Traditionally, the six weeks leading
up to Easter are set aside as a time of preparation for the events of Holy Week
and Easter. In the Church, we call this
six-week period, Lent. Much of this
period of preparation focuses on repentance, confession, and penance. It is the season when, “We give up something
for Lent,” such as chocolate. I believe
that this Lenten period of critical self-assessment and penance is vitally
important for our spiritual health and for continued spiritual growth.
Yet, this Lenten preparation seems more focused on the events of Holy
Week, than on Easter. That is, the
Lenten preparation seems to focus more on Jesus’ crucifixion than on his resurrection. The penitent character of Lent reminds us
that on Good Friday it is our sins and shortcomings that nailed Jesus to the
Cross. While I believe that this penitent
character of Lent is vital spiritual preparation, I wonder: Is it enough? As important as all of the repentance,
confession, penance, and self-sacrifice of Lent are, I have begun to perceive they
are not fully adequate as preparation for Easter.
How do we fully prepare for
Easter and the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection? How do we prepare for our resurrection?
I believe that the story of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus (John 11: 1-45)
provides some important insights into how we should celebrate Easter and
prepare for our own resurrection. This
weekend (April 5th & 6th), we will explore this story in our worship
services.
Lazarus lived in Bethany, along with his two sisters, Mary and
Martha. All of them were close friends
with Jesus. As the story opens, Lazarus
has become seriously ill, and his sisters send word to Jesus, asking that he
come to Bethany and heal Lazarus. Jesus
purposively delays responding to their request, telling his disciples, “‘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.’” By
the time Jesus and his disciples arrive in Bethany, Lazarus has already been
dead for four days. Nevertheless, Jesus raises
Lazarus from the dead, as Lazarus walks out of the tomb, still draped in his
funeral clothes.
In this story, Jesus provides us
with three insights into preparing for our resurrection. The first two insights appear in his
conversation with Martha. Jesus
says: “‘Those who believe in me, even
though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will
never die.’” In this statement, Jesus
provides advice on how Christians should die and how we should live.
First, Christians can face the
prospect of their own mortality confident that, in Christ, death does not mark
the termination of our existence.
Instead, death marks a transformation, in which we will be transformed
into God’s New Creation at the end time.
My favorite metaphor for this promised transformation is the metamorphosis
process that caterpillars go through to become butterflies. Just as the hairy, nose-to-the-ground
caterpillar is dramatically transformed into the beautiful, soaring butterfly,
so also Christians can face death confident that God will transform us just as
dramatically into a New Creation.
The third insight from Jesus comes
just before he raises Lazarus from the dead.
Just before acting, Jesus pauses to pray. This prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving,
where Christ gives thanks for his relationship with the Creator. So, also, as resurrection people, we should constantly
live with thankful hearts for our relationship with God—a relationship which
nurtures and sustains us in this life and promises even more in the life to
come.
Come and join us this weekend, as we explore more deeply what it means
to prepare for Easter and for our resurrection.
Our church is located at the corner of Main and Dawson Streets in
Meriden, Kansas. We have two worship
services each weekend:
Ø Our
contemporary service starts at 6 pm on Saturday evenings.
Ø Our
classic service starts on at 10 am on Sunday mornings.
Everyone is welcome and accepted because God loves us all.
Two exegetical
notes about John 11:
1. The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the
dead is not a resurrection story. While
Lazarus is raised from the dead in the account, he lives out his biological
life and then dies again. By contrast,
Jesus' resurrection is not a temporary postponement of death. Instead Jesus' resurrection and the promise of
our own resurrection is ultimate victory over death, forever.
2. When Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has
already been dead four days. As Gail O’Day
points out in her commentary, “According to popular Jewish belief at the time
of Jesus, the soul hovered around the body in the grave for three days after
death, hoping to reenter the body. But
after the third day, when the soul ‘sees that the color of its face has changed,’
the soul leaves the body for good.”[1] The fact that Lazarus had already been dead
for four days indicates that he was really and truly dead—no mistake had been
made as to his death. For the
contemporary reader, this would rule out “near death experiences,” such as
described in Heaven Is for Real and Proof of Heaven.[2]
[1]
Gail O’Day, “John,” in The New
Interpreter’s Bible, volume 9 (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1996).
[2]
Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent, Heaven is for Real: A
Little boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010) and Eben Alexander, Proof
of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s
Journey into the Afterlife (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2012).
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