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March 9, 2008, the 5th Sunday in Lent

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             The story of Lazarus has many lessons for us in the context of our Christian faith. I try to put the Lazarus story in the context of our 21st century life. First I would like to quote a portion of it, “So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone. ’Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, ‘Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone and Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me but because of the crowd here I have said this that they may believe that you sent me.’ And when he had said this he cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus come out!’ The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, ‘Untie him, let him go.’”

 

        Having read a statistic not too long ago that the global population is growing by at least 70 million a year, I wondered what would happen if Jesus would use his power and bring back to life all those who have died as a result of violence. Of course this would never happen. The black plague reduced the population of many countries  radically and today a great number of people are dying of AIDS, malaria, hunger, etc. and yet we have that huge growth in human population. On the other hand, many, many lives are being saved because of the advance of medical technology. We know that life is God’s greatest gift to us because without life there is nothing.

       

        In the spring, summer and fall I start my daily walk before 5:00 in the morning and as I step off my front porch I look up and see the north star, and that always makes me think of the tremendous space and distance of objects in the universe. In spite of those distances I know that all of it is finite and in some way, measurable. God, we know, is infinite and I wonder how dangerous it is trying to live without limits. With a gro

wth of 70 million every year what is going to happen when there’s no more room on the planet for another person? Do we expect God to perform a miracle or do we just ignore the facts before us? Just that disregard for the realities ahead of us in population growth makes me wonder as to the impact that this growth could or should  have on our concept of morality. If we care only about ourselves, no problem. But if we are truly Christian, we have to be totally concerned about those who will come after us. Do they have water and food or will many begin to die of deprivation? Almighty God has given us our minds and wills so that we could be good stewards of creation and I feel that we fail in our stewardship if we do not confront the real problem of overpopulation. It seems that there are those who think that we who now live on the planet have greater rights than those who will follow us in the years and ages to come.

 

        Even now if our minds are open to God’s word we realize our failure as stewards of creation when we become aware of the great number who are dying of hunger and the related consequences. As Christians we believe that Almighty God has an unconditional love for every human being and he asks that this love be channeled through us so that his/her creatures may be concerned about one another. Reality and experience make us aware of the problems perhaps with the coming of Easter and the promise of our resurrection we can start with God’s help to focus on the solutions in a very serious and honest manner.

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