March 9, 2008

John 11:1–45

Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A

Trinity Church, Valparaiso, Indiana

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Back in the days of black and white television, I would often watch the humorous antics of “Laurel and Hardy.” Rotund Oliver Hardy and skinny Stanley Laurel were always getting themselves into one comical pickle after another. Often, when Laurel and Hardy would find themselves caught in the web of their schemes, a frustrated Oliver Hardy would look at a whimpering Stanley Laurel and pronounce with a frustrated indignation, “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve
gotten us into.”

You and I live prefer to live a black and white world. We know what is right, and we know what is wrong, especially when it comes to the sins of other people. In our black and white world, we want to be happy and healthy all the time, and we have trouble living when rarely are we always happy and always healthy. When our self-made black and white world deteriorates into the gray and fuzzy insecurities of disappointments and disease and death, we usually blame God. Faced with bodies that inevitably deteriorate in disease, faced with marriages that are far from “living happily ever after,” faced with jobs that evaporate before us and financial security that seems ever more illusive, we cry out in prayer, “Why me, God?”

I am always fascinated how often God gets blamed for—not what is good in our lives—but for all that is broken and evil. One nation chooses to go to war against another nation. Innocent people are killed, lives are forever brutalized, and we wonder aloud, “Why does God not do something to stop such suffering and pain?” A woman chooses to drink too much and while driving her car, and she swerves across a busy highway and strikes a little boy playing in his front yard, condemning him to a painful death. A father and a mother pray, “How could a loving God allow such a horrible thing to happen?” You have done your best to believe in God and to tell others about Jesus and his love. One day, your physician tells you that you have multiple sclerosis. Suddenly, the “golden years” to which you looked forward are to be a daily challenge for life itself. Even the most faith-full of us might shake our fists at God and pray, “Why me, God?”

Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. You would assume that, out of his friendship, Jesus would do anything to help those whom he especially loved. When Lazarus lay near death, however, Jesus never quite made it in time to save him. A grieving and frustrated Martha confronts Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Mary also shares her disappointment with Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

If God were a God of love, then God would answer every prayer how I think it ought to be answered, and when I think it ought to be answered. If God were a God of love, then every prayer for healing would result in a miraculous cure. If God were a God of love, then every time we humans got ourselves into a war, God would defeat our enemies and protect our land. Most of all, if God were a God of love, then I would never have to face death—at least until I was of an old age and ready to die on my terms.

In the cross of Jesus, we see a God of love. On the cross, Jesus shows us the cost of loving others and the cost of our forgiveness. On the cross, God has already shown us the way to live together in peace. Most of the time, we are not much interested. We gather each week to hear the Word of God proclaimed in the midst of our preoccupied lives because, in Jesus, God has shown you and me how to avoid the consequences of our sinfulness. The consequences of our sins are our fault, not God’s fault.

One of the hardest challenges of faith is simply trusting in God’s promises. Why does God not cure the cancer of little girls? Why does God not enable you and me to grow old without pain and loss? The Good News is not because God loves you, you will never suffer disappointment and disease in your life. The Good News is not because God loves, you will never face the death of someone you love, or your own untimely death. The Good News is that even as we face disease and disappointment and death, God is with us. In Jesus, we worship a God who cries with us at the graves of those whom we love. In Jesus, we worship a God who, on the cross, dies with us, rather than giving up on loving us. In Jesus, we worship a God who rose victorious over the power of our diseases and disappointments and deaths. All Jesus asks is that we trust his Easter promise, even when we cannot see beyond the mystery of suffering
and death.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. Do you
believe this?”

Amen.

John Joseph Santoro +