Hidenwood’s APNC has been searching for a new Associate for almost a year now.   The committee was formed and started meeting weekly about this time last year.  They’ve worked hard…  put together a congregational profile,  advertised on the denominational website and in several church publications.  They’ve poured over 40 plus applications, corresponded with candidates by email and phone.    They’ve called  references,  listened to sermons,  and chiselled the list of candidates down to a few names.   They held face to face interviews,  listened to more sermons,  and  finally, after meeting more than 50 times together they came up with a name to recommend to the congregation.  You would think that coming to that decision that the weeks following would be the easiest of all for them.  But in fact they have not…because keeping good news secret is not easy.
According to Presbyterian polity,  all information about the candidate must remain a secret until a congregational meeting is held.  So,  the committee has to sit on the news they are just dying to tell us all until next Sunday.  That been very difficult to do…nay impossible.   Last week the committee brought a copy of the call and covenant to the Session for approval and what was accidentally left on the back of one of those papers?  The candidate’s name!

  Good news is hard to contain.  The psalmist says ‘How lovely on the mountain are the feet of him who brings good news.’  Why?   Because when we have good news our footsteps (the way we walk)  announces to the hearer that it is good news before our mouths.  When you child brings home their report card,  you know by the way they walk if it’s a good report card or not.  Good news can’t be contained.  So the APNC’s have mailed home a card inviting our membership to come to church next week where they will hear all about the good news.  I expect we’ll have a good crowd for that… because not only do we like to share good news,  we also like to receive it.

In chapter 37,  the Ezekiel receives good news in a vision from God.  Up to this point he hasn’t had much good news to share at all.  He’s been a doom and gloom prophet…judgment has been cast upon the people Israel for turning away from God.  ‘Your sinfulness has consequences’ he’s been saying ‘God won’t be patient forever!’.  And much to his own shargrin,  he was right.  The Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem,  plundered her temple and led the people away into exile.

And when things couldn’t get much worse,  God gives Ezekiel another vision.  He finds himself in a  valley filled with dry bones,  and God tells Ezekiel to prophecy to the bones.  Say to the bones that they shall live.  So he prophecies and suddenly he hears a loud rattling of the bones coming together…ankle bone connected to the knee bone…knee bone connected to the hip bone…and then sinews and flesh and skin cover the bones.  But they are still lifeless…and Ezekiel prophecies again,  calling for the breath of God ,  and then the winds blow from the 4 corners of the earth and fill these lifeless bodies with the breath of God and there they stood alive and upon their feet!  ‘Son of man,  these bones are the whole house of Israel…I will put my Spirit within Israel and she shall live.’

And what does Ezekiel do with this good news?  Does he sit on it – let Israel stew in her own juices?  After all,  they deserve what they got for not listening to him!  Who could blame him if he just ended his book in chapter 37 saying: ‘I told you so!’   But no,  good news comes and it cannot be contained…it has to be shared.  So Ezekiel tells the people Israel about the vision and the prophecy of God.  The dry bones of Israel will rise.  New life will come to God’s people because God has decreed it…and with God nothing is impossible,  not even giving life to something as lifeless as dry bones.   This prophecy becomes the hope of God’s people as they languish in captivity for many years.  

And in today’s Gospel passage, Jesus not only has good news,  he is the good news.   The good news of the Gospel is Jesus Christ and the Gospel-writer John makes that clear with all the ‘I am’ statements’.  Jesus says:    ‘I am the good shepherd’,  ‘I am the door’,  ‘I am the Light of the world’,  ‘I am vine and you are the branches’.   ‘I am’ reminds us that Jesus is not some future hope but a present reality.  Jesus is good news right now.  And in today’s passage we see that he has saved best  ‘I am’ statement of for the ears of his good friends Mary and Martha.   They’ve lost their brother Lazarus.  He fell ill and they sent word to Jesus asking him to come.  Jesus gets that word but still he lingers to long in Jerusalem and when he finally shows up, it’s  too late.  Lazarus has been dead and in the tomb for 4 days.  No hope after four days…after that long a person isn’t just dead,  they’re decomposing.  

Martha,  the head of the household comes out and greets Jesus with the words ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  And even now I know that whatever you ask from God,  God will give you.’  Jesus says to her ‘Your brother will rise again.’   Martha knows that.  She says ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’  (The Pharisees and other Jewish groups believed a bodily resurrection would happen sometime in the distant future.)   But Jesus isn’t talking about the future,  he’s talking about right now.  He tells her this plainly ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’

 Resurrection life is not a future possibility,  it is a present reality.  It is a central claim of John’s gospel that those who believe in Jesus Christ already have abundant and eternal life,   and the grave itself is incidental to life both here and in the hereafter.  So what Jesus is telling Martha is that resurrection life begins in this life and life in the hereafter is a continuum of that same life.  ‘I am the resurrection and the life… Do you believe this?  Martha responds: ‘I believe you are the Christ,  the Son of God.’  

  Well, that’s an expression of faith and it’s enough for Jesus to act  upon.  So he asks to be taken to Lazarus.  He has them say roll away the stone,  says a prayer, and then shouts into the tomb: ‘Lazarus,  come out!’  (the same way God would have shouted ‘let there be light,  let there be dry land,  let there be plants and animals’  on the first day of creation.)  And Lazarus stands up and comes out,  still wrapped in his grave clothes.  They  unbind him and let him go and he is very much alive.

Now my first though is that this story seems a bit premature.  The resurrection of Lazarus comes before the resurrection of Jesus.  Isn’t our resurrection supposed to follow Jesus’ resurrection?  Paul announces to the Corinthians  ‘Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died’.   That’s not the case for Lazarus!  And in baptism we say that we die with Christ so that we might rise with him.  Well, that’s true for everyone but Lazarus because his resurrection comes before Christ’s dies and is risen.  
This story is out of theological syn!  Why would Jesus do it that way?  Because Jesus is making it clear what it means when he says  ‘I am the resurrection and the life’.  This is a present reality,  not a future hope.  So Jesus says that good news trumps proper theological order.  Resurrection life begins right here, right now.

So the good news of the Gospel can’t be contained.  It comes to us in the here and now,  not some distant future time.  Good news is now.  We see that reflections of that truth throughout this gospel.  In Chapter 2 Jesus performs his first sign at a wedding feast in Cana.  They ran out of wine and his mother says to him. ‘They have no wine’.   He says to her ‘Woman,  what is that to me,  my hour has not come’.   In other words -  this request is premature…I haven’t begun my ministry yet.    But he performs the sign anyway.  He tells the servants to fill the six stone jars with water and he then has then take some of the water to the wine steward.  And low and behold it’s been turned to wine!  The best wine in fact!  The symbolism of this sign is clear:  Jesus takes a basic element of life (water)  and turn it into a tingling libation of joy and celebration…something we us to toast good news.  And good news will not wait.

I find it interesting that the story of  raising of Lazarus comes right in the middle of Lent.  Lent is not the most joyful season in the church year…it’s far more sombre and solemn than Easter or Christmas…and yet right here in the middle of sombre Lent comes this amazing good news story of Lazarus!  Even the placement of this story is an announcement that good news won’t wait.  

So if Jesus did not wait,  neither should we.  We are to be bearers of the good news in the here and now.   We are to gather and celebrate Christ and we are to go and proclaim the good news of Christ to others.  And I know that is difficult for some people,  because they always find a reason to postpone the celebration.  They always think it’s premature.
‘Hey dad,  look I got 90% on my math exam.  Isn’t that great?’

‘90%?  Well what happened to the other 10% - here,  sit down and let’s go through these questions you got wrong.’

‘Hey way to go John  – I hear you got that big promotion at work.   I’ll bet you’ll be celebrating tonight!’
‘Well, it’s a lot more responsibility and headaches you know,  think we’ll see how it all works out before we start celebrating.’  
 
‘I hear there’s twins in your family now!  Congratulations – you must be so proud.  Are you handing out cigars?’
‘Well, they’re boys you know,  and you how some boys turn out,  think we’ll just have to wait and see.’

Some people always find reason to delay the celebration.  And to be fair,  they often have pretty good reasons for delaying or cancelling any celebration.  

‘We’re in the middle of a war with Iraq…what right have we got to celebrate when our own kids are coming home in wheelchairs or in body bags?’

‘Oil is at an all time high in this country($105 a barrel) and it’s pushing up the prices of everything with it…food, commodities,  salaries.  Why are you celebrating when the economy that’s going to hell in a hand-basket?’

‘The bottom has fallen out of the housing market.  Foreclosures are at an all-time high and thousands of people have lost their homes.  How can you celebrate when people are without a place to live?

Well,  should we turn off the organ,  close the doors and go home?  After all,  the world is in quite a mess  …look around  – war, recession, foreclosure,   murder,  abuse,  prejudice,  slander,  deceit,  corruption,  pollution.  Why do we bother to gather?

We gather to celebrate – in spite of what happened yesterday,  what happens today or what may happen tomorrow.  We must celebrate because we have the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ who says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’   Good news…and good news will not wait.

‘This is the day that the Lord has made.  We will rejoice and be glad in it.’

Amen