 As we keep the Lenten journey, we follow Jesus in the way of the cross, sustained by the Scriptures and moving towards Holy Week as we follow through the purposes of God. John's Gospel chapter 11 verses 38 to 44. Jesus was once again deeply troubled within himself. He went to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone was placed in front of it. Take away the stone, said Jesus. But Master said, Martha, the dead man's sister, they'll be a smell. It's the fourth day already. Didn't I tell you, said Jesus, that if you believed, you would see God's glory. So they took the stone away. Jesus lifted up his eyes. Thank you, Father, he said, for hearing me. I know that you always hear me, but I've said this because of the crowd standing around so that they may believe that you sent me. With these words, he gave a loud shout. Lazarus, come out. And the dead man came out. He was tied up, hand and foot, with strips of linen, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. Untie him, said Jesus, and let him go. It might seem strange that we read the story of the raising of Lazarus in the middle of Lent because the raising of Lazarus seems to us such an extraordinary, positive, powerful, new, that surely that should be an Easter story, and in a sense it is. But the way John has positioned it here is with Jesus on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. And when Jesus is waiting to see whether it's the moment to go, his followers are saying to him, let's not go back to Jerusalem. They were after you last time. If we go back there, bad things are going to happen. And so this raising of Lazarus is part of Jesus' own preparation for what he himself is to go through. And I think that's part of the meaning of the strange note earlier in the story when it says that when Jesus heard that Lazarus, his friend, was sick, and Lazarus with his sisters lived in the village of Bethany very close to Jerusalem, when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for a couple of days. You might have thought, and Mary and Martha did think, that if only he'd hurried up, he could have stopped Lazarus from dying. But something else seems to be going on here, something which is profound and powerful and ought to be sustaining for us as we go through Lent as well. Because when we get to the scene we just read with Jesus at the tomb saying, take away the stone. And Martha saying, no, no, no, his body will have started to decompose already. There'll be a smell. It'll be hideous. It'll be scandalous. And Jesus says, didn't I tell you that if you believed you would see God's glory? Then John doesn't say the crucial thing. As usual, John leaves it for us to work it out. Jesus says, take away this stone and they do. And then Jesus prays and says, thank you, Father, that you heard me. What does that mean? It must mean that Jesus, when he heard the news of Lazarus being very sick, had prayed that even if Lazarus did die, he would not decompose. That he would stay there ready to be raised back to new life. So when the stone is rolled away, I think the missing link that John leaves us to figure out for ourselves is that there isn't a smell. And Jesus knows that Lazarus is ready to be raised. Lazarus, he says, come out and out he comes, still wrapped in the grave clothes. Untie him, says Jesus, and let him go, which by the way could precipitate all sorts of thoughts about the way in which Jesus calls us out of the prisons, out of the graves in which we have hid ourselves in our sin, in our fear, in our depression, in our guilt. Jesus says, here's a Lenten discipline. Get yourself untied and find a new way to freedom. But at the heart of this story is of course Jesus coming to the place of pain. Jesus coming to the place of sorrow and grief in order to share it himself. A little earlier in the story we have that amazing picture of Jesus himself weeping at the tomb of his friend. Even knowing what he was called to do, that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Jesus weeps. And this is the Jesus who John has told us from the beginning of his gospel. Is God incarnate? This is the word made flesh. The one who was the all-powerful creator coming to share the sorrow and terror of our human lot. And that as we journey through Lent is part of the meaning of this story for us as well. That the Jesus who we follow, the Jesus who is taking us all the way to the cross and beyond, is the Jesus who didn't just sail through all that as though it was easy for him. The Jesus whose compassion resulted in him weeping at the tomb of his friend. I find that enormously comforting and just as comforting in its way as the promise of resurrection, the promise of new life, the other side of death. Of course for Lazarus it was a strange thing because he came back into the present life and he then in due course had to die again. And indeed because his new life as he had it was such a powerful evidence of who Jesus was there were some people plotting against his life as well almost immediately. But for Jesus this was the sign that he could go all the way to Calvary, all the way to suffering and death knowing that the God in whom he trusted would raise him from the dead. Only this time not coming back into this life but going through into a newly embodied existence and new life beyond the reach of pain and sickness and death. That is what sustains us in our Lenten journey. And so we pray, Lord Jesus Christ as you wept at the tomb of your friend and as you prayed that God's will would be done and his glory be seen in what you then did. So we pray for ourselves and for all those with whom we pray at whose tombs we weep or in whose sorrows we share. We pray that your glory will be revealed right there and keep us on track as we follow you on the pathway to Calvary and Easter. Amen.