Sermon for September 23rd, 2018

John 11:32-44

32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Miracles: Raising Lazarus

For six years now, I have had the privilege of preaching to you from the scriptures just about every Sunday morning. And for about ten years now, I have had today's sermon in mind. I sincerely believe that what I'm about to share today may be the most important sermon I ever have the opportunity to preach.

It's possible it may be too soon, and that I really should have waited another ten years before tackling this subject in this way.

It's likely that, at the conclusion of today's sermon, many of you will simply dismiss this message, saying, "Oh, that's just one of Pastor Neal's crazy soapboxes. He's kind of nerdy that way." If you do, that's okay. I'll keep preaching, and in the coming weeks will probably return to more conventional subjects and a more traditional interpretations.

It's also possible that some of you will be uncomfortable with today's sermon, and will disagree passionately with my interpretation of this scripture passage and its implications. That's okay, too. Honest disagreement and respectful exchange of ideas is what makes Presbyterians (in my opinion) unique among Christian denominations.

For a small handful of you, however, this message may strike home and change your life as profoundly and powerfully as it did my own ten years ago when I first began to seriously contemplate death, resurrection, and eternal life in the light of both historic biblical teachings and modern, 21st century reality. It was in the wake of all this that I re-evaluated everything I thought I knew about Christianity and made the decision to devote the rest of my life to teaching and preaching, in whatever way I could, today's message.