LOSS, BELIEF AND RENEWAL
A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Marie Sheldon
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Text: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.’”
Scripture Passages: Ezekiel 37:1-14 and John 11:25
Two of our lessons from the Scriptures this morning have to do with loss. The Book of Ezekiel, the prophet, is one of the most difficult to understand in the Old Testament. It’s filled with bizarre visions, and one of those visions is described in today’s reading. It speaks about a valley of dry, disassembled human bones scattered here and there. Not a pretty picture. God asks the prophet if those bones could live again. Ezekiel doesn’t know the answer, so God tells him to prophesy to the bones – to share the word of the Lord with them. As the prophet obeyed God’s command, the bones began to rattle and come together. Flesh began to cover them and they started to look like people – people, however, who were still dead – who weren’t breathing. God told Ezekiel to continue his prophesying, and as he did so, breath entered the corpses in the valley, and they stood up as a testimony to the power of God.
A weird story? Yes,
but there’s some history behind it.
Ezekiel was a prophet to
That same message stands at the center of our Gospel lesson – the familiar story of the raising of Lazarus. Jesus arrived to find two sisters, Martha and Mary, and their friends grieving over the loss of Lazarus, who had already been dead some four days. Martha, like most people who mourn, was angry because of her loss. She was sharp with Jesus, saying if he’d arrived on the scene earlier, all of this could have been avoided. Martha calms herself, however, and turns to Jesus for consolation. Jesus doesn’t say he’s going to raise Lazarus. Instead, he pushes Martha’s faith buttons. He tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. . .Do you believe this?” he asks Martha. She says she does. After Jesus does his own grieving, weeping along with the others who missed Lazarus, he went to the grave and asked that the stone covering its entrance be removed. The smell was horrible. Martha began to doubt. She said, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus countered by pushing Martha’s faith buttons again. “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” Minutes later, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.
Both of these stories are about loss, belief and renewal. Before Ezekiel could preach to the people about their losses, he had to believe that some sort of renewal was possible. Before Jesus could go to Lazarus’ tomb with Martha, they both had to believe that some sort of renewal was possible.
Loss is part of life. It’s something many of us dread and choose to ignore whenever possible. Here’s an example that I received via e-mail: It’s a story about a fiery preacher who delivered a stern message from his pulpit – saying, “What a fearful thought it is that every member of this congregation must, sooner or later, die.” Almost everyone in the church became quite somber as this true, but heavy-duty message was being delivered. The minister, however, was annoyed as he looked down and saw one man grinning back at him. So he stared at the smiling man and said, “I repeat, every member of this congregation must, sooner or later die.” The big grin got even wider. So the preacher directed a question just to him. “May I ask what you find so amusing in my statement?” The reply came back, “I’m not amused, Reverend, but I am relieved. You see, I’m not a member of this congregation, so I guess I’m exempt from that sooner or later every member of this congregation must die talk.”
Maybe we wouldn’t go to that extreme when it comes to facing loss, but we do use denial in many forms. When we see loss happening in the lives of those around us, many times we choose not to talk about it with them. Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking that we don’t want to upset the person who is hurting. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, we don’t want to talk about it because we worry that loss will happen to us, and we’re afraid of it. We don’t want to think about losing our spouse or our child or our parents – and so we either don’t talk with people who are undergoing these and other kinds of crises, or we say some incredibly inappropriate things to them. A young widow once told me she received a sympathy card with a note saying that she was so young and pretty that surely she’d find another husband soon. A cancer patient told me that a relative told her that if she’d handled her stress better she’d never have gotten cancer in the first place. Another cancer patient told me she received a note implying that if one’s will was strong enough, it could cure the body. Why do people say things like that? Or why do people say nothing at all? Because they’re afraid that loss is a communicable disease – that if it happens to someone else, it might happen to them, and they just don’t want to acknowledge the possibility of personal loss because it hurts too much.
The bottom line is that we cannot avoid loss. It will affect each and every one of us in one way or another. And yes, it does hurt – terribly. Unfortunately, we can’t always get things to go back together like the dry bones in Ezekiel’s valley – nor can we bring back loved ones we’ve lost – the way Lazarus was brought back. What we can do is work at strengthening our belief in God during times of loss because through belief in God, the gift of renewal can be given to us.
Renewal, you realize, is not restoration. I have heard grieving people say – and I have said myself – “I want my old life back.” It takes time and healing to come to grips with the fact that that can’t be. What can be, however, is a different kind of life – a life that has a depth that wouldn’t have been there if the loss hadn’t happened.
I knew a man in his 40’s with a wife and two young daughters, who was dying of prostate cancer. He shared a book of brief essays with me. The author was John Robert McFarland, a United Methodist minister who is a cancer survivor. The name of the book is Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole. This is what McFarland had to say about how cancer renewed him: “Sickness, especially from cancer, often produces spirituality . . . I think there’s something spiritual about cancer itself though. It’s a challenge to wholeness, to the integration of love. If we take the challenge of cancer, we almost have to face our fragmentation and begin to pull together the scattered pieces of ourselves. Now that I have cancer, I am whole.”
Quite a testimony, isn’t it? Dealing with loss means not only believing in God to get ourselves through it. Dealing with loss means being willing to communicate with others about it so that renewal can take place. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the touching stories in the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. One of the stories is called “Who You Are Makes a Difference.” It’s about a workaholic dad who put so much time into his career that he neglected his relationship with his fourteen-year-old son. The man had chosen to ignore the gradual loss of that father-son bond until something happened in his own life to make him want to renew it. This is a conversation between father and son taken from the essay: The father says, “’My days are really hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do a make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you!’”
“The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn’t stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, ‘I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow, Dad, because I didn’t think you loved me. Now I don’t need to.’”
Another testimony to loss, belief and renewal. They are intrinsically linked. Yes, loss will affect all of us – whether we deny it or not. But loss, when coupled with belief, can also renew us and heal us and make us agents of God’s healing that can be extended to others in pain.
May God guide us in our losses, strengthen our belief, and renew us for ministry. Amen and thanks be to God!