​And our All-Ages Song for Lent can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 37:1–14 | Psalm 130 | Romans 8:6–11 | ​John 11:1–45

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11). 
 
The last Sunday of Lent is upon us, and Holy Week is just around the corner. Throughout this sacred season, Lent has invited us to journey with Jesus to the cross… to fix our eyes firmly on our Saviour… to follow Him in faithfulness… and to set aside all the things that distract us or derail us from walking in His holy ways. 
 
And this final week as Lent draws to an end, the Scriptures invite us to reflect on where all this is heading… to consider ‘the end’ that we’re moving towards. But first, they call us to face the end of death. 
 
Death is often seen as ‘the end’. That dreaded barrier beyond which the living cannot see. The outer wall of our existence, that sooner or later confronts us all, whether we’re ready to face it or not. Understandably, a great deal of our human story has been about the constant struggle to try and fend death off, at least for a time… living each day in its shadow… unsettled by the mystery of what lies beyond. Death confronts us with our own helplessness. It brings into sharp focus our fears of surrendering control over our lives and our stories… while at the same time amplifying the pain of saying goodbye to those we cherish but whom we are powerless to protect forever… no matter how hard we may try.
 
For many of us here today, death is already all too familiar. We have already had to say goodbye to family members and friends… to those we love and long to be with again. And some of us have had our own seasons when we had come face to face with our own mortality as well. And yes, thankfully, our Christian faith offers us hope of a future beyond death. A hope of a final reunion… and restoration… and reconciliation. A hope that does not make death easy to face per se… but at least it offers us something firm to hold on to when everything else is being shaken.  
 
And yet, even this hope can at times feel far off… far removed from our day to day existence under death’s shadow. Which is why it’s good that our Gospel reading today invites us to go a bit deeper. To not rest content with a true but vague and distant sense of hope, and instead to receive the hope that comes not from denying death’s power… but from trusting the good news that the Living God has already face death and defeated it… for us.  
 
Our Gospel reading today tells a story of the Son of God, Jesus our Lord, facing death with those very dear to Him: with His disciples, and with His friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. It’s a familiar story to many of us. A story of illness, of hopes being crushed and rekindled. Of doubts and devotion… of deep sorrow, and faith even in the midst of it. It’s a story of death, and the signs of God’s New Life… the signs of the ending of death. 
 
And we can’t hope to reduce or sum up this profound story in just one morning together. This story is meant to be heard and reheard over a whole lifetime, though it still has much to say to us today. But even though much must be left unsaid this morning, I’d still like to draw our attention to a few parts of this story of how Jesus faced death along with His friends that offers the kind of enduring, and trustworthy hope that you and I and our world really needs. 

This story begins with Jesus and His disciples… His followers receiving word that one of Jesus’ friends, Lazarus, was seriously ill, and was requesting His help. But instead of rushing to the bedside of His beloved friend… Jesus says to His followers: “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.” (John 11:4).
 
And yet… soon afterwards Lazarus does indeed die. And so, we’re faced with a bit of a crisis to work through: I mean, was Jesus just wrong? Or was there much more to the story that still needed to be played out? With hindsight, we now can see that the end result of Lazarus’ illness was not in fact death, but a sign… a revelation of God’s glory. For Lazarus, death was just going to be a temporary stop, not the final destination his illness was leading to.
 
The disciples don’t know all this yet. But when Jesus suddenly tells them that it’s time to visit Lazarus, one thing they do know is that Jesus seems to be planning to lead them straight into serious danger. They had literally just escaped from Jerusalem, where Jesus was almost executed by an angry mob. Heading back to Judea at this moment would mean quite likely having to facing death. Which is why Thomas, moved by true devotion if not hope, says: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16).
 
Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile our faith in the Living God with what seems to be happening around us… and even with the direction that God seems to be leading us. In those times, when we don’t yet understand, or know how our story will play out… will we stick close to Jesus, and trust Him, even if the way forward seems hopeless? Even if, like Thomas, we assume that there’s no way to get through what lies ahead? 
 
When they arrive in Bethany, Jesus has a moment with both Martha and Mary. They bring Him their griefs and doubts, their anger, and their faith in Him all wrapped up at once. They come to Him having faced the death of their brother… and Jesus meets them both just as they are.
 
Because God doesn’t hide from how hard death is for us… or offer us simple answers or explanations. He knows all the pain and the weight of our sorrows. But what He does do is ask us to trust Him in the midst of it all. To hold onto Him, especially when we are hurting the most.
 
When Martha comes to Him, she cannot hide her great frustrations and pain that are intertwined with her faith in Him. She says to Him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” (John 11:21-22). When Jesus responds by telling her that Lazarus will rise again, she affirms the truth of that distant, vague hope in a future reunion… the ultimate resurrection of the dead at the end of the ages… the faith of her people that one day all this pain of parting will end forever. But that day feels so far off! It doesn’t seem to be much of an anchor for her in the here and now. And so, Jesus offers her the Anchor she needs.
 
John 11:24-27, “Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” 

I am the resurrection and the life… He says to Martha, and to us all. The Living Anchor for the Christian faith is not a remote vision of an afterlife… it is our Saviour Himself… the One who faced death and defeated it for us once and for all… and who alone is able to see us through death. To carry us through our times of grief and loss… to hold us close, even with all of our anger and doubts and terror… telling us we can trust Him, even when we have no answers, or words to express our pain. He is the One who will weep with us even when He knows that He will soon turn our sorrows into joy.
 
After He meets with Martha, her sister Mary confronts Jesus, repeating Martha’s words of frustration and grief, but without her sister’s sense of hope. John 11:32, “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.” That’s all she can bring herself to say.
 
And instead of offering her answers, or even words of comfort, Jesus weeps with her. He shares in her pain, and takes on her suffering… deeply moved by her sorrow. 

And even though God is the great Creator of all… the source of all that is, seen and unseen… God shows us He is not unmoved by our griefs and pain. His compassion and love for us His children knows no limits. And yet, He is also not overwhelmed by our sorrows… standing back powerless while forces greater than him run amok. No, God weeps with us, even as He works to bring all our tears to an end.
 
And so Jesus comes to the tomb of Lazarus… to the resting place of the beloved friend He still allowed to die. This reminds us that death is not a sign that we are unloved… that God has somehow turned His back on us, or abandoned us. Death is the reality for us all, living as we do outside Paradise. God’s great love does not prevent us from suffering or dying… but He does offer us the sure hope that our stories won’t end in death. Like everyone, we will have to face it, but our loving Saviour will see us through it! 

Jesus calls Lazarus up from the grave, and brought his beloved friend back to life… a sign of God’s power to break death’s apparently unstoppable power. And yet as amazing as it was, this sign was only a foretaste… a glimpse of the glory that was soon to come… when Jesus would face death Himself… enduring the agony of the cross, and entering the grave… not to reverse death, as He had done with Lazarus… but to go through it and defeat death once and for all!
 
When the time had come to take up His cross, our Lord Jesus knowingly walked towards the danger. He confronted those who sought to destroy Him, and brought the fight between the forces of darkness and God’s light to its ultimate showdown… faithfully following the will of His Father in Heaven, and trusting in His unending, unshakable love.
 
And yet… Jesus endured all the agony of sorrow and grief too. He experienced first hand the full terror of the cross, and all that it would require of Him: betrayal, abandonment, humiliation, torture, and public execution.
 
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus earnestly pleaded with His Father: asking that if there was any other way… to please take this cup away from Him! But Christ’s prayer in the end was a prayer of faith. Of trust. Not My will, He says to His Father… Not My will, but Yours be done. 

Jesus faced His own death at the cross through faith. Faith in His Father’s unending love, a love that did not keep Him from suffering… but which saw Him through death and out the other side into God’s glorious new and unending life. 
 
Through His cross, and grave, and resurrection on Easter morning, Jesus broke death’s vice-grip over God’s world, shattering that terrible barrier that had always claimed to be the final end, and He revealed the power of God to make all things new. 
 
Jesus shows us in the midst of life that the grave is not in fact final, but that death itself will come to an end… giving way already to the glorious New Life of God revealed first of all in Jesus Christ the crucified and Risen Lord, and offered to us all in His name, by the power of His Holy Spirit. 
 
This is after all what the Church means when we say that in the Creeds that we believe in the ‘resurrection of the dead’… not just that Jesus was raised to new life, but that in Him, all of His people will be raised as well. As St. Paul said in our second reading today: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11). The same glorious fate as Christ Jesus experienced on Easter Sunday awaits all those of us who are in Christ, and who share in the life of His Spirit.
 
Until that day, we have this anchor of hope in our own encounters with death… the hope that Jesus Christ is with us, that He loves us, and died for us… and He will see us through whatever death throws at us. 
 
And as we prepare for Holy Week, stepping once gain into the story of Christ’s passion… His suffering, and death, and resurrection… let us draw near with faith, trusting in God’s saving love for us and our broken world. Let us bring all that we are to Him… bring all our doubts and devotion, our confusion, and fear… our anger and questions and sorrows with us to the foot of the cross… trusting that though the grave might have its day… in the end our Saviour is leading us into His unending life. Amen. 

​And our All-Ages Song for the season of Lent can be found here:

Scripture Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1–13 | Psalm 23 | Ephesians 5:8–14 | ​John 9:1–41

“Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’” (John 9:39).
 
As part of my Lenten practice this year, I’ve given up looking at the news… at least until after lunchtime. I know it might not sound like much of a challenge, but it has been. It’s been hard not to look at the headlines each morning… wondering what new crisis or catastrophe is playing out in our world… feeling the strong urge to scroll past story after story, in a vain search for that small sense of control that’s supposed to comes from ‘being in the know’… and instead, to try and leave the world in God’s hands for a few hours. I know it’s not much, but for me it’s at least a small step forward in faith.  
 
These days, as we look around, we can see a lot of dark and scary scenes playing out before our eyes… in our wider world of course, as old and new wars and conflicts rage on… but maybe we also see troubles and sources of suffering a bit closer to home too. People around us, and maybe even some of us, are facing times of intense difficulty, despair, and isolation… searching for some relief, or even just a way to make sense of their experiences. 
 
Of course, in dark times it’s natural for us to ask difficult questions, and to search for answers… to focus on finding a way to make sense of our lives, and our all too often tragic world. 
 
And people have landed on a whole spectrum of responses… of ways to understand why things often seem so wrong: from believing that everything in life, including suffering, is just random, and there’s nothing we can do about it… to believing that everything in life, including our suffering, is destined to happen. That it’s all been specifically planned out or determined by God ahead of time, for some mysterious purpose. And because we know that God is good and just, when something bad does happens, then it must be someone’s fault, right? They must have done something wrong to deserve their rough circumstances… punishment for sins, known or unknown.
 
Sorting through these kinds of questions is sometimes called the ‘Problem of Evil’… an age old philosophical dilemma trying to make sense of how God can be good and all powerful, while evil still exists and persists in His world. These are the kinds of questions that aren’t just asked by those in ivory towers or university classrooms… but by all sorts of ordinary folks… by those found in hospital beds, or emergency shelters… in broken relationships… and in church pews… really anywhere that suffering can be seen.
 
And the Holy Scriptures are not blind to these questions, and to the issues that they raise… but they are also not bound to the types of answers that philosophers tend to offer either. 
 
And that’s because the Scriptures are not focused on answering philosophical problems, or even answering our questions, as pressing as they might be. They have their own important work to do: they are focused on helping us come to see the One who meets us in the midst of our darkened world, and who opens our eyes and our hearts and our minds to the light and the life of His saving love.
 
The Holy Scriptures point us to Jesus. They invite us to see ourselves and our stories… both the joys and the tragedies… all in the light of God’s good work through Him… bearing witness to what Jesus has done, and is doing despite the world’s darkness, to reveal God’s rescuing love.
 
Our Gospel reading today, John Chapter 9 in its entirety, is a powerful story that begins with the disciples’ close encounter with someone else’s suffering, and with their own attempt to make sense of it. They see a man who was born blind, and ask Jesus about the source of his suffering: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Who caused all this? Whose sin earned this man a lifetime of being unable to see?
 
Like many of us, the disciples want to know how to account for what seems like a complete tragedy. They want to understand and grasp the reasons behind the misery and pain they see around them.
 
But as the story unfolds, what comes to light is less of an explanation for evil, and more of an invitation to see God at work… and to believe in the One He has sent to save us.
 
In response to their question, Jesus offers something surprising: not an answer, but a solution. John 9:3-7, “Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.”
 
Neither this man’s nor his parents’ sin… but so that God’s works might be revealed in him. In other words, ‘It’s not about who caused his suffering… but watch and see what God is going to do about it!’ And right there, Jesus brings God’s healing mercies to this man, opening his eyes for the first time after a lifetime of blindness. But far from being the end of the story, this miracle was just the beginning.
 
The rest of the Chapter follows what happens after, as both the man who can now see, and everyone else around him is forced to wrestle with what God has done in his life… either drawing closer to faith in Jesus, or becoming more and more entrenched in their rejection of Him. Were they witnessing a genuine miracle of God, which would serve to confirm Jesus as God’s faithful messenger and servant? Or was this all a trick? A clever deception that needed to be exposed for all to see?
 
As the story keeps moving forward, Jesus steps out of view, and the man who had been blind but who now can see takes centre stage, as first the crowds, and then the religious leaders of his community argue and debate… trying to make sense of how this amazingly good thing could have happened. And so, the healed man is essentially on trial, being pressed to explain his story to their satisfaction, and reject the One who had opened His eyes. But the more the man is pressured, the more he comes to see and believe the truth about Jesus, the One who had given him sight, no matter what others may do or say.
 
In contrast, the Pharisees find themselves unable… or at least unwilling to see God’s mercy and grace at work in this man’s miraculous healing. They were so committed to their own perspective, their own preconceptions about Jesus… about people like this man who had been born blind… about themselves as those who were supposed to be ‘in the know’… and about how the Living God was supposed to work in the world… that despite all the growing evidence, they choose to reject not just the miracle, and the healed man… but the One who had done this great work. The truth was right there, but they chose not to see and believe it.
 
After the man’s inquisition, comes the climax of the story: the man is kicked out of his community… ostracized and facing isolation and rejection for his commitment to the truth. But even though his story has taken on a new dark turn, Jesus sees him. Jesus seeks him out, and He invites the man to believe in Him even more… to come to see and believe not only in Christ’s power to heal his eyesight, but to know up close and personally the depths of God’s saving love. To look on the face of His merciful Saviour, who first saw him suffering and blind, and rather than walk by, or explain his pain away, reached out in love to set him free.
 
John Chapter 9 is a powerful narrative in its own right… but we know it’s a part of a much larger story, one that the man who had been born blind could not possibly have seen or even imagined at the time: the story of the Living God looking with compassion on our suffering world, and working to confront the evil at work in it… the dark forces working to tear His beloved creation apart… through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was sent to save the world by suffering for it. 
 
This is the story of the cross: how Jesus doesn’t shy away from all of our tragedies and pain, but instead steps right into the deepest darkness of our world. At the cross, He endures the complete rejection of His people, of those He came to save. He faced all the questions and interrogations of those fully determined to defame and deny Him. And instead of desperately trying to prove Himself, or to avoid the agony of the grim fate they had planned for Him, Jesus entrusted His life into the hands of His loving Father… knowing full well He was laying down His life… choosing to suffer and to die to save us sinners… who time and again refuse to see and believe. 
 
But while many may still look at the cross, and see there only tragedy and defeat, we are invited to see there God’s greatest work to undo evil, once and for all. We are invited to see the cross of Jesus, and to believe both in God’s merciful love for us sinners… but also in the power of His love to rescue us from the hold of sin and death. We are invited to see the cross of Christ and believe in the rest of the story… in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which opens our eyes to God’s redeeming love still at work even now… able to transform even our world’s tragedies and saddest stories into signs of His New Life coming to light.
 
Because of Christ’s death and resurrection… because He chose to faithfully endure the cross, and enter the grave… and rise again… we can see the Living God hard at work… not busy blaming us for our sins, but hard at work setting us free from them! We can see He’s not eager to arraign and condemn us… He’s preoccupied with arranging our pardon and peace! Looking at us with eyes full of compassion and love… seeking out and saving the lost.
 
The cross points us, not to abstract answers, but to our Saviour… to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to our crucified and risen King… calling us to place our faith in Him, and in His holy work on our behalf. 
 
How will we respond to this calling? Will we draw near to our Saviour in faith… as He gradually opens our eyes more and more to the depths of His saving love, for us and our world? Or will we draw back… and seek instead to find our security and solace elsewhere… focusing our attention on finding the answers that fit with our own preconceptions, or searching for someone to blame…  shutting our eyes to the grace and the mercy of God revealed in the face of Jesus?

When we find ourselves facing days of darkness, and experience real tragedies that we struggle to understand or explain… may we look to the cross, and see there the work of our merciful Saviour, and trust in His love for us no matter how hard things may get. May we see the cross and believe that through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is always with us… that our great Shepherd will lead us both to green pastures and through all of life’s dark valleys… entrusting ourselves and our world into His healing hands, eager to join Him in the good works of His Kingdom… and knowing that even if we can’t yet see how all the suffering and darkness around us will come to an end, that God really is at work and one day He will bring about that day of joy that will last forever. Amen.

​And our All-Ages Song for the season of Lent can be found here:

​And our All-Ages Song for the season of Lent can be found here: