Lent V - A
March 9th, AD 2009
Meadowvale
Lutheran Church, Mississauga Pastor Peter Lisinski
"THE
GLORY OF GOD"
(Gospel:
John 11:1-44)
In last
Sunday's Gospel Jesus rejected the suggestion that human sin was responsible for
a man's blindness by saying, "He was born blind so that God's works might
be revealed in him." In
today's Gospel Jesus says much the same thing when informed of his friend
Lazarus' terminal illness: "This
illness does not lead to death, rather it is for God's glory..."
Just as blindness -- or any other illness or disease, accident or
disaster human beings may suffer -- does not reflect God's will, neither does
death reflect God's will for us.
The story of Lazarus tells
us about a God who, in John's words, is "greatly disturbed" by death
and "deeply moved" by the grief of the loved ones left behind.
Jesus Christ -- the one whom Christian faith believes to be the visible,
earthly, human incarnation of thi invisible, heavenly, divine being -- reveals
a God who is not detached from, unaffected by, or indifferent to death.
On the contrary, the one and only true God revealed in the divine
humanity of Jesus is so profoundly affected by death that he personally feels
our grief, and willingly shares our mortality with us.
Of all the books written through the ages by theologians and philosophers
trying to define God's eternal glory, perhaps none succeeds more fully than the
definition John offers us today in the simplicity of the Bible's shortest verse:
"Jesus began to
weep" (John 11:35)!
At
the grave of his friend Lazarus Jesus stood shoulder to shoulder with the
gathered mourners and wept with them. Jesus’
tears reveal the glory of a God so determined to give us life, that he willingly
suffers humanity's pain, death and grief -- even the most God-forsaken suffering
of crucifixion!
The glory of God is God's
will to endure death with us, in order to overcome death for us.
The story of what happened at the grave of Lazarus is the promise of what
God has already done at our baptisms, and will do when we die.
God in Jesus Christ will weep for us; and he will stand at our graves and
weep with those who mourn for us. He
will comfort them with the same promise he gave Lazarus' grieving sisters: "I am the resurrection and the life.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live..."
Then, just as Jesus called out Lazarus’ name, he will call your name and mine into the darkness of our graves; and with Lazarus we will come forth. Jesus will stretch out his wounded hands to gather us into the open arms of God's everlasting love. With him will be all the saints who have lived and died before us -- among them our own long lost loved ones, who will welcome us home to share with them the abundant life of God's eternal glory!