Sunday Service 29 March 2020 (Lent 5)
Prayer of the Week
God of new life, we give you thanks and praise today.
As we gather virtually in your name this week, may we know your resurrection power in our lives.
May our spirits be renewed, and our bodies be restored.
Let the same spirit that brought Lazarus out of the grave, and raised you to new life,
dwell in each one of us today and all the days of our lives.
We thank you immensely:
for your constant presence, for holding us and comforting us;
for crying with us when we are hurting; for weeping with us when we are broken-hearted.
Thank you, Lord, that you never let us down, but constantly give us hope.
We are here to give you our praise and thanksgiving from deep within us.
Amen
Ezekiel 37: 1–14
The valley of dry bones
1 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me to and fro among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’
I said, ‘Sovereign Lord, you alone know.’
4 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”’
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.”’ 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.” 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.”’
NIV®
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
John 11: 1–44
The death of Lazarus
1 Now a man named Lazarus was ill. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay ill, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is ill.’
4 When he heard this, Jesus said, ‘This illness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.’ 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go back to Judea.’
8 ‘But Rabbi,’ they said, ‘a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?’
9 Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the day-time will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.’
11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.’
12 His disciples replied, ‘Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.’ 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14 So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’
16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’
Jesus comforts the sisters of Lazarus
17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 ‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.’
23 Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’
24 Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’
25 Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’
27 ‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied, ‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’
28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. ‘The Teacher is here,’ she said, ‘and is asking for you.’ 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked.
‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied.
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’
37 But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 ‘Take away the stone,’ he said.
‘But, Lord,’ said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days.’
40 Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.’
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out! 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth round his face.
Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go.’
NIV®
This is the Gospel of Christ.
Praise to Christ our light.
Chorale Prelude for Passion Sunday
Sermon
The Lord who unbinds us
Protective God, who gathers us under your wings like a mother hen gathers her chicks, speak to us under the comfort of your wings today and help to bring peace and order to our troubled minds and hearts in Jesus’ name
Amen
Every year, the Reader’s Digest prints many quite amusing items from the daily lives of ordinary people like you and me. I remember reading about a woman who was driving, and she saw an advertising board which read: Stand up and be counted for the 2011 Census. The sign had been hung at the entrance of a public cemetery. Another reader wrote in with a funny excuse he heard from a colleague in a factory where he worked. The man explained his absence from work by saying: Anyway, I’m having my autopsy [ootopsy], later today, but with any luck I’ll be in tomorrow. I don’t know what kind of medical procedure the man was having, though I suspect it was a biopsy, but few people are able to return to work the day after their autopsy. Perhaps Lazarus came back to work five or six days later, but there is no indication they did an autopsy on his body.
While reflecting on this week’s reading, I couldn’t help but identify with the sense of desperation in both readings. Like the children of Judah or Lazarus’s sisters, we are desperate for a miracle. Lazarus and his sisters were among Jesus’ closest friends. Jesus stayed in their home and ate meals with them whenever he was going to and from Jerusalem. So, when Lazarus fell ill and it became obvious that he was not improving, the sisters sent this urgent message to Jesus: ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’ When he heard this, Jesus said: surely this sickness will not end in death; God intends to glorify his son through this sickness.
Maybe this reading poses questions that, like me, you might have wrestled with over time and to which you have been keen to get some answers. For example: What was the nature of such a strong friendship between Jesus and Lazarus’s family? If they were such good friends, how come Lazarus was not among the twelve disciples of Jesus? If they were so close, why then does Jesus linger for two days when he learns that one of his best friends is sick, possibly to the point of death? Would any of us respond in such a manner if the family of our best friend summons us to his bed side? I hope not. A few years ago, when I was told that my best friend Keith had suffered a major heart attack, I cancelled my appointments and rushed to Cambridge to visit him and console the family. Jesus answers this last question, saying that the purpose of Lazarus’s illness was to show God’s glory. We might take his answer one step further to mean that Jesus lingered so that the Spirit could set Lazarus and all people free from death; not just physical death, but more importantly the symbolic death that exists inside each one of us in different ways. Jesus says to one of the sisters: I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus wants Martha, Mary, and all those present as well as you and me, to know that his presence is not so much to raise us from physical death, but to restore hope and free us from all that holds us back from experiencing the fullness of what God intended us to be. I find the words of Jesus at the end of our Gospel passage very powerful; he says: Unbind him and let him go. Jesus removed the shackles, the chains and the shroud of death that held Lazarus in its grip. This allowed Lazarus to experience freedom and renewal that can be yours and mine as well if only we allow the Lord to set us free.
We know very well that God has always been active on behalf of his people in releasing them from the bondage of life on this earth. We remember how God broke the shackles of the suffering children of Israel in Egypt through the ministry of his servant Moses. Later, God sent judges and prophets like Deborah, Esther, Samuel and Isaiah to guide the people to a better life and understanding of his way. Ezekiel, one of the major prophets of the Old Testament Scriptures, wrote to the Hebrews while they were in exile in Babylon. Held in captivity, they were suffering from a physical confinement and isolation from their homeland, (in much the same way as we are suffering exile from our churches), but the psychological imprisonment was probably greater. The people of Judah were desperate, and even found it difficult to worship the Lord, because they thought the Lord had been left in the temple in Jerusalem and the laments of Psalm 137 are clear evidence of this. The people of Judah and Jerusalem in captivity believed that God had abandoned them and that their fate might be like that of their northern neighbours, the kingdom of Israel, which had been overrun by the Assyrians and lost to history 150 years earlier in 722 bc. But Ezekiel, among others, tells the people that God will breathe life into the community once more. In a famous passage in chapter 37, the prophet speaks of God bringing life again to the Hebrews who are seen here metaphorically as a field of dry bones. As the dry bones come together, with sinews and flesh, and the breath of life is given to them, so will God bring life once more to the Hebrews and return them to their land. God will cut through the chains that hold his people captive in Babylon and return them to the land he had promised their forefathers right at the beginning of their walk with him. A new dawn was coming when they would experience abundant blessings and freedom.
God’s promise to rescue the Hebrew people from the land of Babylon and Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the dead in the Gospel reading demonstrate the faithfulness of God in unleashing us from all that binds us. All of us are prisoners of one institution or another. Many of us are held captive by the pursuit for wealth and all the trappings that riches can buy. We spend an awful lot of time keeping up with the Joneses and the Kardashians and, in the process, we become trapped in a never-ending rat race in the secular world we live in. Some of us are held in bondage and weighed down by ill health or an addiction suffered by a member of our family or friend. Millions are kept chained by poverty in so many third-world countries and they exist from day to day with little hope or none. Still others are chained by some situation which refuses to release them. Sometimes relationships with loved ones, people at work or with our neighbours are strained and we feel there is no way to mend the situation. Today, throughout the world we are held captive by the corona virus, and we are a church in exile. If we choose the easy way out and do nothing, the problem will not be solved, and we will remain prisoners in situations that cry for healing. Some other people may be prisoners of a past they cannot escape and may even falsely believe that no one cares. And there are times when we too make ourselves prisoners by our refusal to forgive others; we justify our anger thinking it will somehow punish the other person, but the truth is: such an attitude only hurts us and keeps us prisoners.
In the context of our chains and our prisons, there will be a certain sense of dying. Lazarus was caught in the trap of physical death and maybe other forms of death that the Gospel writer does not share with us. The children of Judah were victims of the death of despair, hopelessness and isolation. But, as God set them free, so too does he release us from all that chains us through the death of his son on the cross. All we need is to be open to His presence in our lives. And God is active in our world through his Spirit that guides and directs our every action. The walking dead and those held captive are all around us. They are with us in our homes and communities. And today in our virtual Cornerstone Church Jesus says to you and me: unbind them and let them go. Friends, we have been set free by a God who breaks the bonds of sin that hold us captive in this life and in turn he calls us to be bound to Him for ever and ever.
May his spirit unbind us from the coronas of our times.
Amen
Song: How Deep is the Father’s Love for Us
Intercessions by Martin Petchey
In the power of the Spirit, and in union with Christ, let us pray to the Father.
Today let us pray:
For all who are affected by coronavirus,
through illness or isolation or anxiety,
that they may find relief and recovery:
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
For those who are guiding our nation and our city at this time,
that they may make wise decisions:
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
For doctors, nurses and medical researchers,
that through their skill and insights
many will be restored to health:
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
For the vulnerable and the fearful,
for the gravely ill and the dying,
that they may know your comfort and peace:
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
For a blessing on our local community,
that our neighbourhoods may be places of trust and friendship,
where all are known and cared for:
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
In our local cycle of intercession, we are asked this Sunday to remember those with the wasting illness of Motor Neurone Disease.
Give fortitude and courage, O Lord, to those afflicted with this illness; give strength and patience for those who care for and love them, and bless the work of the Motor Neurone Disease Association in its work of supporting those affected.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
The Church at this time remembers John Donne, priest and poet. Let us thank God for the work of all writers and poets, as it offers us solace and inspiration in our isolation.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
And finally let us pray for ourselves and the whole church, remembering that as John’s Gospel tells us:
The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked.
John 20: 19
Ever present God,
be with us in our isolation,
be close to us in our distancing,
be healing in our sickness,
be joy in our sadness,
be light in our darkness,
be wisdom in our confusion,
be all that is familiar when all is unfamiliar,
that when the doors reopen
we may with the zeal of Pentecost
inhabit our communities
and speak of your goodness
to an emerging world.
Merciful Father,
Accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen
