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When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." (John 11: 32-44)
Friends, the gospel lesson from yesterday is for Reformation Day on the 31st of this month. Today's gospel lesson is for this coming Sunday.
My daughters attended more funerals than normal kids. Usually, they helped in the service by sitting in our choir balcony and pushing play on our disk clavier piano. Our pianist would record the selected funeral hymns on a diskette (remember those?) and pushing play would be like she was up there playing live. Many people would look up and see these little girls at the piano and thought they were gifted musicians. After one funeral and they were walking with me back to the parsonage, our oldest asked, "Dad, do you ever do a funeral where you know the person went to the other place?" I smiled and thought many things, but replied, "No, I leave that to God. My job is to try to get them into Heaven."
Death is final. But not to the believer, and as a promise and foretaste of resurrection, coming to life again in Christ, Jesus uses the funeral of a dear friend to show that to the family of the deceased. It has all the usual parts of a modern day funeral. The questions; "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died," We tend to frame it as, "Why didn't the Lord answer our prayers and let our loved one die?" The crying; it is a normal and good thing to grieve at a funeral, for it is after all, a separation of people we have known and come to love. Jesus wept. The shortest verse in the Bible in some versions is verse 35 here reading, "Jesus began to weep." In this story, Jesus comes to the tomb after four days of this man having been dead and asks that the stone be rolled away. The sister of the man, Martha, says, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus replies with love and faith and a promise that those who believe in Him shall see the glory of God. And Jesus called forth the dead man and he arose.
But new life, a resurrection of sorts, occurs when we come to faith in Jesus. Our old selves die to sin and come to new life in Jesus Christ. What has kept us in a tomb of sin, and bound up, like they used to prepare the dead in Jesus' time, is our sin. Jesus calls us forth, removes the binds of our sins, and lets us live a new life. For those who have physically died in faith, the word of today assures us there is new life in Jesus Christ, an eternal one. Death is still hard, and the separation of loved ones will never be easy, but in Christ Jesus we have that which we need to move forward. The talk on Sunday, the flowers, the memorials, will be used to speak of those saints who have died, and some tears may flow; but there should also be peace, comfort, and joy in knowing that He who died in our place has come to receive those who died and given them new life. Buckner Fannin, long time pastor from San Antonio, Texas, once was doing the graveside part of a funeral when a plane departed the airport and made such a racket they paused for silence to return. Rev. Fannin said, "It's appropriate that the plane flew over head to help us understand what is happening here. At the airport are loved ones who are sad in having said goodbye to loved ones who have departed on that plane; but on the other side the plane will land, and loved ones there will be happy to see the arrival of their loved ones join them."
PRAYER: Loving God, for those who are mourning the loss of a loved one, comfort them. For those who still grieve at the death of a spouse or parent, I pray the same. May the words of Your Son, Jesus Christ speak of the hope we need to have in our lives. I pray for those who have been released from the binds of sin, that truly new life be theirs today and all days in which they surrender to Him. This prayer we pray in the name of He who died to save us, Jesus our Lord, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord.
Eradio Valverde
