Giving Up Your Life - 5

GIVING UP OUR LIVES

Late last year, November I believe, the virus we know as the “Coronavirus” or “COVID-19” appeared in Wuhan, China. Today, some four and a half months later, that same virus is affecting people around the world. At over 560,000 cases worldwide and over 25,000 deaths, COVID-19 is on a path to infect people around the world for months to come. Not just their health, but their finances, and yes, their weary spirits.

When I was watching the events of Sept 11, 2001, unfold from Woodbridge New Jersey, I was sure that I would never see anything of that magnitude in my lifetime again. I believe this Covid-19 pandemic may be the most devastating world event of the 21^st century and is already being compared to two monumental events of the 20^th century: the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic that infected 500 million people around the globe, killing about 50 million, and the October 1929 US stock market crash and the following great depression that reverberated around the world through the 1930s.

For those of you who do not know about these two events, the Spanish flu was a three-year epidemic. The great depression lasted a good 10 years through the 1930s.The changes and devastation of COVID-19 is still in its infancy. But these kinds of devastating events don’t just impact our finances and our health, they severely impact our emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Both of these events devastated society and caused unprecedented hardships. You would think that at some point society would throw their collective hands in the air and simply shout “I quit”!

But we know that is not the case. We Christ centered humans join our human spirit, with the Holy Spirit and we continue to push forward, we continue to hope, to help and most importantly, to love. When children of God are faced with death, destruction, despair, and devastation, we call upon the Holy Spirit to renew us, revive us, and put us on the right path again. This pandemic is one of those times when our faith is needed to get us through each and every day. I remember how my church in New Jersey was filled for those first few weeks after 9/11 with folks who needed to re-connect with their faith. We are facing just such a time right now.

The danger we face today is so different than anything we have faced in the past because it is essentially invisible. It’s a virus that we cannot see, it does not select people based on any given demographics, and it certainly does not worry about crossing borders. The rich, the poor, the commoners and royalty are all fair targets.  We get a constant diet of world wide updates from the news broadcasters and we see common threads of death, fear and despair. Our worlds have been turned upside down and we feel totally out of control.

To be honest, on the first Sunday in Lent when I spoke about giving up control, this is NOT what I expected by any stretch of the imagination. But here and now we need to remember that God sees our plight and is still with us to provide peace and comfort through this time of trial and tribulation.

One of my teaching assistants at Drew University wrote that; today is the time for prophets to speak, for Christians to rise up, especially those who can see past the despair of COVID-19 and its effects on health, economy, and spirit, and who can proclaim the Lord’s power of healing and love amidst the din of fear and chaos. It’s the time for Christians to reach out in love to those who are afraid and to provide comfort. It’s time for Christians to speak up about God’s comfort and gladness, the rock-solid stability that faith can provide in a time of trepidation and an unsure future.

Never have we had a timelier Lenten season, and never have we been able to look to Easter with more understanding, yearning for God’s resurrection power and grace. Christians know the force of that grace, the immensity of God’s power to change lives and bring joy out of sorrow. Christians, your time has come. Stand up. Your discipleship in “real-time” begins today. I couldn’t agree with her more!

In two of our texts today, Jesus’ raising of Lazarus in John 11 and the one from Ezekiel, we see folks faced with death and dry bones. The uplifting part of these scripture readings is that they both end with the hope of resurrection and new life.  You know the story of Lazarus. He and his family are friends of Jesus, Lazarus falls ill and dies and four days later Jesus comes and calls him out from the tomb shouting, “Lazarus, come out!” Lazarus rises from the dead and resumes his life, albeit – a new life and a new understanding of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. But the text that Lori read from Ezekiel is also a resurrection story - albeit an Old Testament resurrection story.  It is the story of a people without hope who were brought back into the land of the living by God.  Ezekiel was an Israelite prophet and as was a common theme in the Old Testament we see people in captivity who had lost everything they held most dear in life, defeated in body and soul. They were like a valley of old bones that had been left in the weather to dry up and break apart.  Ezekiel’s people had no life and even less hope.  God calls Ezekiel to go stand in the middle of the valley filled with bones, and prophesy to the bones. Ezekiel said “So I prophesied as I had been commanded and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone” Can you even imagine the level of faith that Ezekiel needed to do this? All Ezekiel could see was hopelessness and death but he listened to God. And then the bones began rattling, and they came together to form skeletons, and then bodies. But, bodies without breath.  It was the Lord who breathed his Spirit into them and THEN they lived again. This was to show the Israelites that they had not been forsaken and that there was a hope and a future for them.  Through the ages this story has also given hope to all God’s people that we will not be abandoned in the dry and desolate places of life. We will NOT be deserted and forsaken during this pandemic! We may feel the dry bones of illness, isolation, loneliness, grief and yes, unemployment and financial stress, but God will breathe new life into us if we hold tight and believe!  Remember, the good news is, we do not have to stay in these valleys – deserted, dismembered, dried out and depressed. We can give up our dry bones lives and live with and for Jesus, the one who is the resurrection and the life.  Dry bones, pandemic weary, hear the word of the Lord and use your Christian voice. Let others know that this time of trial is not forever. It may seem like forever on some days, but it won’t be. Yes, we are all human and susceptible to human frailties, we will feel the full range of human emotions; fear, sadness, anger, helplessness, to name a few, but now is the time to give our lives to God and know that on our most hopeless of days God is there, God is in control and will breathe new life into us. New hope, new joy, new life and most importantly new assurance in the power of the coming resurrection! May it be so for each of you. AMEN.