Sermon for Lent 5C

What A Waste!

Now, this is a happy scene if ever there was one: A feast, a celebration overflowing with joy in a home that just a few days before was filled with mourning and loss, doubt and despair.  It wasn’t long ago that Jesus’ friend Lazarus was dead and in the grave, and his sisters Mary and Martha were weeping and wondering why Jesus had not come when they had asked him to come, asking why God didn’t answer prayer.

But now, Jesus had turned Lazarus’ death into life and Mary and Martha’s mourning has turned to dancing; their sorrow has given way to joy. God, in Jesus, has done something new, something unimaginable. The event we hope for as our distant destiny in God – that is, the resurrection of the dead and the life in the world to come – had come to them in the present. Lazarus was raised from the dead. That’s something to celebrate. They gather and Jesus comes to be with them.

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