Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8: 6-11; John 11: 1-45
A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, April 6, 2014.
“GOD’S UNLIMITED POWER”
(Homily texts: Ezekiel 37:1–14 & John 11: 1–45)
When I was
a teenager, my parents bought a new/used car, a 1957 Buick Special. (OK, I am showing my age!) This car was red on the top and white on the
bottom, and it came into our family when it was three years old. My dad had some reservations about buying it,
because he thought it looked too snazzy.
But those
reservations were overcome, and the Tucker family took possession of this
really neat-looking car.
One day,
dad and I were going somewhere, and he looked over at me and said, “Let’s see
what this thing will do.” With that, he
put his foot down on the accelerator and the car took off, thanks to that big
V-8 engine.[1]
We were traveling down a four lane, divided highway, with stoplights here and there. Fortunately, there were no lights on the
stretch we were on, and no cross traffic got in our way, either. The car went faster and faster. The scenery began to whiz by. I thought to myself, “What if we get pulled
over? I’m sure my dad will go to jail. Then what will I do, since I can’t drive? Will someone call my mother to come get us?”
Those
momentary concerns evaporated when my dad looked over at me and said, “110.” “Pretty fast car, huh?” he added.
We began to
slow down, for which I was thankful.
After all, we could have been pulled over. For another, we could have had a wreck (no
seat belts in those days!). Fortunately, neither one of those things happened.
Though that
memorable experience lasted only a minute or two, the memories linger these
many years later.
Dad and I
found out just how powerful that old Buick was.
We knew, from that day forward, just what it could do. (Fortunately, dad never drove that car –or
any other one - that fast again, and had a clean driving record until the day
he died.)
What my dad
did isn’t advisable. I don’t recommend
that any of us try it.
But what
drove my dad to find out how powerful that old car was illustrates something
that each of us does day in and day out:
We have to find out what capabilities the things we use have. For example, we need to know if the cleaning
soap we are using has the power to dissolve the grease on the pan we’re trying
to clean. That would be just one example
of our need to know how powerful something is.
Knowing that an item we are using can do what we need it to do is an
important part of everyday living.
Jesus’
disciples needed to know what Jesus’ power could do. After all, they would be the ones who would
go out into the world, telling the world what Jesus had done, and could
do. They worked miracles – much as Jesus
did – as they proclaimed the Good News of what God had done in sending Jesus to
earth.
Which
brings us to today’s gospel text.
In today’s
gospel text, Jesus demonstrates the power of God that brought His friend
Lazarus back to life. And what we see is
that Jesus’ power is unlimited. It is a
power than can conquer even death.
As we look
at the text, we see clearly that God the Father’s power is the source of new
life for Lazarus. Jesus looks up to
heaven and prays, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said
this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you
sent me.”
With that,
Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out.” And the
man who had been dead for four days rose from the dead and came out of the
tomb.
Consider
the circumstances of Lazarus’ death: He
had been dead for four days. By Jewish
belief in those days, after three days, Lazarus’ spirit would have departed
from his body, for there would be no further hope of being reunited with his
body. Moreover, his sister Martha
confirms that he has been dead long enough for decomposition to begin.
Lazarus was
dead, completely and totally dead. Yet,
now, he comes to life again. God’s power
to create and to recreate conquers the obstacle of death, that ultimate
reality.
Many who
witnessed this miracle needed to see Jesus in action. They needed to see God’s power at work, and
to know that Jesus has the power to make the glory of God known.
Certainly,
as John tells us, many of the Jews who saw Lazarus come out of the tomb needed
to see this sign that God’s power was resident in Jesus. John tells us that many came to believe in
Him as a result of this miracle.
Mary and
Martha also needed to see the power of God, for Martha’s response to the Lord’s
question, “Do you believe this (that Jesus is the resurrection and the life)?”
seems to indicate that she believed that the dead would rise again on the last
and final day. But she wasn’t able to
grasp the fact that God’s power to bring new life out of death was an
experience that she would come to know in her present-day life.
And, most
of all, the disciples needed to see the extent of Jesus’ power over death, for
it will not be long before Jesus will, Himself, die and be buried. The disciples’ reaction was one of fear as
the Lord was laid in the tomb. Perhaps,
at that awful moment when the Lord was taken down from the cross, they couldn’t
remember what He had done for Lazarus.
But on Easter Sunday morning, they will see the dead come back to
life. This time, it will be Jesus who is
the one who comes out of the tomb.
God’s power
over death is complete, for those who died on a Roman cross were really,
completely and totally dead. And yet, as
Jesus rises from the tomb on Easter Sunday morning and new life begins, the
power of God’s glory stands in contrast to the depths of total and complete
death.
What God
has done in bringing Jesus Christ back from the dead is a saving act that God
had done, time and again, for His people.
We read the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of the
dry bones. As Ezekiel watches, these
dead bones come back together again, and new life emerges as the breath of God
enters the bones and the flesh that has come upon them. The meaning of Ezekiel’s vision is
clear: God will bring His people back
from exile in Babylon, from the depths of despair and destruction, back into
the land that had been promised to them.
New life would begin as God’s people came back from the land of death
into the promised land of new life.
God’s power
to create and to recreate is available to us today. New life can spring from the depths of
despair and death. Those things that
separate us from the God loves us can be overcome, and a new relationship with
God can begin. New hope arises, for God
has the ultimate power to bring into any situation.
We stand in
need of understanding, as Martha came to understand, that God’s power isn’t a
pie-in-the-sky, someday-long-in-the-future sort of power. God’s power is here-and-now, available to us
day-by-day. What Martha came to see is
what we also need to come to see, that God can bring new life into any
circumstance and into any situation, not only in the life of the world to come,
but in everyday life, as well.
Thanks be
to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or
imagine. (Ephesians 3: 20)
AMEN.
[1] For the car savvy among us, that 1957 Buick
was equipped with a 364 CID V-8, which was a high compression engine (10.0 to 1
compression ratio), requiring high octane gasoline. It had a four barrel carburetor sitting on atop
that big engine, and was equipped with a Dynaflow automatic transmission. That power train had no trouble at all
pushing the 4,000 pounds’ weight of that car down the road.
