Today’s Scripture:

Psalm 116:1-9             Ezekiel 37:1-14            Romans 8:11-19            John 11: (1-46)47-53

 

            “It’s not over ‘til it’s over,” Yogi Bera is supposed to have said.  There may be a spark of life left, no matter how great the score, until the last out in the last inning, the last second is ticked off of the clock, or the last putt is made in a tie-breaker.  Even when a dying person is still breathing, there is hope against hope of a miracle that that life will be restored by some miraculous healing.  Recently is the account of a girl with rabies in Wisconsin.  No one before has survived the disease once it has manifested itself as it had in her.  The doctor who induced her into a coma from which she has survived, openly states that this healing is “…a miracle.”

 

            In our text from John 11, Caiaphas is not looking for a final blow in bringing Jesus to death.  Instead, he is looking at Jesus’ death as something that is going to bring new life to the Jewish people and to the Jewish nation.  He is looking at death to this Jesus as something that will cause the people to gather together against their oppressor, Rome.  Caiaphas is looking at Jesus’ death as the end of the attention on Jesus to consolidating the attention, support and energies of the people under the leadership of the Temple leaders again, causing an overthrow of not just Rome, but Herod and all other forces that would attempt to occupy and rule the Israelites.

 

            Little did Caiaphas know how right he was and in the same way in how wrong he was.  Jesus’ death would be a final blow.  Jesus’ death would bring new life ot the people.  Jesus’ death would overcome the most powerful of all oppressors.  But Jesus’ death would not cause the overthrow of Rome, or of Herod, or of any other earthly rule.  Instead his death and consequent resurrection would overthrow all of the forces of this earth and of all of the forces of creation including death itself.  Jesus’ death would not be an end to a life, but a beginning of life as no one could begin to imagine.

 

            Three times in Scripture Jesus raises someone who is dead.  He raised the widow’s son at Nain as he was being carried to his grave.  Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from her death bed.  Just prior to our reading today, Jesus raised Lazarus who was four days in the tomb.  It was that miracle that had such a huge number of people thronging to Jesus that Caiaphas makes his prediction and puts into motion the events that would bring Jesus to the crucifixion at Calvary.  Caiaphas, in his earthly thinking, thought he might be fulfilling God’s will to restore his holy nation.  In his same thinking he had no inkling that he was the agent sent in the process of fulfilling God’s most holy and perfect will.  That will is to bring new life, eternal life to all who believe in him and his saving grace in his one and only son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

            In Psalm 116 we spoke out how we “love the Lord,” because “he heard (our) cry for mercy…he turned his ear to (us).”  We cried out as the “…cords of death entangled (us).”  “(We were) in great need and He saved (us.)”  We spoke out how God has been good as he “…delivered (our) soul(s) from death that (we) may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” 

 

            We live today in the land of death.  Nothing on this earth survives.  God showed the land of the living in the prophecy of Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones.  When God’s word and his Spirit were present, those bones not only moved, but flesh reappeared on them.  And when God’s breath entered them, they became alive, a huge army of living bodies and souls.  That is what it will be like in the resurrection of all flesh.  We will no longer look as our sinful and death ravaged selves, but new flesh and new breath and new life in Christ Jesus, a holy and perfect new life.

 

            Paul writes to us in Romans how in this life we are to put away the old self.  These mortal bodies now have new life in faith and in the gifts given in baptism.  Without faith, without the gifts in baptism, we are over.  We are done.  There is no hope for any one.  Paul tells us, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”  [1 Corinthians 15:19] 

 

            Just as Caiaphas was distracted from the truth in Jesus, today we are drawn away from that truth so often as well.  We are drawn away by the disillusionments in life.  What we think should be is not.  What we want in life does not always turn out that way.  Our hopes and desires in this life are so often dashed in many ways.  It is too easy to miss the message that this life is temporary, it is mortal.  We miss the message that God is reminding us to call on him as he will hear and he will deliver.

 

            We are so distracted in life by so many things that lure us from God’s truth.  How are you distracted by issues of earthly wealth and possessions?  How many times are you drawn away from regular worship and Bible Study by the activities and busy-nesses of life?  There are the teams that practice, travel, hold games on Sundays.  There are the weekend retreats where we find ourselves compromised into saying, “Let’s just relax over a casual breakfast instead of hearing God’s word this week…and next…and next.”   How do we find those things not just occasionally drawing us away on Sundays, but minute by minute in the activity of earthly life?

 

            Paul says to put away the old sins, the old sinful self, the ways of sinning.  It is tough as Satan has targeted each one of you with his fiercest and most sly of soldiers.  He wants you to put out of your mind Jesus’ words that “no one can snatch you out of his hand,” and leads you to forget that it is you alone who follows the lures of what looks like “life” as you happily march to that different drummer not thinking of the death cadence he beats.

 

            Instead, Jesus gives you the strength to overcome in his word that is always with you and never leaves you.  It stays strong in your heart as you sing the hymns, pray his prayer, and as you daily hear and study that word.  Jesus gives you the will to overcome in the waters of baptism which you desire and receive in faith.  In those gifts in baptism you received his Holy Spirit that he sent on that Pentecost, and that Jesus breathed on his disciples to bring the gifts of his word and sacraments to all throughout all time.  That Holy Spirit is the breath of life, new life and eternal life only God gives his dear children.  Jesus strengthens you in that new life as you receive his body and blood that won the battle over sin, death and the devil on Calvary.  He gives you this body and blood to strengthen your faith as you know it is for you that he suffered and died.  As you receive that body and blood, you receive his life again and again and again until you are joined with him in eternity that is never over. 

 

            In the next two weeks we will relive the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the setting of the Last Supper, the betrayal, the suffering and death, and the glorious resurrection.  But it is not over on Easter.  It does not begin just on Christmas.  Each week to the end of earthly life, we will relive God’s gifts, God’s commands, and God’s promises to us from creation to the glorious new life in Jesus when he comes at that trumpet call to take all believers to the places he has prepared in his father’s house.  Each week in worship, in prayer, in Bible Study, in service to each other and to all in this earth, we will celebrate God’s greatest promise, “It ‘s not over…ever.”  That is because God knew that “…it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”  You will not perish but have everlasting life because Jesus did die for you, the people.                   Amen.