Br. James Koester The Fifth Sunday in Lent John 11:1-45 You can’t walk there anymore. One morning, on my first visit to Jerusalem, nearly 30 years ago, I walked from East Jerusalem, where I was staying, over the Mount of Olives and on into Bethany. I was going to visit the tomb of Lazarus and the home of Mary and Martha. A few years later that walk was impossible. The security wall had been constructed, separating Bethany from Jerusalem. Now, the only way between the two communities is to drive several miles out of your way, through various checkpoints, and then loop back on the other side of the Mount. What took a couple of hours to walk, now takes a couple of hours to drive. What had been a pleasant walk there and back, has become a frustrating all-day drive. It is that walk I remember. Once I got off the main road, I mostly had the way to myself. When I arrived at the tomb of Lazarus, I had it all to myself. I could sit there quietly and feel the emotion that was so evident in the place, as I heard in my heart the weeping of those gathered there that day long ago. It was just 6 months after my father had died, and my own grief was still fresh. As I sat there with my grief, I remembered Jesus’ grief for his beloved friend. John (11:35) tells us that “Jesus wept.”[1] I did not, that day, find his tears hard to imagine, as my own were just below the surface. Clearly the crowds noticed. See how he loved him! the crowds whispered among themselves. See how I loved him, as I thought of my own father. Tears can be signs of many things: love, loss, disappointment, frustration, even anger and rage. We have all shed tears for many reasons. I certainly have. Jesus’ tears on this day were a manifestation of his very real love, and we are told that, in the gospel: “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5), so his tears should not surprise us. These three were clearly precious to Jesus, and it showed, and he wept. He wept, not simply because someone had died. He wept because someone precious to him had died. Imagine that! Imagine God weeping when someone precious to the heart of God dies. Yet weep God does, because as Isaiah (43:4) reminds us, “[we] are precious in [God’s] sight” . . . and God loves us. This is the good news of the gospel, that we are all precious in the sight of God who loves us, not in a general way, but in a particular way; in the way that Jesus loved Lazarus. Imagine that! Jesus loves you in the same way he loved Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus. And if that is true for you, it is true for every single person alive today, for every single person who has ever lived, and for every single person who will live in the future. Every single person is precious and loved by God, no matter what. You are precious in my sight . . . and I love you. That being the case, I find it impossible to reconcile some of the things we have heard recently, with what Scripture tells us. Last September at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, Donald Trump stated, “I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.” Yesterday he said, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” in a social media post about Robert Mueller’s death. Two weeks ago, Pete Hegseth promised to “rain death and destruction from the sky” on the people of Iran. Two days ago, he asked that we all pray “every day on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ” for members of the armed forces, whose task it has become to rain destruction on Iran from the sky. To date between 3,000 and 4,000 people, mostly civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed in Iran, Lebanon, and Israel as the promised destruction has rained down upon them. How any of this reflects the Christian values this administration purports to uphold, is beyond me. How we as faithful Christians, in whose name this evil is being said and done, can respond, is however something entirely different. That is not beyond me. So, what can our response be to this culture of hate and death in which we are entombed? First, we can weep. Jesus was not ashamed of his tears, and nor should we be of ours. We need to give ourselves permission to shed tears of frustration, grief, repentance, and even rage. But mostly, we need to shed tears of love for the world which God loves, for “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17). Our tears can be our prayer. Second, we can love. Jesus did not stop loving because Lazarus had died. Indeed, it seems he loved him more, so much so that the crowds noticed. See how he loved him, they said. Our love should not be limited to what we can control, and God knows there seems to be no control today, when a war can be begun simply because someone had a gut feeling. As Christians we are called to love until our hands are bleeding, and our knees aching, even when we have been betrayed. Our love, even in the face of evil and betrayal, can be our prayer. Finally, we can act. “Unbind him, and let him go” (John 11:44). The world is in the grip of death and hate. The burial shroud immobilizes us. The stench of decay lingers in our nostrils. Yet all is not lost. Into this Jesus cries out, unbind them, and let them go. So it is with us. Just as Lazarus needed to be unbound by others from the trappings of death, so too does our world. Any action, great or small, that loosens death’s grip on the world, can be our prayer, and allow us to emerge once again unrestrained and free, from the tomb. Our action to unbind can be our prayer. And it all begins with the simple recognition that you are precious in God’s sight, and that God loves you, just as Jesus still loves Lazarus. If we know this, death and hate will loosen its grip on your heart, your life, and the world. And that friends is good news, and will one day, lead us out of the tomb in which we find ourselves today.   [1] AV/KJV; “Jesus began to weep” (NRSV).