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Rev. Will Malambri - "Death to Death" · Belin Memorial UMC

• Belin Memorial UMC: ⁓ Good reminder for all of us. that for those who die in the Lord, is assurance that the tears will be wiped away. That whatever shame they've been carrying around, we've been carrying around, that can be left behind. the day that we will be home again. We don't have to wait for them. But we often weep for ourselves. Because even though we know it's temporary when they leave us, when our loved ones leave us. It's worth grieving. It's not being selfish. It's not being short-sighted. It's not being unfaithful. It's being like Jesus, who when his friend Lazarus died, wept. If Jesus, the author of salvation, the one who promises that where he goes, he will come again and take us to himself, who knows better than any of us what resurrection is and how it happens, if he wept when his friend died, why would we not? If you know the story of Jesus and Lazarus, and let's be honest, it's also the story of Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, and their grief. If you know that story, then you know there is no shame in weeping. I'm gonna give you the shorter version of that story. John's version is longer. John is always very thorough in the stories he likes to tell. There's all kinds of extra imagery in there, details that are worth reading about, details that echo back to other parts of his story. John, more than any other gospel, is kind of like a short story in that there are allusions and foreshadowings and echoes that bounce throughout the gospel, all in service to him making the case for what is his opening premise. John begins by telling us, the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son full of grace and truth. No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known. That is John's contention. The rest of his gospel is evidence that that is true. And if you see, if you want to see the evidence of the heart of God lived out among us, look no further than when Jesus responds to Mary and Martha and Lazarus in their time of need. Lazarus was ill. His sisters Mary and Martha sent Jesus' word, Lord, he whom you love is ill. And Jesus didn't have to ask, who are you talking about? He knew immediately, such was his love for Lazarus. He knew immediately who they were talking about. To reassure the messengers, he said, this illness does not lead to death, rather it is for God's glory so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. And then he stayed where he was. For two more days, Jesus stayed where he had been. He does not rush off to see about Lazarus, to make sure that this illness does not lead to death. He stays where he was. When it was finally, he thought, time to go to deal with Lazarus. He tells the disciples, we need to go down to Judea. And they say, really? Because they know that's the very place that his life had just recently been threatened. The people who want to kill Jesus have already made that known and they are in Judea and the disciples need a little convincing that that's the place they should go. So Jesus offers it. He says, our friend Lazarus is asleep. And the disciples who know something about sleep say to him, Lord, if he's asleep, we really don't have to go. He'll be all right. So Jesus makes it plain. Lazarus is dead. And when you hear that word and then arrive and find a closed tomb with a person who's been at behind the rock for four days, you know this project's done. which put Lazarus' sisters Mary and Martha in a tough position. Maybe you've been a similar one. Jesus, they believe, could have prevented Lazarus' And yet he did not show up when they wanted him to, when they needed him to, when he could have done something to take care of the problem for which they were now grieving. Where were you when we needed you, Jesus? If you've ever asked that question, you're not the first. Mary asked it, Martha asked it, lots of people have asked it, Nicholas asked it. Nicholas Wolterstorf was a professor at Calvin College and Yale ⁓ University. He spent much of his career talking about the ways of God as he understood them to his students, bright and curious minds, trying to help them understand what God is up to, what God cares about. It became more complicated for him when his 25-year-old son Eric died in a mountain climbing accident. And so he wrote this book over some years of him processing through that death. In that book, Lament for a Son, he talks about how two beliefs he held strongly are now in great tension for him. He believes that God could have prevented Eric's death. And he knows that God did not. He's not sure what to do with all that. So he wrote, to the most agonized question I have ever asked, I do not know the answer. I do not know why God would watch him fall. I do not know why God would watch me wounded. I cannot even guess. But as he works through it in this book, Lament for a Son, Nicholas comes to understand God is not only the God of the sufferers, but God, the God who suffers. The pain and fullness of humanity have entered into his, into God's heart. Through the prism of my tears, I have seen a suffering God, instead of explaining our suffering. God cheers. And how did Nicholas Woltersdorf get there? by knowing the heart of God as shown through his son, Jesus Christ. Nicholas knows that when Jesus saw Martha's grief and when Jesus saw Mary's grief and when Jesus had his own grief by seeing his friend behind a closed tomb that Jesus wept. Death makes us weak. Even when we know the one who has died has gained everything, we weep because we have lost someone who feels like everything to us. Jesus knows that feeling. A gift? of God choosing to be born among us, to live in our flesh, to know what it is like to be a human. A gift of that is that we know Jesus knows what it is like. We know that God knows what it is like to love and to lose, to love and to hurt, to have that pain that so many of us have felt our feeling or will feel. We know that God has empathy for us because we know Jesus had empathy for Martha and Mary and many others. So John tells us, Jesus again, greatly disturbed. He is not above or beneath real emotion. Greatly disturbed, Jesus 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 said this for the sake of the crowd standing here so that they may believe that you sent me. When he said this, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. 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. Lazarus lived. more evidence of the very reason the people in Judea wanted to kill Jesus. More evidence that he was in fact the Messiah. That's what started this whole idea of we need to kill him. They said to Jesus, tell us plainly if you're the Messiah. He said to them, I have told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me, but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice even from behind the rock in a tomb. My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life. and they will never pay. It's not what I'm like what Jesus told Martha. I am the resurrection and I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. And those who believe in me, who live and believe in me will never die. which sounds illogical. That's some gospel of John kind of thing there. How can both be true? How can someone who dies live? And how can everyone who believes never die? We know people who believe who have died. We know that Jesus' friend, and Martha's and Mary's brother, Lazarus, died. He died again. Even after Jesus raised him from the dead, he died again. Surely no one believed more than Lazarus, who Jesus had raised from the dead. Nobody believes more than him, and yet he died again. How can you say, everyone who believes in me will never die? So what with this surprising truth. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never Let's take a minute to think about surprising truth. This past Wednesday after the Lenten service, we came in here and had lunch. The guest preacher was sitting at the table with us. We were sitting around and he has a pretty good sized tattoo on his forearm. And one of the women at the table said, I've never seen United Methodist pastor with a tattoo. And I wanted to correct her and say, you've never seen a tattoo on a United Methodist pastor. You may well have seen plenty of United Methodist pastors with tattoos, you just didn't know. He was gracious about it, he said, this is a new one, he described a little bit about it. Then he said to her, now I have a United Methodist pastor friend whose entire arms and legs are covered with tattoos, which surprised her. And so if that surprises you, you should see Pastor Sandra's tattoo. For a second she wondered, but she didn't believe me. I couldn't get Sandra to show her, so I decided it'd only be fair to show all of you. You know that, Sandra, you can tell by the clerical collar, you can tell by the purple shoes. What might surprise you is that buff forearm with the tattoo, death to death. No, that's me having fun with AI, of course. But if Sandra had a tattoo, it wouldn't be that one. If she had a tattoo that said death to death, here's what she would mean by that. Death is part of life. Jesus does not swoop in and protect all of us from it. Even in the resurrection, he does not swoop in and protect all of us from it. I count in the gospels three times he raised somebody from the dead. Plenty of people lived and died among him. Plenty of people who believed in him lived and died. Jesus does not protect us from our own deaths or from the grief that comes with other people dying. The apostle Paul wrote, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. It is an ongoing process. It is not complete. That is still happening. Death's destruction is incomplete, but it is in process, which is why the book of Revelation claims to us, death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more for the first things have passed away. We are in the process of death becoming no more. We're not there, but the promise is that we will be. And so while it is true that death is real and is to be mourned and is not to be dismissed as some relic for those before Jesus, it is part of our life here and now. So it is also true that life with Jesus means it is never too late for him to bring life out of death. He can pull Lazarus' out of graves. even those who've been behind them for four days. He can extend this life, rarely does, but he can. More frequent and much more lasting is that when Jesus pulls Lazarus out of the grave for eternal life. That's what Jesus meant when he said, I am the resurrection and the life, those who believe in me, even though they die, they will live. It is how he is putting death to death. And when you believe that, then you don't have to wait until you die to experience the comfort and hope that comes with the promise that begins in living it now. As he said, everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. That can begin now for us. It's not that we as believers will never die a physical death. It is not that we as believers will never grieve those around us who die their physical death. It's that death sting is temporary when Jesus' gift of life is eternal. The sting is real and it will be with us for the rest of our lives in this life, but it won't be forever. It's the promise of Easter that makes living these days even Good Friday kind of days possible. So get your tattoo. Or don't, that's your business. But trust Jesus to be with you in your grief and to bring you through it, because that's Jesus' business. And he's real good at it. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. a Lord who came that we might have life and have it abundantly. Send your spirit to bring comfort in our grief knowing that you join us in it. Bless us with assurance that even though we and those we love will die in you, we and they shall live eternally. Aware that this life will end, soften our hearts and loosen our tongues to say what we need to say and to do what we need to do for those who will one day be parted from us. We pray for those who are mourning this very day, including the family and friends of Carol Bodrie. We pray for those who are mourning the deaths of American service personnel, as well as the many Iranians and others in the Middle East whose lives have been lost due to the horrors of war. Please bring a swift and just peace. Lead our president and the decision makers and leaders throughout the world to what is right by you and by this world you so love. We ask this in your holy name, praying as you taught us. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.