Solidarity and Promise
(Free Version) The Fifth Sunday in Lent- Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
This week’s readings can be found here.
We are in the fifth Sunday of the season Lent, a desert season of learned dependence. One of the things I have become fascinated with is the spiritual discipline of solitude. Christians throughout history have practiced being alone. We see that Jesus often went off by himself to pray.
Henri Nouwen said that, in our world, we often think of solitude as privacy. Or, as merely a place “…where we can recharge our batteries, or as the corner of the boxing ring where our wounds are oiled, our muscles massaged, and our courage restored by fitting slogans. In short, we think of being alone as a place where we gather new strength to continue the ongoing competition in life.”
But the Christian idea of solitude is much different. Something happens when we are alone. We die to our old self. We come to grips with that “fight-or-flight” response, realize what is really at the core of who we are. And that’s scary! Nouwen says, “The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ.”1
Solitude is not an end in and of itself, but it forces us to come to grips with our real thoughts, who we truly are. And, when we do that, we understand more of our own limitations and on the greatness and goodness of the one who really brings life. Solitude leads us to live into the fullness of that life.
This week’s readings lead us to the place of nothingness and to the hope of resurrection. To observe Lent is not to forget about resurrection or to pretend it is not a thing until Easter Sunday. During Lent, we sit in the reality of pain. This is an opportunity to remind our congregations of the Church’s role of being present with people in pain. Related to this, it is an opportunity for us to acknowledge our own pain. What pain are you experiencing today? What loss, lack, fear are you facing? What are the “dry bones” in your life or in the world?
Ezekiel is faced with an Israel in ruins, nothing more than dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14). In order for resurrection to occur, there has to be a death. And it is God, by his speaking, who brings life from death. Resurrection does not avoid death, it comes through death. The image in Ezekiel’s vision hearkens back to the creation story, and, by the time of Jesus, is has also become a central text for Jewish belief in a future resurrection from the dead for all of God’s people. This text reminds us of our great hope on the other side of pain.
In our epistle reading (Romans 8:6-11), Paul contrasts the mind set on the flesh and the mind set on the Spirit. By flesh, Paul does not mean physicality itself (Paul would certainly affirm that God created a good world), but that which has been corrupted, and is fading. To set our minds on things which are temporary will lead to destruction. Christians are reminded of who we are: not people who are driven by temporary things, but people who are in-dwelt by the Spirit. Again, we have the hope of resurrection. If the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, dwells in you, you can hold firmly to the hope of resurrection. In the midst of pain, we can trust in a day when all will be made right.
In our gospel reading (John 11:1-45), we see Jesus in the midst of real pain: the pain that he experiences himself at the loss of his friend, the pain of Lazarus’ sisters, and his own pain. Jesus does the furthest thing from silence pain. We see in the protest of the sisters and the crowds, Jesus’ own weeping, and the sister’s call for Jesus to “come and see” where they have laid him, Jesus fully present in the pain of his friends. Remember that “come and see” is a common refrain for John, and it usually precedes revelation. It is in the place of death, of pain, of grief, not of denial and superficial platitudes, that Jesus calls out new life.
The world which we live in is messy, This Sunday we we are invited to say “come and see” to Jesus, to invite Him into the places of pain in our own lives and in the world. As we fully acknowledge the pain, the darkness, the world over which Jesus wept, only then are we able to see the promise…there is more to the story.
Just as God sometimes calls us to solitude, to the “nothingness,” God calls Ezekiel, asking him “Can these bones live?” Jesus asks Martha, “Do you believe?” Do we believe that God is still creating? That God is making beautiful things out of nothing? Do we believe that Jesus is who he says that he is? May we know God’s presence in the suffering and may we know the promise of resurrection.
Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).