Weird, Wonderful, and Ever-Saving

John 11

I hope that you have experienced God at work in your life—experienced Him as weird, wonderful, and ever-saving. Weird might sound like a very odd word for me to use…but our Lord does work in mysterious ways. This would seem especially true in the story of the death of his friend Lazarus. Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus has died. Their words to Jesus when He finally gets there seem full of despair…if you had been here, he would not have died. Lazarus was dead and the only man who could have made a difference had not been there in time for the burial. Jesus shows up when His friend had been dead for 4 days! From this you would have to conclude that God does work in some weird and mysterious ways. Mary and Martha have every right to be upset that Jesus did not come sooner, yet they hold out hope when they say “Lord, Come and See.” Haven’t we said those same words to the Lord when we have been in the midst of something that we cannot understand or fix in our own lives---or maybe in the world? Come and See, Lord….

And quite often, as it was with Lazarus, there is an awful stench to those messes where it seems there is no way out. And then notice the reaction of our loving savior: greatly disturbed in spirit, deeply moved, with tears flowing down his face.

Jesus comes on the fourth day. In the end, His reasoning turns out to be both wonderful and ever-saving. There was a Jewish superstition that a person’s spirit hung around the body for three days in case there was some kind of hope for resuscitation. After three days all hope was gone.

Jesus comes on the fourth day. He comes to show that all hope is gone, except for the hope that only He can give. And on that fourth day, showing power over death, Jesus wonderfully, ever savingly calls Lazarus out of the tomb. Lazarus, Come out!!! The dead man comes out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in cloth. Jesus says to them, “unbind him and let him go.”

No one could have seen this coming…weird, wonderful and ever-saving.

Hopefully you have experienced a time in your life that was weird and wonderful when you could say, “Only God could have done this thing!”

God saves but not only in the way we expect or not in a way like we would make it happen. Jesus comes on the fourth day.

There was one result of this weird and wonderful saving of Lazarus that was totally unforeseen by Mary and Martha. Jesus’ coming resulted in His own death. He was a wanted man already; raising Lazarus made him become a marked man. This was Jesus’ last miracle before the week of His passion and death; the miracle stirred up the ire of the authorities. Jesus gives Lazarus life at the cost of His own life. Jesus dies so that Lazarus can live. He is the God who gives His own life in exchange for ours.

Our Lord is a Lord of resurrection and of life. WE are His people and therefore we are people of resurrection who have Christ at the very core of our being. Christ went to the cross for each of us and the cross takes sin and death very seriously, lays it low and then meets us on the other side. Our faith — weird, wonderful and saving faith — knows that on the other side of sin and death — any kind of death — is life. God’s love — powerful and abiding — meets us on both sides.

Because Christ died, we are freed from death to live as creatures with God’s love as the center of our very existence. Pretty weird and wonderful and always-saving.

We are already living as God’s children but also “not yet” living because there is something much better that awaits us.

This weird, wonderful and ever saving grace is seen in our Holy Communion where we share in the not yet of God’s future kingdom. We are given a foretaste of the feast to come when we will sit with all the saints and hear Jesus speak those words of institution:

This is my body given for you

This cup is the new covenant in my blood shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sins

We live in the shadow of the cross. We live with firm faith in the resurrection. And that is what creates deep purpose in our lives and gives substance to the lives that we live. We know that the cross and Jesus’ resurrection is why Jesus became human. God offered the world unconditional mercy and hope when he gave us his son. It is weird, wonderful, and ever saving.

We know that the story does not end with catastrophe. Jesus has trampled death under his feet.

And as we remember the faithful ones whom we have lost in our lives we also have to remember that they die not, but like Lazarus, they are now unbound and let go.