Sermon : Lent 5

SERMON- Reverend David Paton Williams
22nd March 2026
Romans 8.6–11
John 11.1–45

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​The readings today have the same, deceptively simple message - God gives life to the dead.
 
However they are not really about life after physical death, but life before death. They're about God giving life to those who are physically alive but not much more than that.
 
In the 6th century BC, the Babylonian empire invaded the Kingdom of Judah - capturing Jerusalem, destroying the Temple, and either killing or taking into exile, most of the leading citizens. And its during those years of exile that Ezekiel is called by God to speak a message of hope.  
 
These are people who are alive but who feel they are just going through the motions. Because their sense aliveness, 
of who they are and what life is about,
is deeply bound up with being a nation, a community. 
And this seems well and truly dead, obliterated, 
wiped off the map. In present day terms, think Tibet.
 
To them, Ezekiel offers an extraordinary, barely believable, vision of hope. He speaks of the wind of God, the breath of God - the same word as Spirit - reforming, reviving them, breathing life back into them. 
There is clear echo here of Genesis - God giving life to the dust of the earth by breathing life into humans and animals.
 
The exiles are physically alive but not alive in the way God wanted them to be - alive to hope, alive to joy, 
alive to being a community that worshipped and served 
and witnessed to the God of all creation.
But that - says Ezekiel - is about to change. God is going to put the flesh of real, full, communal life on the bare bones of their existence. A people who were dead will be alive again. 
 
And this became real in the ministry of Jesus. So many people who met him, listened to him, were touched by him, followed him, found themselves slowly, or suddenly coming alive again. 
 
And he illustrated that in one of his best known stories 
- the prodigal Son, where the father is able to say - 
this Son of mine was dead and is alive again.
 
And those who discover the love of God in Jesus discover 
the same thing, that he takes these old dry bones of our lives and - slowly or suddenly - makes them live again, 
takes our cracked voices and helps them sing again, 
takes our battered hearts and helps them love again.
 
And this is what the story of the raising of Lazarus is about. 
In John it is the last of the great signs of Jesus' ministry. 
These signs were like acted parables where the important question wasn't so much "what happened" as "what did it mean"?
 
And the meaning for John is that these signs point to something deeper about who Jesus is."I am the resurrection and the life." Here in this person, says John, the great "I am" of God is present - the one in whom there is the sort of light and life that darkness and death can never extinguish.
 
And although the story illustrates this by bringing Lazarus back to physical life again, it is about far more than that. 
 
It is about the sorts of things we are going to sing about in a few minutes:
About the one who frees the captives,
who turns darkness into light, 
who drives out demons
who makes the desert blossom 
and quenches our thirst.
All of which are poetic images for bringing us,
our communities and our world back to life again. 
Setting us and others free to be more alive in the way God wants.
 
As if to underline the point, the climax of the Lazarus story isn't when he steps out of the tomb - physically alive again; it's when Jesus says "Unbind him and let him go."
It's not physical life that matters most (though that's a wonderful thing in itself) but being free of the things 
that hinder us from living better and loving better.
 
I can't think of anyone who puts this better than Dawna Markova, who wrote:
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I chose to inhabit my days
to allow my living to make me less afraid, more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes
a wing, a torch, a promise.
What binds us? What leads us to live an unlived life? Dawna suggests that it is our fears.
There will be other answers, I'm sure, but for me fear has certainly, and sadly, been a big part of it.
And then we might ask, what helps us to be more alive?
How do we step free of the things that bind us?
What do we find life affirming and life enhancing?
 
The beauty and wonder of nature?
The company of good friends?
Really being listened to by a counsellor or soul friend?
Offering hospitality to others?
Playing our part in helping to free others through acts of charity or working for social justice?
Being creative - in words, music, art, cookery?
Being still, meditating, connecting with our breath and our bodies?
Sharing with others in a community at worship?
Dwelling on the love of God we find in the Jesus of the gospels?
 
Whatever it is will be things in which the Spirit is present. Because God can't be locked up inside a church, any more than Jesus could be locked up in a tomb. 
 
There's an ancient legend of Pilate's wife standing near the cross on Good Friday. She turns to the Centurion and asks; "Do you think Jesus is dead?" "No, lady, I don't." is the reply. "Then where is he?" "Let loose in all the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew nor any other man can stop the victory of his risen life."
Let loose in all the world. "Unbind him and set him free."
 
As we draw ever closer to Holy Week maybe our prayer needs to echo those words of Jesus - Lord unbind us, and others, 
and set us free - that we may be live again, alive in the way you want us to be.