ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Sermon preached by the Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at High Mass at The Annunciation Marble Arch on the Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passion Sunday), 9th March 2008

Readings: Ezekiel 37. 1-14; Romans 8. 6-11; John 11. 1-45

I was born and brought up in London and have lived here on and off most of my life so I have been to this church from time to time in the past and what I like about it is that wherever you look there's something to see. If you get bored during the sermon (and let's face it who doesn't sometimes?!) you can allow your eye to wander and you can admire or contemplate the stained glass windows or the pictures or the statutes or even the sheer scale and sense of space of the building. This is a lovely piece of architecture.

I have the same feeling when I read St John's Gospel. It's very vivid. There's a lot of emotion. We are drawn into the lives of real people.

Let's think through this morning's gospel. Jesus comes to a place that is something of a refuge for him, Bethany, a couple of miles from Jerusalem. Here there are three people of whom he is very fond: Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Jesus is close to Mary because she anointed him, a sign of his vocation as the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. We're told that Jesus loved Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus.

Lazarus dies and is buried. The village turns out in mourning. Jesus arrives. There's speculation as there always is when there's a death. Is this life all there is? Or is there something else - call it 'rising again' or 'resurrection' or 'eternal life'? Something deep down inside of all of us seems to cry 'No' at the prospect that somehow we and our loved-ones may be finally extinguished; that this life has no eternal value.

Mary now meets Jesus at the tomb. She is crying. The crowd who catch up with her is crying. We Brits tend to be fairly undemonstrative. When we weep we tend to do it alone or if in public to be fairly discreet. Not so in Middle Eastern culture! I'm sure that we've all seen TV pictures of mass funerals in Israel and Palestine. The crowd makes its feelings known. Over twenty years ago I lived in South Africa and I was always blown away by African funerals. Sometimes there were thousands of people at them and sometimes there was a great deal of raw emotion. The sound of wailing and anguish could be overwhelming.

This communicates itself to Jesus. We are told that he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. The Greek words are very strong and one of them is used by classical writers to describe the snorting and whinnying of a horse. We have a sense of something very deep welling up inside Jesus. He goes to the tomb. He weeps. He groans. He commands that the tomb be opened. He's warned. There'll be a stench. After all Lazarus has been dead four days now. Decomposition would have set in. We all know what it smells like when something has gone off and once you have smelt a decomposed body you never forget it. It's deeply repelling. Jesus gives the command. The stone is rolled back and Lazarus emerges.

This is always a great story to act out with children. You get a volunteer to be Lazarus and every one binds him up with toilet roll paper. At the given moment 'Lazarus' emerges, thrashing about and shaking off the toilet paper. Come out, commands Jesus, come out!

So what might this resurrection story mean? Like so much of John's Gospel it's very hard to give a straightforward answer. This story doesn't reappear in Matthew, Mark or Luke. If we take it at face value (that Lazarus really was dead and then physically alive again) then where is he now? There's no two thousand year old man living somewhere called Lazarus. Lazarus may have 'died again' later as did Mary and Martha and as one day we all will. Death is a fact of life.

But what it means to me is about who Jesus was and is. Jesus was the most fully alive person who has ever lived. He wasn't afraid of his emotions as perhaps some of us especially we Brits who were told that 'big boys don't cry' and 'nice girls should always be polite and agree with everything that they're told'. And because of that many of us are brought up to ignore or resist or even suppress our emotions. We find that as we grow up we stop being ourselves and become the people that others turn us into. And if that happens we die. We die ahead of time. We don't cease breathing but we become 'dead men walking'. We stop being fully alive.

It was because Jesus was fully alive that he could express himself without fear or shame. He didn't care what people thought of him. He mixed with tax collectors and sinners. He was unafraid of Mary anointing him with expensive perfume while even his close followers like Judas were saying 'What a waste!' He wasn't embarrassed by Mary doing so very erotic a thing as drying his feet with her hair.

He wasn't afraid of people in unconventional relationships. Mary, Martha and Lazarus appear to be unmarried and living together as a family. That would have been very unusual two thousand years ago when there was a great deal of social pressure to get married and have children. Indeed it was in your own interest. With no pensions and no social welfare how were you to be looked after in old age if you didn't have a family to outlast you? There must have been some people in Bethany who would have looked at Mary, Martha and Lazarus and raised their eyebrows. Yet it is with them that Jesus has a second home.

Jesus is unafraid to show emotion. He groans. He's troubled. He cries. And he does all this in public. Why? Because he loves them. He loves them. And love is stronger than death. Love commands that the stone is rolled away. Love commands that the dead come to life. Love sets those imprisoned by fear free.

In this church Christ is worshipped. This is a glorious building that touches us with every sense. We see the windows and the pictures. We hear the singing. We smell the incense. We taste the bread and the wine as we share the Eucharist. We touch each other as we greet each other at the Peace.

So, are we as alive as this building? Are we becoming as alive as Christ? Are we enjoying not only life but life in all its fullness? Are there stones that need to be rolled away? Are there things buried in our past that need a dose of resurrection? If there are then turn; turn again; turn inside out. Expose what is dark to the light of Christ.

Take heart from your sisters and brothers who are here and have their own stories to tell of God's grace. Take Lazarus as your model. Leave the stench of death behind. Come out into the presence of Christ.

And then people will see us. They will see us alive. And they will ask: Where do they get this life? How come they're so colourful? And they'll want what we have. And they'll come. They'll come here and see what we see; praise what we praise; worship whom we worship - Jesus Christ, the Lord of life. Amen.