As a hospital chaplain, when family members tell me that they’re “praying for a miracle”, this is usually the miracle they’re referring to

 

This miracle occurs at the pinnacle of Jesus’ ministry

 

demonstrating his close connection to, and unity with God

 

Jesus has been going around performing various miracles

 

From the wedding at Cana, turning water into wine

 

To healing many who were sick

 

To feeding five thousand people with a few loaves of bread and fish

 

To walking on water and calming the sea

 

To the miracle we heard just last week of restoring a man’s sight

 

Today we hear about Jesus performing the ultimate miracle

 

When Jesus brings Lazarus out of his grave,

 

Wrapped in cloth

 

After being dead for four days…

 

It is truly an incredible story

 

So incredible, it really messes with the logic and reason side of our brain

 

We don’t know where to put this story, as we wonder

 

“Did this really happen?!”       /         /         /

 

“Did this really happen?” is a fair question

 

Doubt is not the opposite of faith

 

Indifference is

 

Doubt is an indication of a true, and curious relationship

 

And we learn, week after week, about how relationship is the thing that God most desires from us

 

So, fresh from seminary studies, learning both Hebrew and Greek, delving into the historical, cultural and theological meanings of scripture, I’ll tell you…

 

Did this really happen?

 

I don’t know.

 

But… what I DO know, is that to focus on the logic and reason of this

 

And really ANY scripture story

 

Misses the depth, breadth, and beauty that scripture stories offer us

 

Instead of “Did this really happen?”

 

I prefer to focus on questions like

 

“What does this say about Jesus?”

 

“What do we learn about Jesus’ relationship with God…

 

and with others through this story?”

 

“What do we learn about the nature of God here?”

 

We read excerpts of the gospel each week, and it’s crucial to consider today’s passage in the midst of the arc of what’s happening in John’s gospel

 

Last week Jesus restored the blind man’s sight

 

On the holy day of the Sabbath

 

Which really got the attention of the religious leaders, the Pharisees, in the community

 

They really began to wonder how Jesus might be threatening their community as he challenged the rules of the Sabbath

 

Then Jesus goes and raises Lazarus

 

Which is THE public act that tips the religious leaders toward putting him to death

 

Today is the day

 

That religious leaders decide Jesus has gone too far,

 

He becomes a threat

 

To understand this threat, let’s consider a bit about how first century Jews thought about God and holiness

 

Jews maintained a strict purity system that protected God’s holiness

 

And this system was enforced by the religious leaders like the priests and Pharisees

 

Impurities like blood, some illnesses, and death

 

Were controlled, and there were regulations around handling these impurities appropriately

 

There were very clear boundaries in this Jewish culture

 

Between where God could be (places and times deemed holy)

 

And where God could not be (places and times deemed impure)

 

These boundaries served two purposes

 

One to ensure God’s continued presence in the Jewish temple

 

The other was to ensure the people’s access to God, or

 

To continue to be in relationship with God and one another

 

Basically, they didn’t want to get kicked out or force God to leave because of impurities

 

The book of Leviticus is filled with details about this

 

So throughout Jesus’ ministry, and especially today, Jesus has been threatening what the Jews believed about these boundaries and God

 

He’s been threatening what it means to be in relationship with God

 

Today, as Jesus faces the greatest impurity within the force of death

 

He challenges Jewish religious understanding on a new level

 

Focusing just on the raising of Lazarus is to miss an essential part of the story,

 

which is Jesus’ identity and how God is revealed through him

 

Jesus proclaims: “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.” (Jn 11:25)

 

This “I am” is a primary focus, and thread, of Jesus, throughout the gospel of John

 

Jesus’ declaration of “I am” is a statement of his connectedness to God

 

sharing fully in the power of God

 

And God revealing Godself through Jesus

 

As Christians, this might not sound as revolutionary is it did to Jewish believers in the first century

 

Because we believe in the Trinity

 

But for ancient Jews, God was in the temple, in the holy of holies,

 

with very limited access, with strict boundaries

 

But Jesus’ declaration “I am” shifts the Jewish perspective of God

 

From God as a static being

 

Toward God’s presence here, now, then, and there… everywhere and always

 

From God as separate from the impurities of life

 

Toward God reigning in the midst of those impurities…

 

Moving and flowing and changing lives

 

This moving and flowing is not controlled or contained

 

God cannot be threatened, even by the most impure and powerful force of death

 

But the power of God, through the person of Jesus, is breaking all of the “rules”

 

This threatened to shatter how the region of Judea, the communities of Bethany, and Jerusalem, understood how the world worked

 

We are not so unlike the Pharisees and people of Judea

 

We prefer logic and reason over the supernatural

 

We prefer boundaries, control and predictability

 

We think we all ready know and understand how the world – and God — work

 

So today Jesus challenges us as much as he challenges the people two thousand years ago

 

What if you don’t know?

 

What if God is so powerful that God remains connected to us always and through all things

 

Through hunger, thirst and injustice

 

Through sickness, pain and hurt

 

Through immobilizing fear and anxiety

 

Through rejection, isolation, and losing our way

 

Even through death

 

Jesus demonstrates today, and throughout his ministry, that NOTHING separates us from God

 

“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.” (Jn 11:25)

 

God’s power is always flowing, transforming, resurrecting US from the depths of our selves

 

And we are connected to this divine, supernatural power of God

 

If we allow it

 

If we are open to it

 

If we accept it

 

/         /         /

 

“Did this really happen?”

 

I don’t know

 

But the next time I pray for a miracle

 

Maybe I’ll think…

 

It’s all ready happened

 

Maybe I’ll realize…

 

God is with me still, even now

 

Maybe I’ll wonder…

 

What will God do with me next

 

Maybe I’ll believe

 

The divine can crash through what I think I know is possible

 

Maybe I’ll realize

 

What living really means

 

Amen.