March 13, 2005

Fifth Sunday of Lent

John 11:17-45

“No Dead Ends”

     Way, way back when I was 16 years old I was riding in a friend’s car and we were trying to find our way through the city of York, PA.   We had a fairly good idea of where we wanted to go but it seemed we just couldn’t get there.  We turned onto one street that looked like it went in the right direction only to find we were going the wrong way on a one-way street!  After that, we saw another turn that we thought would point us in the right direction, but as my friend made the turn into the dark alley, we suddenly realized it wasn’t a street at all – it was a railroad track!  Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone coming the other way! 

     Ever lose your way and find yourself in some situation that seems just about impossible to see your way out of?  Have you ever found yourself going the wrong way or at some dark dead end?

     We can laugh about a couple of teenagers making some foolish driving mistakes, especially when nothing serious happens, but life can dish out some things that leave us lost and lonely, at some dead end and these things aren’t the least bit funny. 

     Have you seen the movie, “Meet the Parents”?  It’s a story about a guy (played by Ben Stiller) who goes with his fiancée to meet her parents for the first time.  Absolutely everything that could possibly go wrong for him, does go wrong.  It’s supposed to be a comedy and we rented it one evening several years ago because we like comedies and I was in the mood for one.  But I couldn’t laugh.  I was going through a difficult situation in my own life at that time and rather than laughing at Stiller’s bumbling character, I felt sorry for him.  Everything he did turned out wrong and I could relate to that.  It wasn’t the least bit funny.

     But I was blessed then as I am now with a loving and patient family and good friends and they helped me find my way through.  And darkness, as it always does, eventually gave way to new light.  I came to appreciate more deeply then as I appreciate now, the fact that through those who care about us, God’s love follows us even into the darkest dead ends and offers new life even if we can’t quite see it when we’re there.

     Lazarus’ friends and family were mourning his death when Jesus finally arrived.  If only the Lord had been there before Lazarus died, maybe then he could have healed him.  But now, Lazarus had been in the grave several days.  Dead as dead end can get.  The King James version of the Bible poetically puts it this way, “he stinketh!”  You could say things are pretty dark and hopeless when you get to that point. 

     But Jesus stepped in and the miracle happened.  Where there was death – life.  Where there was darkness – light.  Where there were tears of mourning – tears of joy.  Lazarus walked out of that tomb and Jesus said, “Unbind him and set him free!”

     Jesus was forever turning things around – the lame were able to walk, the blind were given sight, the dead were raised, the outcasts and marginalized were welcomed in and included, the oppressed were lifted up.  Even when the world thought otherwise, Jesus thought highly of people and reached out to them with saving, healing love, right into the darkest of dark places, right into the deadest of dead ends.  Even there, no death really.  Even there, life.

     Now…If Jesus can give new life to stinky old Lazarus, a guy rotting away in a grave, imagine what he can do for us!  Yes Lord, come to us in our deep, dead darkness, the dead ends of hopelessness, despair, and hurt and work a miracle in us.  Set us free!

     And what is the miraculous but to see things we never saw before, the light at the end of the dark tunnel (when it’s not a train coming the other way!), love found when we are convinced we are at our most unlovable.

     The other day, Nathan found what’s called a Bible tract left behind by someone who has visited our building.  I have found a number of them over the past couple years, left by people who evidently believe their way of seeing things is the only way, and by implication, that the people of First Church are a lost case.  The tracts lay out a simple, step-by-step procedure that is supposed to turn a sinner’s life around and provide instant salvation.  Now, I’m fully in support of people following whatever spiritual pathway they feel can bring them closer to God, although I do think it’s a little presumptuous to post invitations to your church on the bulletin board of someone else’s church!  But the problem with simplistic formulas for salvation is that there is the assumption you can see you way out of things…1, 2, 3…just follow the directions, do the right thing, make the right turn and you’ll find yourself in the saving arms of Christ.

     Lazarus couldn’t do that.  He was dead.  And many, many times in life people find themselves in the tomb of dark despair and difficulty and can see no way out, no simple formula…1, 2, 3…the light comes on.  Sometimes we can go through the steps a hundred times, pray a hundred prayers and all we find is that life stinketh.  Don’t you think Lazarus and his friends and family prayed for his healing all the way up to the end?  Of course they did and he died anyway.

Sometimes in spite of all our efforts, life is going to stinketh.

     And sometimes, the miracle is just discovering the truth of that, that our efforts are not always what’s needed most.  Sometimes we have to wait on the Lord, as watchmen wait for the morning.  And there the miraculous thing about faith is that it can make us vulnerable to what the Lord can do at last, at long last now that we’re lost and have lost control and given him opportunity.

     It has been said that none of us likes the darkness, but of course, if you want to see the stars, then the darkness is required.  It can be that in that dead end, that stinking place of things gone wrong that we at long last find love that goes beyond our expectations, love that needs no formula, needs for nothing to make sense, just needs to be there in that place.  And the stars come out.

     God always loves us, so much so that even death cannot keep God from setting us free.  And God’s eternal, life-affirming embrace is evident in the life of Jesus and experienced today in the touch of Christ’s Holy Spirit moving through the touch of those who love us now.  And we are at our best when we share that touch in the dark places of our lives.  We can set each other free.

     Considering the ends to which the Lord has gone to love us, even the cross, how can the church be anything but a place of extravagant welcome?

“No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

     Come as you are.  Let us be together in the darkness if that’s where we are right now and wait for the Lord and watch for inevitable stars.