember whose Lord saved me.
There, Lord, because this is all we have, brothers and sisters, this is all we have. Heavy stuff, I realize that, but the text is heavy. We’re talking about people suffering here. We can’t just gloss over this and it’s glorious how wonderful you raised Lazarus. There’s a lot of emotion going on. And let’s not forget, what did Lazarus still have to do yet later on in his life? He still had to die again. But I’m sure he handled that differently than first time. This is hard stuff according to our flesh. Amen.
It is hard stuff to grasp. But what Paul said in the epistle reading, according to our spirit, your spirit and mine says, yea and amen, Lord. You are right. You are right, Lord. But our flesh is going, as we’re looking at the casket and the dead body thinking, is this all there really is? Maybe this is all there really is. Your spirit is saying, nope, nope, nope. It’s screaming sometimes inside of us, but we can’t hear it. But it’s saying, nope, nope, nope. This is not all there is.
So when God asks you, do you believe this? He doesn’t ask if you can believe it with doubting. He doesn’t ask whether you believe it with struggling. He just asks, do you believe it? And your spirit says within you, yea, Lord, I believe. People out there need to know about this because this is the only thing that has any meaning in this world. We could all sit here and talk amongst ourselves about what changes we’ve seen. The childhood you and I had compared to the childhood our children have or even our grandchildren. And we can go on and on about the change. And let’s be honest, the change has happened at a pretty fast pace.
This is still the only thing that matters. And it’s a great gift that you’ve been given that we have the privilege of being able to share. We have the privilege of being able to proclaim this. And more important, we have the privilege of being able to have been drawn to it by the Father without anything within us. This is just a little peek into Easter morning when we’re really going to shout from the mountaintop, well, you know what we’re going to say. And we will say it with great vigor and with great joy because this is all that matters. He has defeated death for us. And Lazarus’ resurrection is the picture.
In the name of Jesus, our King, Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
