"A Dead Duck Or A Soaring Eagle"
(John 11:1-45, Ezekiel 37:1-14)
Rev. Billy D. Strayhorn
INTRODUCTION:
A guy on a scaffold was painting a building when he dropped his paint brush. As he leaned over the rail to watch his brush fall, he hollered, "Quack, quack, gobble, gobble." Below, a man walking under the scaffold was hit by the brush. He got pretty irritated and yelled at the painter, "Why didn't you warn me?"
The painter replied, "Well, I did. I yelled 'Quack, quack, gobble, gobble.'" "What in the world does that mean?" the man hollered back. And the painter replied, "Duck, turkey!" (1)
Have you ever noticed how after you're married for a few years you begin to develop some pretty sharp communication skills. At times, it only takes a certain look and you've communicated with one another. But sometimes our communication shorthand doesn't work exactly as we expected. A woman was planning to have roast duck for dinner and so she wrote herself and reminder and stuck it on the refrigerator with a little magnet. Cryptically, it read,: "Thaw Duck." The next day her husband saw the note and added his little comment to it, "Thaw one, too." (2)
This morning we've read two passages about lifelessness and death; passages where God worked miracles and brought new life to dried up bones and a cold lifeless body sealed in a tomb. In other words, God took a couple of dead ducks and breathed new life into them and made them like soaring eagles, for all to see. Some figuratively, like the dry bones in Ezekiel. And one literally, like Lazarus, friend of Jesus and the brother of Mary and Martha.
I. DEAD DUCKS:
A. We can identify with both. There have been times in our lives when we've been just like those dry bones and the body of Lazarus at it lay in the tomb. Oh not literally, but figuratively. We've been nothing but a bunch of dead ducks.
Cut Off: We've all experienced those moments or times in our lives when we've felt lifeless, frozen, dead to the world. Sometimes life seems to be going along great. Oh, sure, we've strayed a little. But everybody misses Church once in a while. And everybody forgets to pray. We all get distracted and forget to focus on God. But it seems like everything in our life is going great or at least Okay, so we don't really miss that contact with God. But then something happens. Something causes the foundation of our existence to crumble. Or the road of life takes a sudden hairpin right when we thought it was going make a left and we spin out of control. Or we make bad decisions. We choose a way of life that really is a dead end. Whatever the case, we wake up one morning and find our selves sealed in a lifeless tomb of our own making. And we don't know what to do ore where to turn.
B. Relationships: Maybe it's not that at all. Maybe some relationship that we've been in has sucked the life out of us and we're dried up. for whatever reason the relationship went south. Our heart is broken as well as our spirit. We feel like there's nothing left to live for. And there certainly isn't anything left to give. We know there's supposed to hope. But we can't find it. We know there's supposed to be joy but our lives have come apart at the seams and we're scattered the bones in Ezekiel's vision. we couldn't get it together if we tried. And we've tried. There's nothing holding us together but the scars. And now the scars have become bars. And we can't get out. We're stuck in the pain, stuck in the fear, stuck in the tomb of a former relationship that has a death grip on our future.
C. Disease: Maybe it's a disease or an illness that has it's death grip on us. A lot of us are so frightened of Cancer that even the mere mention of it causes our hearts to race a little faster. And when we hear that we or one of our family or one of our friends has cancer we become immobilized with fear. That fear sucks the life out of us. Our souls and spirits and lives feel like the dry bones of Ezekiel. Our thoughts are the same as Martha's when Jesus told them to move the stone from in front of the tomb. She finally said what she'd been thinking all along about Lazarus' death. "Lord, it stinks."
And that's exactly how we feel when we get that horrible news. Everybody does. The big "C" as I heard one preacher call it, does stink. It is such a horrendous demon in our lives and in the life of the world. It fills us we fear. It robs us of life and the quality of life. It wreaks havoc on the individual and the family. It gets us in such a death grip that we can't even hear all the positive statistics about how many multitude more survive than die from cancer now than ever before. Our fear entombs us, just like Lazarus.
D. Children: Sometimes it's our children. It can be our grown children in whom we are disappointed because of their chosen lifestyle. Or it can be fear FOR our children and the problems they face in society today. How do we protect them. How do we raise them and provide them with the moral compass they need. Both fear and disappointment are powerful tombs that keep us imprisoned, keep us separated from life and from God. The make us feel like those dead ducks.
E. Grief: It could be grief that has us undone or entombed. I haven't lost a parent or a child. I lost a dear aunt a few years ago, one who was like a second mother to me. And I've lost some very close friends. I know what grief is like. I know how it can tear you apart on the inside. I know how it can seal your heart and make you never want to love anyone again.
In the ministry, I've seen how grief can ravage families and individuals. I know one person that the day her husband died she drew the curtains and closed the blinds and stayed in her home, refusing to come out. Eventually, she died in the darkness of her home and in the darkness of her grief. They said she died of pneumonia, but I think it was really grief that took her.
Sometimes grief grabs our heart and tries to squeeze the life out of it. It wraps us in it's darkness and threatens to entomb us.
Jesus was facing some of these fears and challenges to his ministry as well. He was facing the cross. He knew it was coming. All of these things try to turn us into dead ducks. They try to entomb us, imprison us, lock us up and scatter our bones. When what God wants is not dead ducks but soaring eagles.
II. SOARING EAGLES:
A. The Last Word: And the mistake all of these things make; the mistake we make when we listen to them instead of God, is that they all think they have the last word. Depression, Fear, Death, Disease, all of these think they have the last word in our lives. Well, I've got news for you, that's not what these two passages say.
God heard the cry of God's people. Jesus heard the cry of his friends Mary and Martha. He felt their grief for Lazarus so deeply that he wept with them. And the Good news is the Good News is the last word.
Despair is not the last word, Depression is not the last word,
Death is not the last word, The Cross is not the last word, the Good News of Jesus Christ is the last word. You see, if Scripture teaches us anything, it teaches that God always has the last word.
That last word is the first word spoken as John tells it. "In the beginning was the Word" one Word, one little word, larger than life, one word that was spoken and filled with a God sized love. One word that summed all of creation and through which all of creation was made possible. One Word that gives life. One Word that gives new life. One Word that was the first word and will always be the last word. That word was and is "Jesus." That one Word, "Jesus" can make dead ducks into soaring eagles.
Jesus knew that when he finally came to Bethany, to the house of his friends. Yet the crowd didn't. They thought death had won. They thought Lazarus was out of their lives and sealed away forever.
They thought Lazarus was dead and there was nothing they could do about it. Jesus knew different.
Remember the musical The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy's house was swept up by a horrible cyclone. When her house finally landed in Munchkin City, it landed right on top of an evil witch who had been tormenting the Munchkin people. The Munchkins wanted to throw a huge celebration in Dorothy's honor. But first, the Mayor of Munchkin City had to verify beyond a shadow of a doubt that the witch was dead. In his song to Dorothy, he says, "As Mayor of the 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!"
Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. We can be sure that Lazarus was morally, ethically, physically, absolutely, positively, undeniably, and reliably dead! (3) That was one of the reasons Jesus waited so long, so everyone knew Lazarus was "absolutely, positively, undeniably, dead!" When they were absolutely sure, Jesus went to Bethany. And there he had them roll the stone away and then in a voice loud enough to wake the dead, he called Lazarus. You see, God always has the last word. And that word is Jesus.
B. Just as God breathed new life into those old dried out bones in the desert for Ezekiel; and just as Jesus called Lazarus from the dead and into new life, God can do that with our lives and our problems as well
God, through Christ, changes dead ducks into soaring eagles. God breathes new life into the dried out, disjointed bones of our life.
Just as Jesus told those around Lazarus. God, in Jesus, says "Unbind him. Or unbind her. Unbind them from the depression that holds them down, from the despair that chokes off their life and give them new life."
A few years ago I stopped by to visit a woman who's husband had died and whose funeral I'd held about two months before. It was one of those dark, drizzly days. I wasn't even sure if Emma was home. The house was dark and all closed up; all the blinds and curtains were drawn. I rang the doorbell, nothing, knocked and then heard a quiet voice say, I'll be with you in a minute.
Emma finally came to the door, and as I walked down the hall to the living room, I couldn't help but notice the whole house was dark. It was all sealed up like a tomb.
We sat down and went through all those first few minutes of formalities that you go through when you have guests. And then all of a sudden Emma burst out with, "Is the resurrection real?"
I answered, "Yes."
She in turn asked, "Well, how do you know?"
We talked about the passages of scripture that dealt with the resurrection. We talked about those where Jesus foretold his own death and told us of the promise of the resurrection. We talked about how we had to accept it on faith. It was all very Biblical and theologically correct. I would have gotten great marks back in seminary. But I could tell it wasn't getting through. With a deep sigh Emma said, "I want a sign."
I told her the only sign I knew of was the empty tomb. Emma said, "That's not enough. I want more than that."
As we talked the rain had been coming down harder and harder. It had gotten even darker. The day seemed to match our moods. I was depressed. I'd come to help and didn't do a very good job.
Before I left, we prayed and I prayed for a sign for Emma. Something to ease her grief and to help her know the truth of the resurrection. As I walked down the hall, I felt sort of useless because I hadn't been able to reach her.
When I opened the door, the first thing I noticed was that it had stopped raining and the sun was starting to peek out of the clouds. The sky off in the east was still dark and stormy but the western sky was beginning to lighten up. About the same time that I heard the door close, I looked up. And I immediately turned around and rang the doorbell.
The door opened and I took Emma's hand. I pulled her outside and pointed. We both stood there in stunned silence as we looked at one of the most beautiful rainbows I have ever seen. It was a full horizon to horizon rainbow. The colors were brilliant. Emma started crying. And then she started laughing. She looked at me and through her tears and laughter said, "He's alive!!!" She hugged me, ran inside and started opening curtains and blinds.
That's what Jesus did for Mary and Martha that day. And that's what God can and will do in our lives if we invite God in. God may not enter your life as dramatically as Emma's but God's reassuring presence can be felt wherever you are.
God can breathe new life into the dried out disjointed bones of your faith. God can remove those things that bind you and keep you entombed. God can roll away the heaviest stone to set you free. Because God always has the last Word. And that Word is Jesus. Through Jesus God will lift you from being a dead duck to being a soaring eagle.
CONCLUSION:
A nurse on the pediatric ward, before listening to the little ones' chests would plug the stethoscope into their ears and let them listen to their own hearts. Their eyes would always light up with awe. But she never got a response to equal four-year-old David's .Gently he tucked the stethoscope in his ears and placed the disk over his heart. "Listen," she said, "What do you suppose that is?"
David had a deeply puzzled look on his face. He looked up as if lost in the mystery of the strange tap-tap-tapping deep in his chest. Then his face broke out in a wondrous grin and asked. "Is that Jesus knocking?" (4)
In this miracle Jesus was setting the stage for His own resurrection. He wanted His disciples to remember that day with Lazarus. He wanted them to know the power of God. Not just the power of a prophetic vision as in Ezekiel but the power of God to raise the dead. Jesus wanted them to know that God had put the keys of life and death in Jesus hands. And Jesus chose life.
Jesus stood outside Lazarus' tomb. He knocked. And then he called with a voice loud enough to wake the dead. "Lazarus, come out." Jesus is knocking on the doors of our heart, the doors of our tombs as well. Jesus wants to breath new life into whatever situation has bound you and entombed you. Jesus wants to make you a soaring eagle. Let Him breathe new life into you. Let him roll the stone of your tomb away. Let Him give you new life.
This is the Word of the Lord for this day.
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Bibliography
1. Parables, Etc. (Platteville, Colorado: Saratoga Press), June 1993
2. The Pastor's Story File (Platteville, Colorado: Saratoga Press), July 1987
3. Dynamic Preaching, Jan/Feb/Mar 1999 Vol XIV, No. 1. (Seven Worlds Publishing, Knoxville, TN) p. 70
4. Dynamic Preaching, Jan/Feb/Mar 1999 Vol XIV, No. 1. (Seven Worlds Publishing, Knoxville, TN) p. 72
Other References Consulted
** William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, the Gospel of John (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975) electronic version.
** Lectionary Preaching Workbook Series VI, Cycle A, (CSS Publishing, Lima, OH, 1998) SermonPrep Version.
** Preaching the Miracles, (CSS Publishing, Lima, OH, 1998) SermonPrep Version.
** Homiletics, March/April 1999, Volume 11, Number 2. (Communications Resources, Inc., Canton, OH)