Jeremiah 23:23-29 and John 11:20-37
When the storm comes, don’t run for cover…
Don’t run from the coming storm ‘cause there ain’t no use in runnin’.
Yohannes Gabir, longtime member of Christ, stood in my doorway early on Thursday morning and he told us the unbelievable news that he had received a call that his dear friend, Tsereha had died. Tsereha? None of us could believe it… we really couldn’t even put together thoughts or find phone numbers or guess what to do next. The shock was so great that days later we are still trying to take it in… that beautiful, loving Tserha is no longer living and breathing here with us. Like a storm that swept through we are left with loss we can’t comprehend… and at the very same time, we know this truth from these strong words of Jeremiah.
There is nowhere where God is not.
The psalmist prays it too… Where could I go to escape from your Spirit or from your sight?If I were to climb up to the highest heavens,you would be there.If I were to dig downto the world of the deadyou would also be there.Suppose I had wingslike the dawning dayand flew across the ocean.Even then your powerful arm would guide and protect me.Or suppose I said, “I’ll hidein the darkuntil night comesto cover me over.”But you see in the darkbecause daylight and darkare all the same to you. (Psalm 139: 7-12, CEV)
There is nowhere where God is not.
In the earliest gospel, Jesus is sleeping in a boat during a storm and his disciples become terrified that their boat is going to sink and they will all drown… and in the midst of it, they wake Jesus with the words, “Don’t you care that we are about to die?” The first response in the story is that Jesus stills the storm… but the rest of the story is how Jesus answers that question—don’t you care? Jesus acts out the answer through all the rest of the story as he feeds and heals, teaches and restores, dies himself and is raised to new life. (Mark 4:35-41)
There is nowhere where God is not.
There is nowhere where God is not.
In the gospel of John, Jesus meets grief directly. His dearest friends, Martha and Mary, have lost their brother, Lazarus, and they have been sitting in vigil together for days. They are people of deep faith but their emotions run even deeper, why hadn’t Jesus saved the one they loved best? Mary wouldn’t even come out to meet him.Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
Yet even now I know that God will do anything you ask.
Yet even now I know that God will do anything you ask.
Jesus says who he is - saying “Everyone who lives because of faith in me will never really die. Do you believe this?”
Martha expresses her faith in resurrection and in who Jesus is—Christ, the Son of God – the one that she has been hoping for.
After Martha said this, she went and privately said to her sister Mary, “The Teacher is here, and he wants to see you.” And Mary asks Jesus the very same question - Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus weeps with them, wails with them… and the people said, “See how much he loved him.”
Others said “He gives sight to the blind. Why couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?” (John 11) |
We wonder the same… why couldn’t God have kept Tsereha from dying?
It’s not that we don’t know the end of the story. We believe, we trust in the resurrection of the body, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting… but what is so hard to understand is this separation now, a separation that doesn’t make sense for a couple whose faithfulness gave strength to a whole family, really a whole community.
It doesn’t make sense for a new grandmother who wanted to love her beautiful daughters and sons, her beautiful grandson for years to come.
It doesn’t make sense in a faith community where we wanted to share her beautiful himbasha, receive the cup of blessing from her hands, and hear her voice reading scripture in her own heart’s language… well, we never wanted those gifts she shared with us to end.
And yet… There is nowhere where God is not.
When the rain falls, let it wash away…
Let it wash away, that fallin’ rain, the tears and the trouble
Just a few weeks ago, we gathered here together for Elijah’s baptism.
I should just pause to say that this baptism and it’s timing was very, very important to Tsereha. In fact, she had Habte call me during the passing of the peace a couple weeks before to make sure that Lydia & Nick & I got to meet in time. We never dreamed we’d need to rely on these promises in this way so soon, but on that Baptism day, I said this, “By water and the Word God delivers us from sin and death and raises us to new life in Jesus Christ. We are united with all the baptized in the one body of Christ, anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and joined in God’s mission for the life of the world.” We renounced everything that gets in the way of relationship with God and we said we trust God and God’s promises through whatever life brings.
We prayed, “Sustain Elijah with the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the awe of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever.”
We know that this same faith that we prayed for in Elijah was the faith that lived in his grandmother. This is what she lived and taught each of us by her witness. She may have appeared to be small in stature, but she was great in faith. She was shy in some ways but she met life with tremendous courage and self-sacrifice for the good of others.
She has joined the saints, such a great cloud of witnesses, she is held in God’s loving embrace—and I can only imagine her wishing for us to deeply know these words of Jesus, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:18)
There is love within you, there is love all around you… it is the unconditional love of your wife, mother, sister, who would only ask that you take care of one another now; it is the love of God who mysteriously goes with us through the valley of the shadow of death all the way through to the other side, it is the love of people who share our sorrow and help us hold onto to hope when our faith wavers; it is love that never gives up, that never ends.
When that love calls, will you open up your door…
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