Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans
8:6-11; John 11:1-45
Preached by The Rev. Dr. Jason
Haddox
Today is the fifth reflection on
Forgiveness in our Lenten series. It’s
an easy word to say, and an important thing to do—for others, and for
ourselves. Forgiveness allows the world,
and all of us who live in it, to be set free.
Forgiveness allows us to learn from past misdeeds and mistakes, it frees
us from bondage to those mistakes and misdeeds, making it possible to move
forward into new and transformed lives.
All the scriptures this day are
addressing that gift of freedom—The freedom and the power that comes from God,
given freely to all, in the midst of disaster and destruction and death, to
bring forth new and transformed life.
In the first reading, Ezekiel addresses the people of Israel in exile,
far from home and the life they had known, their hope lost, their spirits
destroyed. “We are cut off”, they say.
“Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost.” He tells them of the vision he has had—the
vision of God’s spirit blowing over those dry, dead, dusty bones in the
graveyard, filling them with new life, making them a new creation.
And if we listen carefully,
we hear the echoes of another story, like the sound a familiar tune humming
quietly behind Ezekiel’s vision.
Accompanying that vision is the story that starts off “In the beginning…”
In the beginning, when the Holy Spirit hovered over the face of the waters, and
breathed into the dust of the ground, to create life at the beginning of all
things. Out of dryness and dust, God
makes new. Out of death and destruction,
God brings life.
The Psalm, the Epistle, and the
Gospel all proclaim this truth today:
The spirit of God, moving through dryness and dust, moving in the death
and destruction that seem overwhelming, brings forth new life, transformed
life. Jesus addresses Sister Martha this
day with the words we know well: “I am
the resurrection and the life.” She’s
already acknowledged that resurrection happens—someday, somewhere, out there in
the future. But that won’t do, it is not
enough.
Jesus calls her to attention. “Martha—you don’t have to wait that
long. It’s right here, right now.”
And so he goes, and stretches out
his hands, and speaks the words, “Unbind him, and let him go!” and life is
transformed.
Lazarus’s life, Martha and Mary’s
life, the life of every person there that day—Jesus himself included.
They couldn’t just go back to
normal, of course. What had happened was
too much, too earth-shattering, far too destructive of all that had come
before. Lazarus was dead, he was buried,
and now? It was all just too, too
much. Afterward there were days,
perhaps, that they all wished Jesus hadn’t done what he did. He oughtn't to have done it. He’d thrown everything off balance.[1]
In throwing everything—even life and death itself—out of balance as they all had known it, God-in-Christ opens the door for transformation. Not simply “back to business as usual”, for that cannot be. But transformation into a new way, a new life altogether.
That new way, that new truth, that new life that Jesus offers Lazarus and Mary and Martha is for us too. Each and all of us are invited to live in that transformed, spirit-breathed, resurrected reality that Jesus calls “the kingdom of God.” To enter that way, that truth, that life, we have to be freed from the things that tie us up, the things that keep us bound, the things that hold us back from moving forward into that new creation.
Four weeks ago at the beginning of
Lent we talked about experiencing unconditional love and acceptance.
So I invite you to take a moment,
and remember yourself surrounded by and held in unconditional love. Remember that there is nothing you can do, or
ever have done, nor is there anything that anyone else has done or will ever do
to you, that can separate you from that unconditional love. Rest for a moment in that love, knowing that
it is always there, always holding you, always available to you.
In that love, take a moment—in the
privacy of your own mind, think of something you have done that causes you to
feel guilt. Don’t minimize, rationalize,
or deny any of it, simply be in the moment, admit what you did and then…
Remember that there is nothing you
can do, or have ever done, that can separate you from the unconditional love of
God. To suppose that there is some such
thing is either extremely arrogant on your part, or you are addressing a false
god that is very puny. So take a moment
and be aware of the true God’s love for you, in spite of what you have done.
In the light of that love, examine
the thing you did.
Be aware of the demand that you are
placing on yourself as you recall that past event, such as “I demand that I
would have/would not have done…”
Convert that demand to a
preference, such as “I would prefer that I had not done/would have done…”
Decide what personal value of yours
was violated in that action, and if you wish to keep that value in the future.
If you do wish to keep that value
in the future, then take a moment and decide what you will do differently if
you encounter a similar situation in the future, and you want to honor that
value.
And now surrender yourself
into the infinite goodness of God. Let
yourself be held by that love, in the deep and abiding peace. Be at peace with yourself, and with God.
[1] Thanks to
Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” for the phrase and concept of
this earth-shattering truth.
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