1. Good Morning. Let’s Pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Today we’re going to reflect upon two ways of living and there really are only two!
Let’s look at our Scripture readings to get a solid context for our reflections these two ways of living shall we?
All of our readings for this Sunday reveal our inability to raise ourselves out of the deaths that often terrify us. In all of our readings today God is the primary operator the Prime Mover, if you will.
In the passage from Ezekiel, it is God who promises to open the graves of the people; the people are revealed as fundamentally helpless to do anything.
In our Psalm reading we hear the psalmist crying to God from out of the depths of his pain and helplessness.
Psa. 130:1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD; 2 O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
And listen once again to our repeated affirmation:
“With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.”
In our Epistle reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome we hear him acknowledging our fateful propensity to sin, but then Paul reminds us that it’s the Spirit of God which transforms death into life.
And finally in our Gospel reading, it’s Jesus who calls Lazarus out of the grave and returns him to life.
We can see that God doesn’t leave us to languish in our various deaths. Instead, God offers us new life. All of this is accomplished through the mercy and compassion of God.
It’s St. Paul who ties all of these reflections together for me when he wrote that there are two ways of living:
Live according to the flesh or
Live according to the Spirit.
The way of the flesh is our way. The way of the Spirit is God’s way and can be lived out only through the gracious intervention of God Himself! The Spirit is God’s gift to us!
He put it this way:
Rom. 8:8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9 You who follow Christ however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
So there are fundamentally two ways of living:
. . . according to the flesh or
or . . . according to the Spirit
What does that really mean do you think?
To find our answer please turn with me to our Gospel reading John chapter 11 beginning at verse 3: Remember that Lazarus is very sick . . . .
John 11:3 So the Martha and Mary sent word to Jesus, “Master, the one you love so very much is sick.” 4 When Jesus got the message, he said, “This sickness is not fatal. How did Jesus know that? Remember last Sunday – Jesus knew that the man who was blind from birth wasn’t blind because he was being punished but rather that his blindness would be used to bring glory to God – when he was healed. Jesus clearly knows things that no ordinary person would not know.
Let’s keep reading : 4. When Jesus got the message, he said, “This sickness isn’t fatal. It will become an occasion to show God’s glory by glorifying God’s Son.” 5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 but oddly, when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed on where he was for two more days. 7 After the two days, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.” Now jump forward with me to verse 17:
John 11:17 When Jesus finally got there, he found Lazarus already four days dead. Now remember what Jesus had said, “This sickness isn’t fatal.”
Lazarus was dead – that’s sound pretty fatal to me don’t you think?
So what are Jesus’ disciples thinking I wonder about this time?????
20 Martha heard Jesus was coming and went out to meet him. Mary remained in the house. 21 Martha said, “Master, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Even now, I know that whatever you ask God he will give you.” 23 Jesus said, “Your brother will be raised up.” 24 Martha replied, “I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time.” 25 “You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. 26 And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Master. All along I have believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world.” Now jump forward with me to verse 33:
John 11:33 When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him. (e˙mbrima¿omai, also e˙mbrimo/omai – It cam mean to scold or to censure. It can also mean to feel strongly about) Reading on:
34 Jesus said, “Where did you put him?”“Master, come and see,” they said. 35 Now Jesus wept. 36 The Jews said, “Look how deeply he loved him.” 37 Others among them said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man.” 38 Then Jesus, the anger or very very strong emotion again welling up within him, arrived at the tomb. It was a simple cave in the hillside with a slab of stone laid against it. 39 Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” The sister of the dead man, Martha, said, “Master, by this time there’s a stench. He’s been dead four days!” 40 Jesus looked her in the eye. “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 Then, to the others, “Go ahead, take away the stone.” They removed the stone. Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and prayed, “Father, I’m grateful that you have listened to me. 42 I know you always do listen, but on account of this crowd standing here I’ve spoken so that they might believe that you sent me.” 43 Then he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 And he came out, wrapped from head to toe, and with a kerchief over his face. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him loose.”
John 11:45 That was a turnaround for many of the Jews who were with Mary. They saw what Jesus did, and believed in him.
Now there’s something you should understand - Jesus was in safe territory when in Samaria on the other side of the Jordan but when he crossed the Jordan and travelled to Bethany which was a small town almost in the back yard of Jesus avowed enemies – the Jewish religious establishment – He was walking to His death!
Was He walking according to the flesh or according to the Spirit?
Jesus’ raising of Lazarus is really the climax of his public life in the Fourth Gospel. This miracle is the last straw, as far as the authorities were concerned and this lead immediately into the plot to arrest him and have Him killed! (11:47-53).
So it is critical to understand that when Jesus leaves the Samaria – the safe country, where he was when the news of Lazarus’ illness was brought to him and enters Judea to give life to his friend, He puts his own life at mortal risk.
Thomas certainly knew this because when Jesus decided finally to go to Bethany his sarcastic response was:
John 11:16 . . . “Come along. We might as well die with him.”
Thomas knew that they were walking into the open mouth of their mortal enemies.
In the end, as we know, Jesus gave life to Lazarus at the cost of his own for He was soon to be captured, tortured and crucified.
John the Evangelist who wrote this book clearly wants us to go through the terrible Passion of Jesus, during Holy Week -just one week away, saying to ourselves,
“This is all because of his love for Lazarus and all because of his love for me!”
So what is all of this fundamentally telling us?
There are two ways of living:
To live according to the flesh which leads to death and eternal perdition!
Or to live according to the spirit which leads to life and life everlasting!
This is really the question as we face Holy Week! It’s really the most important question of our lives!
How shall you and I determine to live our lives as soon as leave this sanctuary?
Will our way of living ultimately lead to life or death?
Most of us in this sanctuary have made that decision or we think we have.
We’re Christians! We follow Christ!!!
But do we – do we really follow in His footsteps?
If we do - we will walk towards Jerusalem! Towards the Cross!
Matt. 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
A self-denying life is the way of the Spirit – the way to life – the way of God!
but,
a self-asserting life is the way of the flesh – the way to death – the way of the Devil!
The way of love leads each of us to the foot of the Cross – then it leads us to look up into the eyes of the One who loves us more than His own life and it finally leads us to adore Him and to surrender our lives – our very lives - into His loving embrace.
Take my life my Lord for where You go I will go!
Next Sunday – April 17 - is Palm Sunday – the beginning of Holy Week.
As we have been approaching Holy Week this year we have attuned ourselves to our self-asserting tendencies. This is what the Season of Lent is really all about.
Some of us have done a good job of allowing God to scour our character weaknesses from our souls while others of us could have done a better job. That’s the nature of human beings – some of us work hard at becoming better imitators of our God while others of us don’t seem to do much at all.
Some of us are preparing for an eternity of life with our Lord while others of us don’t seem to be doing much at all.
Some of us will lean-in to experience the rich spiritual feast of Holy Week while others of us won’t seem to be doing much at all.
The wonder of our Lord is that He is delighted with those of us who attend to Him in love but His infinite love never ceases to get the attention of those of us who don’t really seem to care that much about Him at all!
You see Easter is really a story about the extent of God’s love for all of us – His lost sheep – those who follow Him in love and those who don’t. His eyes look upon us all with infinite love.
Will you and I be one of those who will look for Him this week and next? Or will we not?
The choice is always our – to live the life of the spirit or to live the life of the flesh.
You see “our heart is where our treasure is.” Put another way – “we become what we love and attend to.”
Where is your attention as we approach Palm Sunday and Holy Week?
Is it’s focus on your wants and desires – your flesh?
Or is it really on our Blessed Lord – If it’s constantly upon Him that you will be what you love – more and more like Him!
Your life tells anyone who wants to know where your heart is.
Let us become better and better Icons of Christ so that people can look through us and see Him!
Let’s pray . . .
