Walls and Shenk

 Over the past few weeks, two of my missiological heroes have died.

Andrew Walls wrote several texts that I use regularly in my teaching. He developed the idea, for example, of Christianity as growing through serial expansion and Islam growing through progressive expansion (see the second essay in The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History). Christianity has moved around the world throughout its history, so that some one-time centres of Christian faith have become thoroughly de-Christianized. In contrast, Islam tends to take territory and hold it.

This insight rests on the fragility of the cross (as Walls terms it) and reminds us of the necessity of choice. As someone else has said, "The church is always one generation away from extinction."

The serial nature of the church also leads to a remarkably diverse and rich history, described in the first essay of The Missionary Movement in Christian History. Walls describes five centres of the faith down through the centuries -- from Jerusalem to Southern Europe (home to Greek  culture) to Ireland to England to Nigeria. The serial nature of the church also helps us to see the richness of the Persian and Eastern Church, so often ignored in the study of Christian history.

A final contribution (although I could name many more) from Walls' essays: He describes the indigenous principle and the pilgrim principle of being the church. The church and Christian faith are at home in every culture and in no culture. Our final home is with God; yet we are at home here in every culture. These two principles held in tension protect us from civil religion and imperialism on the one hand and from sectarian irrelevancy on the other.

I mentioned also Wilbert Shenk. Walls and Shenk knew each other well. Walls was Shenk's advisor in his doctoral studies, and together they edited a seminal book on "new religious movements", Exploring New Religious Movements: Essays in Honour of Harold W. Turner. (A harder book to find!) Which brings me to remember Shenk.

Wilbert Shenk was a leading Mennonite missiologist. When he taught at AMBS, he gave me my first experience teaching missions courses. He was involved in a Pew Grant-funded study of contemporary culture, which led to a series title "Christian Mission and Modern Culture". (I have used several of the resulting volumes in my own work.)

That experience at AMBS was my first step in teaching missions at Providence Theological Seminary (Manitoba) for the past 25 years. I am indebted to Shenk for his invitation and I learned much from him in our contacts over the years.

They are both gone now, and I am semi-retired. The faith in which they lived their lives sustains me, and the hope with which they lived has become sight and pure fact.

Life after Death: The bread and butter of Christian Faith

Today we begin a three-part series on death and dying. I begin this morning, and Lee will develop the theme further in parts two and three. We conclude on the afternoon of November 22 with another “foodless faspa”.

One might say that the purpose of Christian living – indeed, of human living – is to learn how to die. Everyone who has gone before has lived and died. All of us in our turn will complete our lives by dying. It is the Christian belief that the hard passage of death, which is sometimes felt as a curse, is in fact God’s great gift to us. Death is the door to eternity, with the offer that eternity is filled with God, what one songwriter has called “the land without tears”.

If this is the case, then in Paul’s words we “walk in the resurrection”. We live the way God wants us to live now, because resurrection life is already bubbling inside of us. We explore this foundational idea this morning through two Scripture passages and ask what it means for the way that we live.

Job 19

These verses from Job 19 are best known for the wonderful aria in Handel’s Messiah, “I know that my Redeemer liveth” – just after the Hallelujah chorus. They are interesting in that Job speaks them in the midst of complaints. This chapter begins with the words, “How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” Job is speaking here of his friends, who are not helpful in their efforts to explain what is happening, but just before the verses we read, he says, “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.” Then Job turns and a song of unlikely praise and hope breaks out: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

This is an affirmation of pure hope, but it is a hope that proves to be true. Within the Old Testament we find little about the afterlife; people did not think much about what we call “eternity”. Even in Jesus’ own time, when the Pharisees had begun to teach the reality of the resurrection, many still believed that after death there was only “the grave”, Sheol, a place where the dead are … well, dead. When faced with his own death, Job breaks out in assurance that somehow – even if his troubles kill him – he will be alive with God. God is his Redeemer.

1 Corinthians 15

Paul spells out the foundation of that hope in 1 Corinthians 15. The first eleven verses of the chapter provide a summary of basic Christian belief: Christ died for our sins; Christ was raised; Christ lives, and we can know him. In much of our preaching and Bible study, we emphasize the teachings and ministry of Jesus; Paul reminds us that his life and teaching rest on the foundation of his death and resurrection. Christ died, and Christ was raised: This is the beginning of our lives in Christ.

Verses 12 to 19 of our text make the point clearly. If there is no such thing as resurrection (as the Sadducees claimed in Judaism), then even Jesus was not raised. If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, our preaching and faith are useless. Everything hangs on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Without that, we are bound by the patterns and structures of sin, in which we live our lives. Paul puts it this way: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Verses 20 to 28 develop the point.

·         Christ has been raised from the dead

·         Everyone died in Adam’s sin; everyone rises in Christ’s resurrection

·         Christ wins the victory [over sin and death] first for himself, and then for all who belong to him

·         When Christ rules over every other authority and power in the universe, he will hand his authority over to the Father.

·         The last “enemy” to be defeated is death

·         The final two verses are complicated. I read them to mean: Christ’s final victory re-establishes perfect order in the world, in which God the Father reigns through God the Son and all people take their place in God’s “New Heaven and New Earth”.

 Bringing the Scripture into our Conversation

What does all of this have to do with us today? I know a Mennonite who is attending a Catholic Church. I asked him if he could become a Catholic. He replied, “The trouble is I would have to affirm that I believe the whole of the church’s doctrine, and I don’t think I can. As I Mennonite, I promise to do something, and I can do that!” I would disagree with him: Mennonites also “believe something”, but he is right that we emphasise Christian living over Christian believing.

That being the case, what does it mean for our daily lives to believe in the resurrection of Jesus? We will pursue this question more deeply in the Going Deeper time, but I give one consequence of this belief for us to consider.

We all live on the basis of what we believe is most important in life or fundamentally true. One of the best ways to find out what a person really believe is true is to consider what that person actually does. If someone says, “I believe that we should love everyone and help anybody who is in need when they are in need”, but we observe that person acting in a hateful way, exercising a destructive power over the person in need, then we can conclude that  their real belief is something different. By their actions, they have proclaimed, “I believe in using power to benefit myself before anyone else.”

What does a life lived in the truth of the resurrection look like – both the resurrection of Jesus and our own death and resurrection? In Romans 6, Paul writes:

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

We walk in newness of life. We walk in the resurrection. We have “died to sin”, and we live in his resurrection. Let me list some possible ways that we can “walk in the resurrection”.

·         People in our world live fearfully. We are taking measures to deal with the threat offered by Covid-19, including holding our Going Deeper class as a Zoom session this afternoon, instead of meeting in the sanctuary. We take proper precautions, but we know that God is “King of the universe”. A Zulu song we used to sing in Zimbabwe says, “Even though we walk in danger and evil on this earth, we are going to Heaven.” We do not need to be paralyzed by fear, whatever we face.

·         Unfettered individualism is a strong value for most people in Canada. Although we value our individual freedom and the equality that God has placed within us, we do not insist on our absolute right to do whatever we want to do. We recognize that we live in mutual submission as brothers and sisters, children of God. We do not rule over each other, but we do care deeply for each other.

·         Most people in North America believe in what peace teachers call “the myth of redemptive violence”. When one is attacked, the idea goes, a righteous person may respond with violence. It is wrong, they say, to attack other people first, but, like Popeye defending Olive Oyl, the good guy is justified in demolishing the bad guy. We follow the teachings of Jesus. As we “walk in the resurrection”, we recognize that we do not fear what may happen to us if we pursue peace. We can live for peace in everything that we do – in our families and in our jobs and in our nation and in our relationships. Another Zulu hymn says, “Peace in this world of sin: the blood of Jesus pours out peace.” Amen! As we sang earlier, “We are people of God’s peace as a new creation.” We live for peace and remember the peace of God on this Peace Sunday in Canada.

·         Many people are willing to cheat on a deal if it gives them an advantage, or to cut corners on a job if they can get away with it, or take something that they want without paying if no one is looking. We follow the teachings of Jesus. Our “yes” is yes, and our “no” is no. We do what is right when people are watching and when they are not. We walk in the resurrection.

 

In short, we live by the standards and values of God’s Reign, even while we are in this life. If the resurrection is real, if we have died to sin and live “in newness of life”, we look different than people around us. We act the way Jesus teaches us to act, filled with his Spirit.

 

The Personal Side

As I work on this sermon, I have been diagnosed with unstable angina. I feel the precariousness of human physical life. How does this message about the resurrection and life after death speak to me in my human frailty? I speak cautiously now. It is easy to say that God comforts us in our weakness. It is harder to face that weakness squarely.

 

Note how Job speaks. “My heart faints within me.” I know what he means! Note how Paul speaks. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” The problems and troubles of this world are real. Jesus warned his disciples just before his crucifixion, “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” Jesus was speaking especially about the persecution that they would face as his followers, but the truth applies more broadly.

 

I have referred several times to Zulu hymns. African hymnody often picks up the theme of the trouble we face in this world – “this world of trouble”, “this world of sin”, and so on. They have it right: Life is hard, and death is harder. Death would make us fear and turn against God if it could. Then we read the whole verse and we see, “in me you may have peace.” We hear Jesus, “take courage; I have conquered the world!” Death may be God’s enemy, but in the resurrection, Jesus brings us the death of death. We are enabled to walk in the resurrection, knowing that even death cannot finish us.

 

This is a great truth, and this is a hard truth. Death teaches us to rely on God. As someone said in our Going Deeper Time a few weeks ago, death forces us to rely on God. We cannot overcome death, but we can rest in God, who has conquered death. This is the reason that Paul says (1
Thessalonians 4: 13f): “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.” We grieve at death, but we know that Jesus rose from the dead and will bring us also with him at the end of time. We will rise with Jesus and live forever with Jesus.

 

Conclusion

This then is the hope of Christian living – that we live and die in Christ, so that we do not need to fear death. We can live in this life the way God wants us to, and when the end comes, we can die in Christ – and live forever.

 

I think of the words of another great hymn, “Abide with me”. This was written by a pastor who was near the end of his life. It is essentially his last words to his congregation.

1. Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
   When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
2. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
   Change and decay in all around I see—O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
3. I need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
   Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
4. I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
   Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
5. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
   Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

8 November 2020

Going Deeper Questions:

·         What does the resurrection of Jesus mean to you? Why is it important?

·         Mennonites have emphasised the importance of how we live, not just of what we believe. What difference does the resurrection of Jesus make in the way that we actually live day to day?

·         How do you feel about the fact that each of us will die? Paul calls death the last enemy to be defeated. If death is God’s enemy, how can we welcome death as a friend?

·         What are your favourite Scriptures that speak about death and dying?

 

Texts:

Job 19: 23-29

²³ “O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! ²⁴ O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!

²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; ²⁶ and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, ²⁷ whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me! ²⁸ If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him’; ²⁹ be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”

 

1 Corinthians 15: 12-28

¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; ¹⁴ and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. ¹⁷ If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. ²¹ For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²² for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

 

The Land Without Tears (Ralph Carmichael)

Thru the night of regret and sorrow flow my shameless tears

Lost from sight was that glad tomorrow, naught but wasted years.

In my weakness I knelt to pray

In his kindness I heard him say:

“I’ll take you safely across the way, across the way

Into the Land without tears. Without tears. Into a land without tears.”

 

Now I know he’ll walk beside me thru the darkest night,

As go, he’ll be there to guide me in the path that’s right.

When I come to the close of day, when he speaks I will hear him say,

“I’ll take you safely across the way, across the way 

Into the Land without tears. Without tears. Into a land without tears.”

The Death of Death

In 2002, Garfield Todd died. Todd was born in New Zealand in 1908. In 1932, he married Jean Grace Wilson, and two years later they left for Zimbabwe – then named Southern Rhodesia – as missionaries with the New Zealand Churches of Christ. They ministered at Dadaya Mission, about 180 km from Bulawayo, my hometown.

As a missionary, Todd took up residence in the country and became a farmer at Dadaya. In 1946, he was elected to the White government’s parliament, and in 1953, he became the Prime Minister of the country. As a missionary, he was well aware of the impossibility of long-term White rule in Zimbabwe, and he began a political process to bring the Black majority more fully into the White-dominated society. The White electorate rebelled against his efforts and voted him out of power in 1957.

By the time the Black majority took up an armed revolt against White rule, Todd had come to be known as one of their primary supporters among the White minority. Ian Smith led the last White government in Zimbabwe. In the 1960s, the government placed Todd under house arrest on his farm for his support of the Liberation War, and then they put him in prison in the 1970s.

When independent Zimbabwe came into being in 1980, the new government honoured Todd and appointed him as a member of the country’s Senate. Lois and I went to Zimbabwe in 1988, where I taught at the Theological College of Zimbabwe until 1992. Around 1990, Todd – by then retired – came and spoke in our chapel service. He was a compelling speaker, and I could see how he had been a charismatic and controversial leader. His Christian faith was clearly at the centre of his life, and I remember two basic statements from his message to us.

The first: He said to us, “When I came to Zimbabwe as a missionary in 1934, I knew I was in the Lord’s will. As I sat in prison in the 1970s, I wasn’t so sure!” The second: He talked to us about the raising of Lazarus, our text for today. He observed, “Jesus told them to roll away the stone. When they did, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. That is all Jesus ever asks us to do. He gives us a job within our powers, and we do it; and we leave the miracles to him.”

These are good words for us as we look at our texts. We do what God calls us to do, whether we see the outcome of our efforts or not, and we leave it to Jesus to raise the dead. With this thought in mind, we look together at two texts this morning, Psalm 130 and John 11.

Psalm 130

We began our Scripture reading this morning with Psalm 130. Short and powerful, a song of hope in a time of despair. The Psalmist acknowledges the trouble he faces: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!” The psalmist admits that none of us deserve God’s help: “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?” We participate in the troubles of this world, not just by experiencing them, but also by helping to cause them! I am reminded of the thief on the cross, admitting that he and his fellow thief deserved their fate, while Jesus did not. Alone of all people throughout history, Jesus can stand unafraid in the judgment.

The Psalmist then pivots to God’s mercy and forgiveness. In God’s love, the Psalmist finds hope:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.

The Psalmist calls on God’s people to trust in God:

O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with the Lord is great power to redeem. It is God who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

This brief Psalm, then, sets the stage for the story of Lazarus, so we turn to John 11.

John 11

In chapter 10, Jesus is in Perea, just beyond the Jordan River. In chapter 11, word comes to him that his friend, Lazarus, is ill. The text identifies Lazarus as Mary and Martha’s brother. They live in Bethany, about two days walk from where Jesus is with his disciples. We have heard the story before – Lazarus falls ill, Mary and Martha send for Jesus, Jesus delays his response so as to wait until after Lazarus dies.

When Jesus does arrive in Bethany, first Martha and then Mary tell him that Lazarus has died – and they appear to reproach him: “If you had been here, you could have healed him! He didn’t have to die.” Martha especially responds with a remarkable confession of faith: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” We are used to thinking of Martha as the one in Luke 10 who was so busy trying to serve Jesus that she had no time to “sit at his feet”. In that text, Jesus praises Mary for her choice. Here Martha shows her faith clearly, naming Jesus as the Messiah.

Both sisters show faith and grief in equal measure. When Jesus gets ready to go to the grave, he starts to weep. Not just “cry”, but weep. Verse 33 gives his state of mind: “he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” In the middle of his grief, Jesus also knows what he will do. He asks them to remove the stone that covered up the grave. After some resistance, they do so. Jesus assures Martha and Mary that God will receive glory from what happens, and prays aloud for the benefit of those watching, thanking his father (God) for hearing him.

Then Jesus calls, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man walks out, and Jesus tells those watching to free him from the clothes wrapped around him when they buried him. The climax of their dreadful loss was an awe-inspiring restoration of life. Lazarus lives!

Comment

There is so much in this passage to reflect on that I am confident you listening to this sermon hear many things in it that I will not say. That is good. I content myself with three basic observations, which I think are worth hearing in our own time of distress, as the corona virus pandemic dominates our thinking. The virus helps us to hear the passage with particular resonance, but we know that God’s presence in times of death and distress reaches far beyond any one situation. A friend of mine describes the present crisis as the greatest of our generation, comparable to the reality of two world wars in the first half of the last century. She may be correct, but as Lee reminded us several Sundays ago, the reality of the coronavirus outbreak does not change our reality. Instead, it shows us what is always true – that our lives are fragile and in God’s hands, and that we live each day as if it were truly “this world’s last night.”

1. With these background thoughts in mind, I notice first the way that Jesus responds to the news of his friend’s illness. He stays where he is, although the people who sent him the message want him to come immediately. Verses 5 to 7 read, “Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’” 

The disciples respond with surprise, suggesting that Judea is not a safe place for Jesus, and Jesus reminds them that Lazarus needs his help. One may wonder, if he knew that Lazarus needs help, why he did not go to Bethany right away. Jesus told them and tells us, “For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

Jesus waited in order to strengthen the disciples’ faith as they observe what follows. This is a truth we can hold on to: God often responds on a different timetable than we have. We want help now, and God provides help now, or later – or sometimes, not at all. We struggle to understand, and this account reminds us that our whole lives remain in God’s hands.

I hesitate to draw the conclusion from this account, as some do, that God has a reason for everything that happens to us. Often, what happens to us is the natural result of natural causes. The coronavirus outbreak is a case in point. We wonder why this is happening and we ask who is at fault. My own view is that the virus is the natural result of natural causes, just as outbreaks of plague in the history of Europe resulted from the sanitation conditions of their cities.

I don’t think God sends disease in general or this pandemic in  particular as a judgment, but I do suggest that God allows us to experience the results of our choices. In this context, the story of Lazarus reminds us that, even in the worst situations humans can bring about, God is still present and God is still ready to save. In the case of Lazarus, Jesus raised him from the dead, and that restoration of life was a sign of God’s readiness to save.

2. Second, when Jesus went to Bethany, he experienced the deep grief that people felt. He joined in fully and wept with them before he did anything about the situation. The verse, “Jesus wept” (in the KJV), is one of the most profound in Scripture. God is not somehow insulated from our hurt and distress, but in the person of God the Son, God enters into the depths of our own fear and despair and sits there with us. As Hebrews 2 puts it, we have a high priest who has felt all that we feel.

           

Sometimes we want an immediate response, when Jesus just wants to grieve with us and to be with us in our distress. In this time of Covid-19, we want God to fix what humans have done and end our distress; instead Jesus comes and sits with us and feels our fear and weeps his tears with our tears. We can comfort each other because we know God is here.

3. Third, we also know that God heals. Jesus brought Lazarus back to life, and Jesus is our “healer of every ill”. A parenthetical word about Lazarus: This was not a resurrection in the sense of Jesus’ victory over death. Lazarus came back to life only to die again; Jesus conquered death forever. Nevertheless, this miracle – the raising of Lazarus – points to the greater miracle that we celebrate at Easter, when Jesus enters death. This miracle points us to the death of death.

The fact that Lazarus’ renewal of life was not his final victory reminds us that God heals us through our distress, not necessarily by removing us from our distress. The life of Garfield Todd, whose story I told at the beginning, is instructive. He never did live to see the kind of majority rule in Zimbabwe for which he gave his life. He “rolled away the stone”, and Mugabe – whom he had befriended – turned bad. Todd spoke against Mugabe’s actions as he had spoken against Ian Smith, and he died disenfranchised at 94 years of age. Even at his death, with all going wrong around him, he maintained his hope and faith in Jesus, who conquers death.

Although God may not have caused the pandemic now sweeping our globe, God uses it to remind us of who we are and of who God is. Dennis Hiebert, my colleague from Providence, circulated an “imagined letter from Covid-19 to humans”, written this month by KristinFlyntz. In it, Kristin imagines the earth speaking to us. I suggest that actually God is speaking to us. Here are some excerpts from her thoughts, rewritten as a message from God.

An Imagined Letter from God to Humans

Stop. Just stop. It is no longer a request. It is a mandate. I will help you. … I will stop the planes, the trains, the schools, the malls, the meetings, the frenetic, furied rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you from hearing your single and shared beating heart …. Your obligation is to me and to each other, as it has always been, even if, even though, you have forgotten. I interrupt this broadcast … to bring you this long-breaking news: You are not well. None of you; you are all suffering. Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth did not give you pause. Nor the typhoons in Africa, China, Japan. Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India. You have not been listening.

It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time …. But the foundation is giving way, buckling under the weight of your needs and desires. I will help you. … I am your friend, your ally. … I am asking you: To stop, to be still, to listen …. Many are afraid now. Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you. Instead, let it speak to you—in your stillness, listen for its wisdom. …

Stop. Notice if you are resisting. Notice what you are resisting. Ask why.

Stop. Just stop. Be still. Listen. Ask me what I teach you about illness and healing, about what might be required so that all may be well. I will help you, if you listen.

- Kristin Flyntz, 12 March 2020. Adapted by Daryl Climenhaga 28 March 2020

Click here for Flyntz's original letter

Last Sunday, Lee reminded us that there is blessing in this time of distress. Today, I remind you that there is also life in this time. We hear reports of disease and distress, and we hear also of heroism and hope: There is life in this. We sit alone in our rooms and someone calls; as we talk, we realise that there is life in this time. We pray for loved ones far away, and we know that there is life in our relationships. We grieve for loved ones who have died, but even in death, there is the hope of resurrection; there is life even in death.

Jesus brought Lazarus back to life. During this Lenten season, we wait for God to restore us and all of God’s creation to health and wholeness. Jesus is the death of death, and in the darkness of these days, we wait for his light to shine in us forever.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

29 March 2020

Extinguishing the Light (at the close of the sermon)
Each Sunday throughout Lent and into Easter, we will extinguish one candle with the following words to remind us about the meaning of this season.

We have come together this morning, gathered as God’s people, proclaiming God’s Word and now the time of response and stillness is upon us. This season of Lent is about journeys of the heart and remembering that God is in each and every one of us, quietly transforming us and the world. So, I invite you to close your eyes. Be still. Listen. For this is a holy time. (PAUSE) The Lenten candles have been lit but over these weeks the light will slowly fade into darkness. For we are retelling the story of Jesus’ betrayal and suffering and death. As we extinguish one light we acknowledge the darkness, pain and injustice in the world, and we proclaim that even through the darkness that God is revealed: as death becomes new life, as endings are transformed into beginnings, and as dead-ends become a source for new possibilities.

Psalm 130

Waiting for Divine Redemption

A Song of Ascents.

¹ Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. ² Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!

³ If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? ⁴ But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.

⁵ I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; ⁶ my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. ⁸ It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

John 11: 1-45:

The Death of Lazarus

11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. ³ So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” ⁴ But when Jesus heard it, he said, “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.” ⁵ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, ⁶ after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

⁷ Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” ⁸ The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” ⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. ¹⁰ But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” ¹¹ After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” ¹² The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” ¹³ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. ¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵ For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus the Resurrection and the Life

¹⁷ When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, ¹⁹ and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Jesus Weeps

²⁸ When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” ²⁹ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴ He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Jesus began to weep. ³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life

³⁸ Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

⁴⁵ Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.