SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Bob Moore.
SPEAKER_01: We begin with the salutation.
SPEAKER_01: Preach, Coach, Anesti, Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is written.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord written to me.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_01: Let us say together, Almighty God, you all hear to work.
unknown: All heart alone.
unknown: And from the most part, let us talk to our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
unknown: That we may perfect love.
SPEAKER_01: This is the prayer to collect our thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_01: Almighty God, who truly to know is everlasting life, grant us so perfectly to know your Son, Jesus Christ, to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Through Jesus Christ, your Son of our Lord, to live and reign with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: At this point, there is a godly place.
SPEAKER_01: I think.
SPEAKER_01: And those who wish to go to godly place, this is the time to believe in the back.
SPEAKER_01: We all have to gather together.
SPEAKER_03: And then the sisters and brothers immediately when they arrived.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed be God and the Father of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, who in great mercy has engendered and birthed for us in the living home, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and unfaith, kept in heaven and for you all, who in the power of God are kept through faith or salvation ready to be revealed in the end of time.
SPEAKER_03: In this you rejoice, even when necessary, for you to suffer various trials, in order that the examination of your faith, more precious than gold, which, although perishable, is tested by fire, may be found in you praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ has revealed.
SPEAKER_03: You have not seen him, yet you love him.
SPEAKER_03: You do not see him, yet you believe in him, and rejoice with a joy glorious and beyond words.
SPEAKER_03: You are receiving the completion of your faith, the salvation of your souls, the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus arrived in Bethany, he found that for four days Lazarus had already been in the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.
SPEAKER_01: So many of the Judeans had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
SPEAKER_01: When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she met him.
SPEAKER_01: However, Mary remained at the house.
SPEAKER_01: Martha said to Jesus, Rabbi, if you had been here, my brother would never have died.
SPEAKER_01: Yet even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise.
SPEAKER_01: Martha said to him, I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_01: The one who believes in me even though they die, they will live.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
SPEAKER_01: Do you believe this?
SPEAKER_01: She said to him, Yes, Rabbi, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who comes into the world.
SPEAKER_01: This is the gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Allow us to see Him, to believe in Him, in the midst of the world in we live, in the community that we share, in the life that we love.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Please be taking.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's the fifth Sunday of Easter, so it's the 36th day, and I know everybody's been counting up to 36.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's as far as I can count.
SPEAKER_01: But I do know that we're halfway through what we call Easter, and we've been hearing hallelujah, Christ has risen for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: But in our readings today, it's an evolution.
SPEAKER_01: It's an evolution from Acts, where Paul is in Thessalonica, that northeast part of Greece, and he's saying it was necessary that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, should suffer and rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul proclaimed Jesus the Messiah, and he showed how it was necessary.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't do a whole lot of stuff until it's necessary, like wash the dishes or clean the house, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: But it was necessary.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's an important word.
SPEAKER_01: He showed the people in Thessalonica in the synagogue in that area that it was necessary, that it was part of God's plan that it was going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: So that was, you know, like 49 or 50.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't say common era because I didn't grow up that way.
SPEAKER_01: I say anodomene, the year of our Lord, just like 2026.
SPEAKER_01: This is the year of the Lord, 2026.
SPEAKER_01: Common era is okay and it's inclusive, but it's not how I feel.
SPEAKER_01: So, and our our next lesson is Peter.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and Peter really is talking in a different time.
SPEAKER_01: He's a little bit later, just like Paul was in Thessalonica about 50.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter's maybe 10 years later, and he's talking to a bunch of people that never saw Jesus and yet they still believe.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not the synagogue where Peter is.
SPEAKER_01: It's in a faith community.
SPEAKER_01: And he doesn't call Jesus necessarily the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: He calls him the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's a new thought.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's nice to know that not only is Jesus the anointed one, but he's the one who came to redeem us, to buy us back with his life and death and resurrection.
unknown: And I think that's a good transition.
SPEAKER_01: Someone loves you enough to die for you and rise again.
SPEAKER_01: That's a little bit different.
SPEAKER_01: John and his gospel, I think of John in a totally different way than I think of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew, Mark, and Luke for me have the reason Jesus was arrested and suffered and crucified because he, what we call Pompe Sunday, entered into Jerusalem triumphantly on a cult, went eventually into the outer court, and tossed all the money changers and tables and let the animals loot, and it ruined their economy, and the Jewish authorities had the Romans arrested.
SPEAKER_01: John doesn't see that at all.
SPEAKER_01: John says, this chapter 11, which we only read a part of it, about Lazarus dying and being raised again, that for John is the whole reason and point of his gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Right there, I and the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_01: That is for John the whole thing in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_01: Very clear, very short, very specific.
SPEAKER_01: One of what I love to call the seven I am.
SPEAKER_01: I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_01: I am the light of the world.
SPEAKER_01: I am the door.
SPEAKER_01: I am the good shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: I am the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: I am the true life.
SPEAKER_01: But those statements, nobody else has those, but they associate, at least I do, with the Bernie Bush, Moses, and God, and the angel saying, I am who I am.
SPEAKER_01: I am the resurrection, and I am the life.
SPEAKER_01: Those who believe in me will never die.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we know that's a whole question of open.
SPEAKER_01: We'll all die.
SPEAKER_01: But if you take the life and be closeness or associating with God and not separating, that might work.
SPEAKER_01: Now we get a partial story today.
SPEAKER_01: We don't get the whole 11th chapter of John's gospel, which I think would be good.
SPEAKER_01: If we did, I'd like to read it in parts.
SPEAKER_01: Would Martha have it apart, Jesus having a part, and people coming in?
SPEAKER_01: But Lazarus is the brother of Martha and Mary.
SPEAKER_01: And I guess he's the older brother.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But the boss is Martha.
SPEAKER_01: Martha's the boss, she's the older sister of Mary.
SPEAKER_01: And with Luke's gospel, not John's, but Luke's has a whole different story.
SPEAKER_01: Luke's gospel has where Martha and Mary were entertaining in the house of Jesus, his disciples, and his followers, and Martha was working like a dog in the kitchen, and Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet listening.
SPEAKER_01: And Martha got upset and said, Jesus, tell her to get in the kitchen with me and help me out.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, Oh, Mary's doing a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's Luke's version.
SPEAKER_01: And I like Luke for his empathy, and because I always think that Luke was an Episcopalian.
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, at least that's my first rector, Charlie Brighton Frank.
SPEAKER_01: We only studied the Gospel of Luke in confirmation class because he said Luke was an Episcopalian.
SPEAKER_01: If you know the Gospel of Luke, you know everything about the church you need to know.
SPEAKER_01: But that was him.
SPEAKER_01: But John has a different story.
SPEAKER_01: John really focuses on Martha rather than Mary.
SPEAKER_01: And Martha and Mary send Jesus a note, and he delays, and when he gets to Bethany, he has to cross, because he's on the east side of the Jordan River, and he has to cross to the west side, but whatever.
SPEAKER_01: He's four days after Lazarus has already been buried.
SPEAKER_01: He's four days dead, four days in the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: And Martha and Mary are what they call sitting Shiva.
SPEAKER_01: And Shiva is just a word for seven.
SPEAKER_01: So you've got seven days where you're sitting Shiva.
unknown: And I don't know everything about Shiva, but I know you turn the furniture around so you have to sit on the floor.
unknown: And I know you take off your shoes, so you're not so welched to wear shoes.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't wear fancy clothes.
SPEAKER_01: And you may not bathe too much.
SPEAKER_01: But you have lots of people, your friends, your family, your neighbors, anybody around, they come to the house and they are with you.
SPEAKER_01: So you're not alone with you.
SPEAKER_01: So we're in the middle, four days after Lazarus is a grave, in Shiva, in that great morning period.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lighter morning period, which is 30 days after that, which.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus comes to Bethany.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where he is.
SPEAKER_01: He could be at the outer gates of the city, but he's not in the house.
SPEAKER_01: And Martha gets up to go to see him.
SPEAKER_01: Now she is wearing raggedy clothes, she hasn't bathed, and she's not wearing shoes.
SPEAKER_01: But she's determined to go and see Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And what he'd say to him, she said, if you had been here, my brother would never have died.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty confrontational.
SPEAKER_01: That's right in his face.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a good question.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's basically what the question is that we have when somebody who we are very close to and we love greatly passes on.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: We say, why the heck did it happen?
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus said, well, he will rise again.
SPEAKER_01: But Martha is, at least John portrays her as being very orthodox and very smart.
SPEAKER_01: She said, I know that he will rise on the last day.
SPEAKER_01: And that that was the tradition, you know, at the end of the age, with the new age coming in, then the graves will open and the dead will rise.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is saying, no, it's right now.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's the important thing about Easter.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about Easter being 50 days, but Easter is always right now, because we are Easter people.
SPEAKER_01: We are people who believe in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that Christ died and rose again for us, so that we may have life and have it abundantly.
SPEAKER_01: So it's a great dialogue.
SPEAKER_01: And the summary and crux that is clear and short is I am the resurrection and I am the life.
SPEAKER_01: That is the whole essence that John puts in a short way.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that Martha is one of those people that really has those questions because she understands.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, half the time I don't understand what the heck is going on, I don't know, and yet she believes.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where it comes in with that lesson that we have from the epistle from 1 Peter, where he said, you who have not seen and yet believed.
SPEAKER_01: You who have not seen and yet love him.
SPEAKER_01: So there is something that she passed along to the others.
SPEAKER_01: And this is John's lesson.
SPEAKER_01: It's maybe 90 or 100 years on Odomity, but it's the time and the evolution.
SPEAKER_01: So Easter is gone from it was necessary for the Messiah to die and rise again.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is our Redeemer, and Jesus is the resurrection and the life right now from each of us.
SPEAKER_01: Very crucial.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to just put in something about that Psalm that we read.
SPEAKER_01: That Psalm 63 is very special to me.
SPEAKER_01: When I was in college, I had a verse 3 and 4, and put it in a frame, and it's in red.
SPEAKER_01: And I just love it.
SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't have anything to do with I want something, or I need something, or I'm praying for somebody else, and so I'm going to.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that this is the evolution, even though it's Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And it goes like this because your faithful love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, I bless you by name as long as I live.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I lift up my hands.
SPEAKER_01: The fifth Sunday of Easter that we celebrate today is we lift up our hands in God's name.
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about that, and you know, one of the strange things the clergy do is we raise our hands like that.
SPEAKER_01: It's called an Aran's position.
SPEAKER_01: And I think we do that because that's what, for me, is I'm lifting up my hand in God's name every time we celebrate the Eucharist together.
SPEAKER_01: On this day, Martha, the heroine for me of chapter 11 of John, not only confronted Jesus, but she understood that redemption and resurrection is now.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Our service continues on page three with an IC3.
SPEAKER_01: When you find your place, please stand and we will recite our way.