ALIVE, THANK GOD!
Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-3, 32-44; Matthew 28:1-10
March 27, 2005


Have you heard yet? Has anyone told you? Wake up! WAKE UP!

Breathless they were, those two, running all the way from Jerusalem, running two miles in the early morning to tell me, and my sister not far behind.

It was, it was not even an hour ago, just dawn then, that they’d gone, my sister Mary, I mean, and the other Mary from Magdala, they were up at first light—couldn’t sleep, is more like it—and went back to the tomb, his tomb. Just to be there, you know, because their hearts were breaking, like mine, only I’d been afraid to show myself in Jerusalem today. They’d threatened both of us, you know, and now they’ve killed him. I told her not to go, told her it would be dangerous, but she said she just had to.

And now, they’ve come running with a report that the tomb was open—even though we know that the Romans had posted a guard—and that Jesus wasn’t there. Mary said there was this bright shiny kind of person, she said, lit like a candle behind gauzy cloth, glowing and filling her with the strangest kind of peace and terror mixed into one.

“Don’t be afraid!� That’s what he said first, and then he told them that Jesus wasn’t there, that he was alive and had gone on to Galilee where he’d meet up with them, us, his followers. And then, when they had turned to run to the upper room, that sanctuary where the followers were hiding out, suddenly, they swear, he was there in front of them, saying, “Hello,� as though it was just any ordinary morning, as though we hadn’t watched—me from a distance—as they beat and killed him.

Well, I suppose you could ask, “What? You’re waking me up to hear the grief-crazy imaginings of two women?� But one of them was my sister, Mary, and you know she’s not an idle tales sort of woman. I mean, what other women do you know, besides my sisters Mary and Martha, who own their own land, run their own household, even support their own brother.

Yes, they’ve been supporting me, I’m sorry to have to tell you. I’d say, “But that’s another story,� only, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s all part of a bigger story. I wonder . . .

Please, listen to me. I need to figure this out, to try to understand what’s happening. It’s been so crazy, so mixed up, for a very long time. Or maybe, it’s me, it’s me who has been all mixed up.

I’ve thought of him as my best friend for years now. God, he was so beautiful. He’d stay with us, my sisters and me, whenever he’d come to Jerusalem. I loved it when he’d sit and talk with us all, even Mary, sitting there in the company of men, he’d sit with us and explain things.

It all seemed so clear when he talked, so convincing. “God loves us,� he’d say, “all of us, old and young, Jew and Samaritan, widow and poor man and leper and beggar. God’s realm is all around us, and we can be in it, we can live in it, right now.� He’d create this shining moment all around him, so that you could see it, you really could, what it would be like to live that way, to really believe that what the scriptures said were true.

He believed them, the prophets, like they had written for us, like they spoke to him. When he spoke in the synagogue, he made the words of Isaiah come alive. Do you remember the ones, I mean, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me. . .� He made it sound like it was true, that God had anointed him to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim release to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of God’s favor. He believed it and made it true. Now, in our time. And he was fearless.

Not like me. I couldn’t tell you all the things I’m afraid of—being noticed, being over-looked, losing my cover, having someone figure out who, or what, I really am. I’m afraid of talking in my sleep, of giving myself away, of living by myself, of what people say about me living with my sisters. I’m afraid, that’s the whole of it, I’m so afraid. It’s like living at the bottom of a deep and slimy-walled well. Sometimes, I think I might as well be dead.

No, that’s wrong. I did feel that way, up until—was it only such a short while ago? I don’t know what to tell you about how it felt. I wish I was good with words. If I said I felt like a tomb full of rot and maggots, a walking tomb, would that make any sense? If I said I couldn’t stand to see my reflection in a pot of water, that all I could think of was that I was like a smooth cloth thrown over dirt, unclean, full of lies, that really, I liked to hear him say that God loved us all, but I didn’t believe it. For all those others, sure, of course, but not me. God couldn’t love me. No one could, not if they really knew me. When he was here, I sat at his feet and dreamed of a new world. When he went away, when word came down that John had been murdered and Jesus fled out of Judea, I stayed here, and hated myself, too scared to go with him. I wished I was dead.

I didn’t eat or work or talk or help. Martha and Mary carried me along and I wormed, that’s a good word for it, I wormed further and further into my own dead self. They sent him word, my sisters did, telling him that I had fallen down a hole, was in a bottomless pit. And he came back. At the risk of his life, he came back for me.

What can I tell you about that time? I was so caught up in my own death dance that nothing else mattered to me. I was so far beyond anyone’s reach, so caught up in my own despair that I paid no attention to anything around me. They were there; he was there; what did it matter?

And then, you know, your Bible translation doesn’t really have the words for it. I heard it read, that he was “greatly disturbed and deeply moved.� Well, he was, but it leaves out the core of it, that he was angry, shaking, trembling, weeping, raging angry. “Lazarus!� he shouted, “Come out.�

Lazarus, come out. Come out of your tomb, out of your self-hatred, out of your despair. Lazarus, come out of your belief that God couldn’t possibly love you! Lazarus, stop hiding from life; Lazarus, come out!

I learned something that day. Dry bones can live again. There is really such a thing as resurrection, as being born into new life. Love is a two-way path. Jesus loved me; God loved me—that had been there all the time. But I had to respond. I had to believe it, all the way through. I had gone as deep as I could go into my black hole, into my despair, and love had found me there; found me and held me and called me out, out of my self-hatred, out into life.

It’s only been a few weeks ago. I’m still learning what it means to trust what Jesus said, that God loves me. And now, today, there is this news, that he lives. I saw him there on the cross. I saw them take him down . . .

I don’t understand what happened, any more than you do, I expect. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because I know what it is to live when I thought I was dead. And today, today, I’M NOT AFRAID ANY LONGER! I have a story to tell, my story, and it’s important. I’m Lazarus and I’m alive. Jesus loved me. He cared enough to call me out of my hiding and into life. He cares enough to find us, wherever we are. Death is not the end of the story, not his, not mine. I’m alive, thank God!

All those years I spent afraid to be who God had created me to be, they’re gone now. But in the years ahead, as many or as few as they may be, I will follow Jesus. I know he’ll be with me. I’ll tell others, tell them so that they can really believe it. You, whoever you are, old, young, Roman or Jew, disabled, healthy, male, female, rich or poor, gay or lesbian, straight or transgendered, whatever color or race, employed or not, successful or not, God loves you. Whoever you are, love each other. DON’T BE AFRAID! Don’t be afraid, because nothing, nothing in all the earth, nothing in life or death, nothing can keep us from God’s love. Believe it. I do.

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