Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from our Gospel lesson (John 11, raising of Lazarus) read earlier.

Three friends were discussing death and one of them asked: "What would you like people to say about you at your funeral?" The first of the friends said: I would like them to say, he was a great humanitarian, who cared about his community. The second said: "I would like them to say 'He was a great husband and father, who was an example for many to follow.'" The third friend paused thoughtfully. You know what I would really like them to say?" "No, what?" said the first two. "Look, he's moving!!" (from Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com, March 2002).

The third friend's wish captures the implicit wish humans have to beat death. And it is an understandable wish. Some people are having themselves cryogenically frozen in hopes of being revived by technology in the future. Others are considering having themselves cloned, in order to survive death through some sort of technological reincarnation. My wife even read yesterday of pet cloning companies that hope to keep your favorite pet alive for generations. They've named themselves "PerPETuity" and, to fit today's lesson, "Lazaron." Death is not a natural process. God did not design and create humans to die. Death is foreign to us, something we would all like to avoid. If ever a friend tells you that death is just a natural process, a part of life, you can witness to your faith in Christ by disagreeing with them, with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3: 15). You can surprise them by teaching them that death is foreign to us, a result of our rebellion against God, not a natural process He created. This could afford you the opportunity to talk about today's lesson, Jesus raising Lazarus, as well as Easter itself.

While on the one hand we who are redeemed, ransomed from sin because of Christ, can look forward to death and know that it will bring us into the joys of heavenly existence with our Lord, we nonetheless know that death is alien and unfamiliar to us. Death is the great equalizer. All die, rich and poor, powerful and weak; sometimes the young, sometimes the middle-aged, sometimes the old. But all do die. All who are children of Adam and Eve have been struck with the plague, the world-wide epidemic of sin that brings disease, calamity and eventually death to all. Death is something to be grieved. Jesus even grieved the effects of death in our lesson. He was "deeply moved in spirit and troubled. (v. 33). Here we see Jesus' grief in the famous shortest verse (11: 35) of the Bible "Jesus wept."

Now the household of Mary and Martha and Lazarus had thought that their special relationship with Jesus might keep death from touching their lives, at least from touching their lives in an untimely way. They had seen and heard of his miracles of healing, healing leprosy, paralysis, bleeding, deafness, blindness, and demon-possession. Surely, they thought, Jesus could come and heal his special friend.

And he wasn't far away. Imagine how you would feel if one of your best friends was a gifted doctor, one who specifically and uniquely knew how to cure the disease your brother had, and this friend was just over in Topeka, or Kansas City. You called and left a message that your brother was deathly ill and needed his unique treatment, but your best friend delayed for days, and doesn't even arrive until he's late for the funeral.

It would be hard for us to be civil toward such a friend, a doctor, a healer of disease. This is one of the surprising parts of this story for me. Mary and Martha still treated Jesus politely when he arrived. I don't know that I would have. But Jesus has a plan, a plan that will set in place the events of the next few weeks. His plan is to glorify God not just through a healing, but through a resurrection. And not just any resurrection. Jesus had already, to our knowledge, brought dead people back to life in at least two other situations. He had raised the daughter of Jairus back to life (Luke 8: 41ff) and the widow's son at the village of Nain (Luke 7: 11ff). But both of those resurrections were in Galilee, far from Jerusalem and the Jewish leaders who hated Jesus. Both of these previous resurrections had been of people just recently dead. Both of these previous resurrections could have been disputed by unbelievers -- as only apparent resurrections of people who were mistakenly thought to be dead.

In the Wizard of Oz, one of the opening scenes in Oz is when Dorothy and her house have fallen on and killed the Wicked Witch of the "west who has been terrorizing the residents of Munchkin City. The witch looks dead, but before their celebration can begin, death must be verified beyond any shadow of doubt. The mayor of the city says to Dorothy, "As the mayor of Munchkin City, in the county of the land of Oz, I welcome you most regally. But we've got to verify it legally, to see if she is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, absolutely, positively, undeniably, and reliably dead!" When Martha goes out to meet Jesus, there is no doubt. Lazarus is physically, absolutely, positively, undeniably, and reliably dead. (from Jeff Olson. "Resurrection Rehearsal: The Lazarus Story").   He had been undeniably, reliably dead for 4 days by then. At the high school graduation in my hometown, 1975, I still remember what one of the student speakers, the class salutatorian said. He said he could predict something with certainty, that all of us in the auditorium that night would be dead in 100 years. All of us someday, if the Lord does not return first will also be undeniably, reliably dead!

But the undeniable, reliable death of Lazarus does not phase Jesus. He knows who he is and the power he holds. He knows that He is "the Resurrection and the Life" (v. 25). He knew that He could take a whole valley full of dry bones and speak to them, and restore them into living breathing humans again (Ezekiel 37). He knew what power he held when he delayed going to Lazarus for two days. He knew that he could have healed Lazarus from afar, as he did the Centurion's servant (Luke 7).   But for the benefit of those who would see, and for the benefit of those of us who would hear of it later, Jesus waited to go to Lazarus until he was undeniably, reliably dead. Then Jesus went to Lazarus' tomb and with his powerful word, the word of God Himself, He said "Lazarus, come out." Then, only in the power of Jesus' Word, the wish of the "3rd friend" came true for Lazarus. Those in the crowd began to say at this funeral "Look, he's moving!!" And many began to believe and trust in Jesus.

But Jesus wasn't through yet. This greatest of miracles simply set the stage for what was to come in the next few weeks, what we will be celebrating for the next few weeks ourselves. This greatest of miracles, the raising of Lazarus would be the first domino to fall in a set of dominos (C. Heidel) that would result in Jesus' suffering and death for us, and then the even greater miracle, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is that resurrected Christ who is living in you, who many of you will receive his resurrected body into yours in a few moments. It is in this resurrected Jesus that we can put all fear of death behind us.

As the 1975 Salutatorian said, we can be confident that all of us here today, save perhaps a few of the very young, will be undeniably, reliably dead in 100 years (unless our Lord returns before that). But Christ's words have the power to rouse the undeniably dead as if they were only taking a short nap (Luther).   For those of us who hear the word of Christ, who trust in him as our "Resurrection and Life", we can be confident that we, like Lazarus, will hear his loud voice one day saying "_____, come out!" "_____, come out!" "_____, come out!" "_____, come out!" (I will fill in the blanks with attending members' names. Readers can fill in the blank with your own name!) On that day, we will all be saying "Look, he's moving!" "Look, she's moving!" "Look, I'm moving!"

The grace and powerful resurrection words of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, be with you always. Amen