Preach'n It Up!

Confession: part of me misses preaching regularly. I miss having to wrestle with the texts in the bible on a regular basis in order to bring something out from them that I hope will speak to whoever comes to hear.

This year I have chosen to keep preparing messages anyway, even when I’m not preaching to a group. So far this year I’ve preached to a couple of people on a Sunday morning at home in a little “faith community” in Sydney (now disbanded!), a friend in Hong Kong at 11:45pm one Sunday night, a vacant spot on my bedroom wall and in various other forms by myself, to myself and for myself.

I’m preaching from the lectionary. This is a longish word for sets of readings put together for the year to help ministers etc. preach from a variety of passages from the bible in keeping with the seasons of Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter etc. There are a few minor variations but I’m going with the USA’s Baptist Lectionary- which I pretty much chosen at random except that I used to go to a Baptist Church in Australia but Baptist churches in Oz don’t seem to do the lectionary thing. (Anyone out there want to tell my I’m wrong and that they too are deeply passionate about the lectionary?)

The readings for this Sunday, March 13 are: Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, John 11:1-45, Romans 8:6-11. (These are definitely worth a read if you have a spare half hour over the weekend.)

If I was going to preach this Sunday, the theme would be Out Of Desperation. There are some great thoughts on the passage in John 11 at Dylan’s lectionary blog. (http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/) [Note to self- learn how to add links...] Read it all or my short version here:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
My soul waits for the Lord
More than the watchmen wait for the morning,
More than the watchmen wait for the morning.
Psalm 130:1-2; 6 (NIV)

Martha and Mary called to Jesus out of the depths of desperation. Their brother Lazarus becomes “very ill” and the sisters call to Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t come. Lazarus dies and while “many Jews” come to pay their respects and to comfort the sisters, Jesus is conspicuously absent. When Jesus finally arrives, he weeps with them. Yet the sense from those looking on was that surely if Jesus opened the eyes of the man born blind, he could have done something earlier to help Lazarus. Jesus’ tears were testimony to his love, but surely his actions seemed like too little, too late?

If nothing more, Martha’s situation reminds us that nobody is immune to tragedy. Those who enjoy close fellowship with God, who serve God with wholehearted devotion and who give generously of their lives and their selves still may suffer great losses. Yet when we call out to God, God hears.

When Jesus seems slow in coming, he still comes. It is never a case of “too little, too late”. For when Lazarus was dead, four days and stinking dead, Jesus called into the tomb, “come out” and Lazarus did. In our lives we are sometimes acutely aware of this odour of death. At various times we see and feel loss, separation, decay, suffering, sickness, aging and the seemingly indiscriminate nature of life’s tragedies. Yet while we grieve death in life, God is able to reach in and bring life in death. As we read in Psalm 130:7 “with the Lord there is unfailing love and an overflowing supply of salvation.” (NLT)