March 22, 2026 "This is What God Does"

5th Sunday in Lent

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Psalm 130

Romans 8:6-11

John 11:1-45

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

grace and peace to you

 from the one who calls us out of death to new life. Amen

“You shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live…”

This is what God does.

God brings life out of death.

This is the glory of God.

Next week we enter Holy Week,

where we will tell the story once again

of Jesus’ last moments with his disciples,

his trial and crucifixion,

the vigil of Saturday stretching into the predawn trip to the garden

where the tomb will be found empty.

 But first we must go with Jesus to Bethany,

to the house of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

where Jesus will do for the siblings

what he is about to do for the whole world.

And what does God do?

God brings life out of death,

  and not just that

but God goes through death

 for the sake of new life. 

This is counterintuitive to us humans.

We have learned that death is to be avoided at all costs

 because in this world

there is no coming back from death.

So even though we know what is going to happen

we still rebel a bit inside

 when Jesus gets word of Lazarus’ illness

 and waits two more days to go.

With the disciples we question the wisdom

of going back to a place where the people were just trying to kill him.

With the crowd at the tomb we wonder

 “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

 With Martha and Mary we say “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” implicit in the statement of faith the questions:

 where were you?

Why didn’t you come when we called?

 Faith and questions mingling together

 because faith and questions are not mutually exclusive

and surrounded by faith and questions and sorrow

Jesus makes his way to the tomb,

 notice here how even though Jesus knows this needed to happen,

made sure it would happen

he stills feels the grief of Lazarus’ death,

the grief of the sisters and community,

and he weeps along with everyone else,

if anything his grief strengthens his resolve

 for what is to come,

greatly disturbed

 Jesus comes to the tomb,

a cave with a stone in front of it

 and with death in front of him he confronts it,

 orders the stone removed.

Martha, ever practical,

 protests because of the smell,

or perhaps she is gently reminding her friend in his grief

 that death has well and truly set in,

 seeing his friend will not change that.

But “Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’” and offering a prayer to his father he then

 “cried out 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.’”

 This is the glory of God,

confronting death,

 calling out for life,

and life emerging.

This is what God does.

God brings life out of death.

This is the glory of God.

This is what Jesus is about to do,

confront death by experiencing it

 and emerging alive

 so that we can never again say

 there is no coming back from death,

Yes sometimes this is hard to believe

Which is why God gives us the gift of baptism

Joining us to Christ who has prepared the way for us

And joined to Christ in the waters of baptism

 God promises that we too will see the glory of God

 and not just in the sense of eternal life after we die

 but that we will have life here and now,

 abundant life-

 in the gospel of John abundant life, eternal life

 doesn’t wait for death

it starts the moment we enter into relationship with Jesus

abundant life,

 the gift of the spirit given at our baptisms

 means that with the eyes of faith

 when we look at death

 we can see the life on the other side,

that we too can confront death head on

and call out to the new life on the other side.

What does this look like in our lives?

 New life after a confrontation with death?

 I always think about the relationships that I have witnessed,

 in my own life and in the life of others,

 that follow a divorce or similar end to a committed relationship.

The end of a relationship is a huge moment of grief,

 it’s the death of hopes and dreams for the future,

it can call into question the good memories of the past,

life will never be the same again.

And then someone comes along

 and a new relationship starts

and there is the realization that this life

was the life that was meant to be all along,

that this is the life that really is life

a life that would not have happened without the journey through death.

Think of your own lives

The lives of loved ones

It doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship,

it could be a friendship or even a job,

this is what God does

God brings life out of death,

this is the glory of God.

And in the waters of baptism it is ours,

God has gifted us with the eyes of faith

Eyes that see the life that is possible on the other side of death.

Yes we still experience the pain and grief

 that come with death,

but God first meets us in our grief

and gives us what we need

 (Martha needed a conversation,

 Mary needed someone to cry with her)

But even in the midst of grief

we have hope,

the expectation,

 that God will bring life.

We don’t know what it will look like in particular

We just know that it will be so.

And that means that when we, like Ezekiel,

 are faced with a valley of dry bones,

 we have the audacity to prophesy to them,

 trusting that God will do something with them.

 It means that when we look at the division and hatred in society

 still we prophesy,

when we look at the institution of the Church

seeming to diminish before our eyes

 still we prophesy,

 when we are faced with something that seems like the End

 (with a capital E)

still we prophesy,

still we trust

that God will open the graves,

 join bone to bone,

 add sinews and flesh and spirit,

call ‘come out’

and life will come

because that is what God does,

 this is the glory of God. Amen