Leaning Into Lent | Week 4 | Gospel Lesson (3-20-26)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Hey everybody, it's Friday. Welcome back. Um today we're talking through a gospel lesson as we continue our journey through Lent and through a lectionary text that guide us through uh the Old Testament lesson on Monday, the New Testament lesson on Wednesday, the gospel text here on Friday. We've had different pastors joining us um throughout the Lent for a whole week. And uh we're so thankful that we've had uh Pastor Reverend Michael Precht with us today. Um and I'm grateful for our friendship. He and I serve together at Dauphin Way. He's a pastor of Fair Hope United Methodist Church. And so thank you for finishing out this week with us, Michael.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Thrilled to be here, especially for the passage that we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Well, good. It is quite the passage. It is one you've likely heard before. I'm not gonna read it in its entirety, it is 45 verses. So I'm gonna do my best to provide a bit of a summary. If I leave out anything on the summary, I'm sure we'll cover it in our conversation. But this is where uh Lazarus dies and was raised from the dead by Jesus. It's a very theologically rich text. Um, there's so much going on here, but it begins um with uh Lazarus at Bethany, the brother of Mary and uh Martha. He was sick, and uh someone poured perfume on him and tried to you know anoint him, but his sister sent word to Jesus, the one you love is sick. When he heard this, Jesus said, the sickness will not end in death, um, which was weird because it seemed to have done just that. Uh Jesus loved Martha and her sister Lizar, Mary and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard Lazarus was sick, he stayed away for two more days, and then he said, Let us go back to Judea. Um but the people were afraid, his friends were like, Let's not go there because they tried to stone you. Remember last time? And he said, Aren't there twelve hours in a day? Those who walk in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by the world's light. If a person walks at night, they will stumble because they have no light. After this, he went on to tell them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I need to go there to wake him up. But his disciples didn't really understand. They're like, if he's asleep, then just like let him wake up. And so he went, he said, it says, He hold them plainly, Lazarus is dead. Um, and so for your sake, I'm glad I was not there. Um, and so that you may believe. Let us go to him. So then they go on there, they uh uh arrive in Bethany, and on their arrival, Jesus found that that he'd already been in the tomb for four days, um, even though Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them after they lost their brother. Uh, when they heard that Jesus Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, and Mary stayed at home. She said, If you had been here, my brother would not have died. Um, but I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. And Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. And so uh Martha said, Well, I know he's gonna rise again in the resurrection. And Jesus said, No, no, no, I am the resurrection and I'm the life, the one who believes in me will live, even though they die. Um and she said, uh that and and he asked, Do you believe this? And Martha said, Yes, I believe that you're the Messiah, the Son of God. And so after she said this, she went back to tell Mary, and he said, Mary, the teacher's asking for you. Uh Mary came back with Jesus and she's like, Why would you take so long? If you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. Jesus saw her weeping, and then all the Jews came along, they were also weeping, and then Jesus wept. I don't know if you ever heard that verse before. Sure it's from the Bible. Then the Jews said to her, See how much he loved him. So then Jesus goes, he's deeply moved, he goes to the tomb, he says, Take away this stone. And uh he said, Actually, they shouldn't do that. It's gonna be stinky in there, he's been dead for four days, and said, Didn't I tell you if you believe, you'll see? And then it happened. They rolled away the stone, Jesus told him to come on out, and Lazarus was alive again. He said, Take off the grave clothes and let him go. So uh, and then it ends actually. Therefore, many of the Jews who come to visit Mary had seen what Jesus did and believed in him. So I probably skipped over some stuff. Maybe I took too long trying to explain it. I basically read it without reading it.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

You read every verse except for the one that really struck me when it's reading.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

So well then you can uh you can bring it to an engine. Right. What really struck you about this passage, Michael?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Uh the overall um tone that struck me is how in control Jesus is in throughout this passage. You know, at the very beginning, um he gets the news that Lazarus is sick and he just makes the choice. Like, I'm not going. I'm not going now. Two days. That'll be a good time. You know he just has this sense of timing, and he's not going to be rushed by anybody else's worries. He's not going to be kept away by his disciples' fears. He's going to do exactly what he intends to do, exactly when he intends to do it. And you see that through different uh parts of the passage. And to my mind, it kind of comes to a culmination in verse 42 that he skipped over, um, where Jesus prays before Lazarus' grave and says, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. I am saying this for the benefit of the people standing here, so that they may believe you may hear me. I mean, there's this sense, I'm like, he is in total control of his prayer life, and he knows when to pray out loud, and he knows what the people around him know. And he's kind of like, Father, I'm talking to you out loud, not because I have to, but because they need to see me do it. There is this sense that is common in the Gospel of John of Jesus is the master of every moment and and always knows what's going on. And then as a coda to that, there's a tension there because in this passage where he's so totally in control, there is the moment when he sees Martha and Mary in their grief, and we are told that he was greatly disturbed, that his insides are turned over, and it's not like everything else we see in this passage. And most of what we see in the Gospel of John. And so that tension is what surprises me and what what really holds me when I read this.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

For me, it was what you brought up at the end there about him being greatly disturbed. I mean, that's that's powerful language. It didn't just say like, oh, he felt bad for her, or he was kind of upset or something. He was greatly disturbed, and I think that it what compassion that Jesus had. And you know, he's greatly disturbed even though he knows I'm gonna raise him from the dead. We're not gonna be sad that long. But he I I love that he takes this time to weep with them and to grieve with them and to be disturbed.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And that doesn't stop him from just being totally shredded to by his grief.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Yeah, and joining with them in that grief, even though you know he knows.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Maybe. Um that's kind of what I like about this text, this Jesus Webb text, just like that one verse, is that it doesn't explain the exact why he is like we can infer and we have these, and that's kind of what I love about doing biblical interpretation, right? Is that I can I go can go along with what y'all are saying 100%, and like that sounds right. It could be he's just like he's he's crying because he's they don't get it, right? Maybe he's crying is like, how many times I have to show you, how many times I have to prove it. Y'all, I mean, I I I I've done everything, might as well just do the the most unfamiliar. I'm just bringing back from the dead. Like the crying, it could be because he loves Lazarus, it could be because he's sad about Mary Martha being sad, it could be because they just don't, he's just fed up with it. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 7:30

Yeah, he's tired.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Regardless of the reason, though, it is so human. It is so Jesus being one of us. And so, yes, he's grieving with them. Yes, he is alongside, and it is our our Trinitarian belief language through and through that, like whatever we experience, Jesus experiences, and we don't know exactly the why. There's lots of really good possibilities, and all of them could be plausible, but at the end of the day, he did it. He like he as in command as he was, he he still kind of has a full emotional experience. Um, as far as some context around this, obviously there's some foreshadowing in this text comparing the raising of Lazarus to the raising of Jesus and thinking about how those um two stories go together. If you read on, though, this is the part of the story in John where it's like the line of demarcation. This is the moment in the story where the Pharisees, then the leader of the Jewish, just be like, nope, gotta kill that dude, right? So it's even says right after that, that's when the plot to kill Jesus began. Um, some of them went to the Pharisees and told them, and the chief priests and they called him a Sanhedrin, and they're like, All right, we gotta do something about this guy. So it wasn't the walking on the water, it wasn't the feeding of thousands of people, it wasn't uh uh all these miracles of healings. It's once he showed that he is truly the person who has power over life and death, which should be an ironic thing, like, oh wait, he can raise people from the dead, which probably killed that guy. Yeah, before we yeah, but it's just ironic, but yeah, this is so it's important to remember like this is the turning point in John. This is when the gospel moves from Jesus' life and ministry to journeying towards the cross. Anything else as far as uh context for this or any other things that just kind of uh that surround the text you want to point out before we kind of go into our reflections? I did find a uh interpretive, so I use the revival, I mean I use a feasting on the word commentary, it's one of my favorites for when I'm doing preaching and I'm looking for some extra nuggets of wisdom. Um, and it pointed out that when we have the word love here, um, look how much he loved him. You would think that it's agape because that's the love that's often ascribed to Jesus, but it's philia and it's brotherly, and it's like a relation. Like it shows the depth of the relationship between Jesus and Lazarus. And it was as he loved him. It wasn't just kind of the how God loves all of us. Like he was actually really close to Lazarus. Like it was actually a I mean, he fight crimes his friend died, but like you know, it's gonna bring it back with all the things.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I would be remiss if I didn't mention because it came up at a Bible study I was teaching last night uh in John 1, one of the Actually it was like a couple weeks ago, but you know, whatever. Um uh uh person in the Bible study pointed something out to me that I had never considered before, um, which is that when um when Martha says to Jesus in verse 27, Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God who has come into the world. Anytime you have in any of the gospels someone identifying Jesus and naming him as the Messiah, the Son of God, um, those are decisive moments, um, whether it's Caesarea Philippi or the centurion at the cross. And in John, at this turning point, we have that kind of confession coming from a woman. Um, and we know Martha and Mary's role as um is is highlighted at different times, sitting at Jesus' feet as a disciple. Um, but it's worth noting that this is one of those special moments when someone names who Jesus is, and in this case, uh that confession comes from Martha. And uh Bethany at the beginning of this is described uh as the village of Mary and Martha.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Lazarus is from that place. I have that long to Mary.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

It's always yeah, their prominence is there. Um whatever love Jesus had for Lazarus, he also had this deep relationship with Mary and Martha.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Well, and I I love how this is where we get some of uh our our best language. I I think that the United Methodist liturgy for the service, death, and resurrection is some of the best liturgy in the world. Um, some of the best words that you can speak into any situation comes to you in that service. Um, and in it, uh it says, I am the resurrection and the life. Uh the one who believes in me, even though they die, yet shall they live. And that's how we begin this service of death and resurrection, is reminding people that Jesus has conquered death. Like not only does he raise Lazarus from the dead, but there will be another resurrection of the dead, and all those of us who mourn whenever we lose somebody have this hope that this will happen for us too. Not only for us personally, but for those who we love. Like that we will see at some point the resurrection because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and those who believe in him, even though they die yet shall they live. If you have not read that liturgy, go do so. And the next time you go to a funeral, um, just sit there and just listen to how profound those words are for all of us. What else from this text? Um, from this story of Lizarus.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Anything for as far as our practical applications where you want to add this into your life? How would you preach this or some nuggets that you want to uh offer up and share that we haven't already gone over?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah, as I was I was reading this, I couldn't help thinking back to uh a funeral I recently did, my grandmother's funeral. And as I was preparing to preach it, um, a lot of my family were asking, are you gonna be able to do this? You know, and and as I was preparing the sermon, I am weeping and asking myself, are you gonna be able to do this? Which is not a thing I usually uh have as a concern. And um the way I got through it was by just not looking at any of my family. And I I I told him ahead of time, I said, Mom, dad, Jennifer, my wife, um, no, I'm not gonna make eye contact with you at all in this service, because if I do, I am undone. And so all that's in the back of my mind when I read that part where Jesus, where we're told that uh when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who'd come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. And troubled has a lot of ambiguity. The moved in spirit makes it feel a little less ambiguous to me. Um but all of that moves me to consider a God who is sovereign, um, who knows the how the end of the story goes, um, knows the day of resurrection is coming, and because God is eternal, that day is already there for God, right? God already lives in that moment. Um and we might have in our minds that that makes God kind of unmoved or impassive because nothing's gonna change the end of the story. Um it means so much to me to think that God is undone, not because he doesn't know where it's going, but because he sees the grief on our faces. Um and I think that says something about our prayer life. Um, those moments when we don't know what to pray, um, when we don't know what to ask for. Uh the Psalms certainly give us plenty of precedent for just spilling it to God anyway, and believing that by making our emotion and our need visible to God, that moves God in some way. And um that is what God is responding to. It's not that God doesn't know how it's going, God, every moment is present to God. Um, God's seen the end, has been there already, but God looks at our face and sees our hurt, our joy, all of our emotions and is moved by that and to think that anything I feel, anything that Woods feels would move God in that way, um transforms how I pray.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

I relate to that so much because I, you know, I grew up around a lot of people who prayed very well and very eloquently, and I thought that you had to pray that way, and and if I didn't, then I'd be like, oh, oh, that's not a good prayer. Um, but some of my most like impactful moments with God and some of the times where I felt the spirit most present in my life is like if I'm in the car and I've had a horrible day and I just start crying and telling God just what I'm feeling. No, no fancy words or no rhyme or reason, just letting it out. And that's those are powerful prayers. Like you were saying saying, like God sees God sees you and sees what you're going through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Well, I think that's a good place for us to end it this week as we prepare for Sunday, as we uh get ready to hear these texts again and to um read over them together. I hope that you'll be with us for worship on Sunday. And I thank uh Michael for being with us. Um, thank you, Pastor Michael, great for uh joining us in this conversation this week. Um, we love you, we appreciate your ministry and all that you're able to do here uh as we get a you know partner in Baldwin County here on the Eastern Shore.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Thanks for uh making the the Methodist name in Baldwin County all the all the better. I'm happy to ride the coattails of y'all's reputation and really like talking Bible with y'all anytime.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Well, good deal. Let me say a prayer as we end our week. Guy, I thank you so much for the connections that we have, for the friends that we make in ministry and in life, um, who help us to uh just to learn more, um, to discover things we didn't know, uh, to be able to uh challenge and push us. Um, we thank you for that your word allows for us to investigate our fate in a way that makes it become even more alive. Um, we ask that you continue uh journey alongside of us during this Lint as we uh come towards uh the cross and remember all that happened there on that holy week. Um may we always keep our attention on you. Sing your son and pray. Amen.