God's Kitchen Sink Strategy

God’s Kitchen Sink Strategy

John 11 The Raising of Lazarus

Gospel: God uses the kitchen sink strategy. He gives up everything for us; sending Jesus to be for us His very Word of hope and life.

Have you been following this year’s political race? I must confess that I have become a political junkie this year. What a historic race, at least on the Democratic side of the fence that is. This year’s primaries will either deliver a woman or an African American to the General election. This makes for unprecedented political drama, and as of late the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama has become quite heated as the two of them remain in a virtual dead heat after slugging it out through the first 15 rounds of state primaries.

Most recently, the story line in this drama was of Hillary’s response to Barak’s 11 state win streak. Up until last week, Barak not only held the lead in number of delegates but he was also leading in the most essential category of momentum. The entire hype heading into the Texas and Ohio primaries last week focused on Hillary’s strategy. She needed to not only win these two states, but she needed to win big with hope that she could turn momentum in her favor. But, what could she do? Up to this point her campaign wasn’t working. She needed a different strategy. Would she turn to negative advertising for the first time? Would she begin a series of appearances of TV shows, and radio spots? Up to this point she hadn’t tried this either. There’s good reason why she hadn’t tried these. They’re risky. The press was watching closely. What would she do?

Well, what she did turned out to be a selection of everything possible that she could do. She tried everything from negative ads, to fear mongering, to an appearances on TV, even appearing on Saturday Night Live. She threw everything she had into an attempt to win Texas and Ohio voters away from her opponent and over to her side. And it worked. She won both key states, and regained, at least for now, the momentum. Media has called it her “Kitchen Sink strategy”, because she threw everything out—leaving not even the kitchen sink behind. And now, the next battleground is set for our state of Pennsylvania. So, get ready fellow Pennsylvanians because these two candidates will both be throwing out the kitchen sink over the next few weeks to win our support in this upcoming Primary. Now, you might think this only concerns the registered Democrats among us. But, the Republicans need to pay attention as well, because even though John McCain has already won the Republican nomination, its one of these two who he will be up against. So, even though this is a Democrat only contest right the kitchen sink strategy will still be trying to win votes over to the Democrat side for next November.

So, get ready folks, pay attention, because the political battle for your vote is coming here to Pennsylvania. And on the battleground the weapon of choice will be the words they use. Any political campaign is a war of words. Each candidate will be making their case why they should win, and they will use their words to make a list of promises.

My friends, God has a kitchen sink strategy as well. God gave up everything for us, when he sent his son Jesus into the world. God, desperately wanting to win our hearts away from sin and the enemy of heaven, gave up his son to the curse of this sinful world while offering an eternal promise to us. God offers his own version of the kitchen sink strategy while using the power of his almighty word to promise life beyond death to al who would believe and turn to him.
That word, my friends, is a word we can trust. Let’s take a look at the word of God at work in today’s bible readings.

First, we have the wonderful prophetic word from Ezekiel. Ezekiel comes and sees before him a valley of dry bones. It is literally a valley of death. Now, this is not some sort of burial ground gone bad that Ezekiel has stumbled upon. The dead that lie there are the dead of Israel having been defeated in battle by the Babylonians. These dry bones are the death of a dream. Israel dreamed that they would be a sovereign nation that would shine the life and love of God for all to see. But, they had sinned against God. They did not remain faithful. They did not trust in God. Instead they put their trust in human kings and they worshiped idols instead of God. So, after years, generations, of ignoring God’s plea for them to change their ways and return to him, God gave them up to the Babylonians. Israel had sinned against God, and the curse of sin is death. These dry bones were the image of the death of a dream, Israel’s dream and God’s dream.

Do you ever feel that way? Do you remember back to when you were younger and your life was filled with the dream of doing something significant, something with purpose? That’s God’s dream for you as well. When we are young we are free from so many things, that we are enabled to dream God’s dream for our lives. It’s an exciting dream, and we feel it deep down in our bones. But, then something happens. We grow up. We mature. We begin to assimilate the ways of this world, and we begin to make the ways of the world our God. We trade God’s dream for something else—the American dream. This dream tells us that we will be accepted, loved, powerful etc. if only we prove it to others by the things we do. But, you know, as enticing as this dream is, it is still a lie, because we trade in God’s dream for it. God’s dream is no longer the main priority in our lives. Instead this long laundry list of tasks that lead nowhere becomes our main priority. This new dream becomes our new God. When we do this we sin against God and ourselves. And, the curse of sin is death. There are a lot of us here today who are running ourselves to death trying to keep up with the demands of this pop-culture American God. Some of us are run so thin, our souls are dry dead bones. God’s dream for us is dead.

But, look at what this God does. Our God is one who cannot remain angry. Our God is one of forgiveness, and love. Our God is one of new life in the place of death. He says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones!” In other words, God commands Ezekiel to speak God’s dream once again to them. Then as Ezekiel is speaking, God takes Ezekiel’s words and turns them into his almighty Word. God breaths upon the dry and dead bones and the Word of God bring them to life. The Word of God restores the dream.

Let’s turn now to the gospel lesson. These two readings echo one another. This is the miraculous raising of Lazarus. Notice that John finds it significant to inform us that Jesus was informed of Lazarus’ plight when we has ill, but that Jesus still lingered in his responsiveness to Lazarus’ aid. This is not because Jesus didn’t love Lazarus, he actually did very much. The text tells us that Jesus lingered so that Jesus’ miraculous work might finally convince everyone to believe in him. Had Jesus showed up when Lazarus was ill, then Jesus’ miracle would have been like any other miraculous healing. But, this time Jesus was going to bring life to the dead. The text goes on to give us specific detail about the length of time that Jesus lingered—4 days. This is very significant because the ancient Jewish belief was that the soul of a dead man lingered around the body for three days, so by the fourth day the soul of Lazarus was gone. In other words, by telling us that it was the fourth day, John wants us to know that there was absolutely no question—Lazarus was dead and gone. As a matter of fact, John wants us to know that he was too far gone to remain hopeful.

My friends, do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel like things are just too far gone to remain hopeful? I had a conversation with someone recently, another Christian actually, and they were talking with me about a situation they were praying for and how it seemed as though there was no use in praying anymore. This Christian friend said to me, “Pastor, there’s no hope.” Really!? No hope!? I thought to myself, “Wait a minute, you’re a Christian?” My friends, in the bonds of a relationship with Christ there is always hope. That is the very gift of Christ’s resurrection. That is the gift of Easter. We are never without hope. Remain in relationship with Christ, and there is always hope.

Jesus comes to this Lazarus who is too far gone, this scene of death and hopelessness. And notice what he does. Notice he does not enter the tomb and lay hands on Lazarus. Jesus stands outside the tomb, and echoing the scene from Ezekiel he prophesies to the dead. Jesus, the incarnate Word of God commands that life would return to the dead; that hope return to the hopeless. The Word of God restores Lazarus. The Word of God restores life, and hope.

My friends, God uses the kitchen sink strategy. He gives up everything for us, sending Jesus, to be for us His very Word of hope and life in the flesh. And, we have the gift of His Word in the words of the Bible. In the bible we encounter the same incarnate Word of God for our lives.
For our dry bones and our dried up dreams, God’s incarnate Word breaths new life into us through the reading and studying of scripture. For our dead and gone hope and life, God’s incarnate Word restores our faith in him, raising us up to new life in relationship with Christ.

So, then, for all of us. For you whose soul is feeling dried up like the bones in the valley, when was it that you last read from the scriptures and genuinely took in the breath of God as the words prophesied to you? For you whose hope is dead and gone like Lazarus in a tomb, when was it that you last turned to scripture and allowed your heart to listen openly to gospel message. Read the bible, listen to the Word of God. Let your hearts hear once again the call to rise up and come out of your tomb.

Amen.