The Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 9, 2008
~The Rev. Steve Smith

Several years ago, a parishioner wrote me a letter. He was angry about many things, the Church, politics, etc., but at that very moment, he was furious with me. “Steve,” he wrote, “for you the glass is never half full, never half empty, for you the glass is broken."

At first, I must admit I took this criticism a little too personally. But as I have thought about it over the years, I have concluded that within this angry letter I was given one of the most important theological insights in my ministry.

For, dear friends, we are broken vessels, aren’t we? This is the great confession of our faith. Our personal stories are stories of brokenness. Each and all of us have endured searing experiences of suffering and sadness, disappointment, rejection, and despair. Each and all of us have been torn asunder by the swift and varied changes of this world.

This simple truth is written large in our Gospel reading this morning. And that is because, on many levels, the story of the raising of Lazarus is a story of brokenness. At the outset, there is first the brokenness of Lazarus. He is ill and about to die. It is the kind of brokenness we experience all too often together at St. Mary’s. It happened to me again a few Sundays ago. On the way out of church, our dear friend Jean Burr shook my hand and with a smile and a twinkle in her eye said that she was going to Boston the next day for surgery on her heart. I sensed the urgency in that moment, that I would not see her again, but felt absolutely helpless in the face of it. A week later, I was at her hospital bedside, as Jean labored in a stroke induced coma. Yesterday, we held her funeral.

In such moments as these, we cannot help but be aware of our brokenness, that none of us in the end will escape death. Lazarus, in our Gospel, is at the end of his life, and everyone he loves is touched by this experience. Especially his two older sisters, Mary and Martha. They are beside themselves with grief. Their hearts are broken. Like us, they will do anything to try to avert this impending tragedy. And so, they send for their friend, Jesus, believing he will come to restore their brother miraculously to health.

But Jesus does not come immediately. Instead, he waits. And it is only after his friend, Lazarus dies, and is laid to rest, that he journeys to Bethany to be with them. By doing so, he tells his disciples, the glory of God will be revealed.

Now it is tempting at this point of the story to cut to the chase, and suppose that the glory of God is revealed solely in the miraculous resuscitation of Lazarus.

But there is something we miss, I believe, if we do this. For in the very next scene, it is the brokenness of Jesus that is on display. He accepts the anger and frustration of Mary and Martha in their grief. He becomes deeply disturbed in spirit. He breaks down and weeps.

Jesus weeps. Dear friends, take that in for a moment. If all of scripture disappeared and somehow every last fragment of the Bible were lost to us but these two words, Jesus weeps, it would be enough. Enough to know that our Savior knows our grief, understands our woes, participates in our sorrow. Enough to know that Jesus, like us, is a broken vessel.

The glory of God, you see, is manifest in human brokenness. The path to God is experienced in our brokenness.

What happened that day in Bethany is the glory of God was revealed in the brokenness of Jesus. And herein lies the mystery to divinity. Herein lies the mystery to eternity.

There is a wonderful passage from a book we have been reading during Lent in the Thursday morning breakfast group from Henri Nouwen’s book Life of the Beloved that says it well:

“My own experience with brokenness and anguish has been that facing it and living it through, is the way to healing…I know now that attempting to avoid, repress, or escape the pain is like cutting off a limb that could be healed with proper attention. The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it. The great secret of the spiritual life is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity.”

Nine years ago, I made my first pilgrimage to Bethany. Beside the beautiful Church of Mary and Martha, there is the ancient tomb of Lazarus. To enter it, you descend down a narrow staircase to a small underground chamber. The air is thick, and I remember being somewhat claustrophobic. Nevertheless, I stayed a while in the dark imagining what it must have been like for Lazarus, to have endured his illness, his death, his entombment, his brokenness in its extreme. I imagined what kind of death defying shout must have caused him to step back into the land of the living. I imagined the faces of his sisters, the face of Jesus as he emerged from the grave. And in all of this, I felt a kinship with Lazarus, for like him, like each one of us here today, I can see that we are beautiful, broken vessels made to reveal and to receive the glory of God.

A simple forest monk in Thailand was asked by a visitor about the essence of life. In response, the monk picked up the glass of drinking water to his left. Holding it up, he spoke: “You see this goblet? For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on shelf the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and shatters, I say: ‘Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

Holy Week now lies before us, our most sacred time of year. And Jesus asks us now, each one of us, to journey with him into his passion, and ours, into his brokenness, and ours, for this is the very place where God meets us, where God heals us, where God raises us, and where God restores us.