Bandages

“Bandages”
John 11:38-44
Todd Buegler
March 28-29, 2009
Lord of Life


Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus, the Son of God, and our Savior! Amen.

I love this time of year! I love March Madness, and the NCAA and high school tournament season. The tournaments always bring back great memories for me. And this March represents the 27th anniversary of my playing for Edina High School at the Minnesota State High School League State Hockey Tournament, the year that we won the championship.

Before you get too impressed, let me clarify…I played at the tournament…in the band.

But still, going to the tournament, back at the old Met Center, was a pretty big deal for everyone…the team…the band…the fans…

Edina was playing a night game. During the school day, my gym class was playing basketball. And I remember that I was trying to make a lay up when one of my friends jumped up to try and block me, and in the process his hand came down on my face and I wound up with a scratched cornea. Not a super-big deal, but painful. And the gym teacher had to call my Mom…my Mom took me to the eye doctor, who examined me, gave me some eye drops and put a small, round bandage on my eye to protect it and keep my eye closed. He said “You’ll need to wear this for a couple of days.” I asked “can I still go to the tournament tonight?” “Oh yeah, no problem. Just keep the bandage on and in a few days you should be fine.” Great. Because nothing was going to keep me from going to the tournament.

That night, just before I was going to leave to go catch the band bus to the game, where I was going to be playing the bass drum, the doctor’s eye patch started to come loose. “Mom, can you fix this?” My Mom was a nurse. “Sure, come here.” She worked on it, she fiddled, she fussed, she taped and re-taped. I went to look in the mirror. When the doctor had put the first patch in, it was small and subtle…about the size of a silver dollar. When my Mom finished, it looked like it covered half my head. “Mom, this thing is huge!” “Well, I don’t want it to come off!” And so I went…looking like half my head was gone.

So fast-forward to the game. You know what the TV stations do during a time out….they’ll cut to pictures of the bands playing. And as Al Shaver and Lou Nanne were talking about the game, the cameras cut to our band…and they panned along the row of flutes, and then up the row of drummers, going up the stairs, until they got to me at the top. And Lou Nanne, on statewide TV said “Wow. I wonder what happened to him?”

Bandages have been on my mind this week as I’ve been thinking about the scripture we’re looking at today in our journey through the book of John. So if you’d grab your Bible and would turn with me to John 11:38-42 we’ll take a look at the story of Jesus resurrecting his good friend Lazarus from the dead.

The funeral rituals of Jesus’ day were obviously very different than ours. When somebody died, there was no embalming but immediately the body was wrapped in a linen cloth…basically, a set of bandages and put into the burial vault, a limestone cave.

Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, was near death and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, sent word to Jesus, who had just healed a man born blind, that their brother Lazarus was very sick and perhaps soon to die. Jesus got the message. But he waited for two days before going to Lazarus. Why did Jesus wait two days? We have no idea. It could have been foreshadowing of Jesus’ own death and resurrection, because it would mean that Lazarus would be raised on the third day. But Jesus never actually explains this delay. So after two days, Jesus began his way to the home of Lazarus, knowing that his friend had died.

On the way, assertive, aggressive, “take charge” Martha came out to meet Jesus and let him have it. Look with me at verse 21: “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died.” Jump to verse 23: Jesus said: “Your brother will rise again.” And Martha testily responded: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Can you hear her frustration? She’s asking ‘but what good does that do us now?’ Then Jesus spoke powerful words that have helped to shape our faith, and if you can look at verse 25, you can see for yourself: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.” They will live! They will never die! Right here in this verse is the great promise of the Christian faith. Then Jesus asked one of the most important questions found in the Bible, “Do you believe this, Martha?” What a question. Do you believe this? Because this is the real deal…this is where the rubber hits the road…That whoever lives and believes in me will never die? Do you believe? This is the primary question that is asked throughout the Gospel of John: Do you…do we…have faith?

Martha confesses in verse 27: “I believe. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Mary, the other sister, soon approaches Jesus, with the same testy reproach, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died.” But before Jesus could say anything, Mary burst into tears. What was Jesus’ response to her tears? The Bible says that he was “greatly disturbed.” But the Greek word used here for ‘greatly disturbed’ literally translates to “shuddered with sadness.” It says that Jesus’ body shook with emotion. This word in Greek is actually the same word used to refer to a horse, when it snorts, and the horse’s whole body shakes; Jesus’ whole body shook or shuddered with emotion.

You may have seen or even experienced this yourself, where a person is so grieved and sad, that their whole body shakes with sorrow. Then comes that classic verse, the shortest in the Bible; verse 35: “Jesus began to weep.” In our antiseptic way, we imagine a single tear running down his face. But again, the Greek suggests that Jesus “burst into tears.” So here, in this little episode with the sensitive Mary, there is no classic, eloquent teaching about eternal life. In fact, Jesus doesn’t speak at all. There are simply strong emotions and bursting tears that shake his body. Jesus grieved with Mary.

The story continues: In verse 38, we see that Jesus finally reached the little village of Bethany and then approached the burial vault of his friend Lazarus. The Bible says that he was again “greatly disturbed” as he approached the grave. His body again shuddered with sadness. Have you seen someone approach the grave of a loved one? It is often a time of intense emotion. He said, “Take away the stone.” And Martha, clearly the stubborn one, asked “Why? Already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.” Jesus ignored her and the gravestone was rolled away. Then Jesus said a beautiful prayer, in verses 41 & 42: “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always heard me. But I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” And then Jesus cried out with a loud voice: “Lararus, come out.” And Lazarus came out of the grave vault, covered with the graveclothes…strips of cloth…the bandages. Jesus said, “Unbind him and let him go.”

These might be the most important words in the story…this might be the most important command in the book of John: “Unbind him and let him go.”

And the bandages that Lazarus wore because of his illness…his wounds…his death came off…and Lazarus lived.

This is not just at story about Lazarus. This is a story about us. I don’t know what your wounds are. Physical…emotional…spiritual…social…but I do know this: You have wounds. I have wounds. Over the course of time, we are all hurt. Perhaps your wounds are about broken family…they may be about addiction…they may be about secrets…they may be about intolerance…they may be about money… They may be any one of 1000 different things.

And I know that many of these wounds are things that many of you have carried over a long, long time. Because in all honesty, sometimes it is easier for us just to slap another bandage on…to cover them up or bury them, than it is to deal with them. Dealing with our wounds can be difficult, painful work.

If this were where the story ended, with Lazarus dead in the grave…with us trapped by our woundedness…that would make for a life without hope. But this is not the end of the story. Because Jesus did stand before the tomb and he called “Lazarus, come out…” and then he said “unbind him and let him go.” Sin and death do not get the last word.

In the summer of 1989, I was a 24 year old youth minister here at Lord of Life, leading one of our sr. high AWOL (that’s “A work of love”) mission trips. We were in Portland, Maine to build a home for Habitat for Humanity. 24 youth, and 4 adult leaders. Shortly after we arrived, I got a phone call. It was my brother with bad news. Jim Campbell had been one of my best friends from college. He was a newspaper photographer and a cross-country bicyclist. 2 summers prior he had completed a solo bike trip from the Pacific ocean to the Atlantic ocean. My brother told me that Jim had been mountain biking in Rocky Mountain National Park. He was returning to his campsite, riding down a dirt road, when a car driven by a 16 year old girl going too fast around a curve on a gravel road skidded and hit Jim.

Jim died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

I was sitting in Portland, Maine with our group. I worked out plans to get back home, and then to Nashua, Iowa for the funeral. Then I would fly back and re-join our group in Boston after they had finished the work week. The funeral was incredibly sad. Jim had been one of the kindest, funniest people I knew. He was very creative, and incredibly compassionate. I was sad. And I was angry. I was angry at Jim…angry at that 16 year old girl…angry at God.

Being the good, stoic Norwegian that I am, when I got back to Boston, I tried to act like the strong group leader, and to play it tough. My first night back at our evening devotions, we were going around the circle…talking about our highs and lows. When it got to me I talked about the flight…how good it was to be with friends and family…about the service…everything except about how sad I was…and how angry I was. When I finished, and was about to move on, I remember Andy and Kate in the group interrupted me and said “Todd, we’re really sorry for what happened…and we have this for you.” And they walked over and gave me an envelope. I opened it and inside was a condolence card that all of them had signed. And these amazing, beautiful high school students had taken up a collection and put cash in to help offset the costs of my flights back and forth. I just stared at the card, and at the pile of $1,s $5’s and $10…and I looked up at them, and I lost it. I just sat and sobbed. My body shook; it shuddered with sadness. And the group came around me, put their hands on my shoulders and sat with me.

Those young people were telling me: “Todd…come out. Come out of the darkness. Take off the bandages. They helped unbind me, and let me go.” And in that moment, I believe I came face to face with Jesus.

Again, I don’t know your wounds…but I do know these two things:
• First, I know that you are not alone in your pain. The Jesus whose body shook with grief at the loss of his friend, knows what you feel. And he feels this pain alongside you. Jesus promises his presence with you.
• Second, I know that your wounds…your pain…is not the end of the story. I know that Jesus stands before you, looks you face to face and says “Come out. Come out of the dark places…come out of the pain…the wounds you carry beneath the bandages that bind you are healed.” Because of God’s grace…because of God’s great love for you, you are healed, your bandages are released, and Jesus sets you free.

My friends, we are all Lazarus. We are all trapped in the darkness. But in this story, Jesus reminds us to hear his voice. Receive his gift. Come out…be healed…take off the bandages that cover your old wounds, and be given new life…it is for you.

Amen.

Belong then Believe