Sermon | The Rev. Peter Sipple | March 22, 2026
SERMON – Trinity, New Haven, Lent Va (3/22/26)
During the last two Sundays, as we read and listened to St. John’s Gospel, we’ve seen events working on two levels: the literal and metaphorical—or, we might say, the “worldly” and the spiritual. Jesus encounters the woman at the well and heals the man born blind. We saw that these meetings may well have taken place just as John describes them, while also conveying the writer’s larger theological intention, guiding us to what we might describe as our spiritual “sightedness” or “insight.”
John is intent on helping us “see” Jesus for who he really is. During Lent we continue to engage in the revelations and disclosures occurring during the season of Epiphany. For John is conveying a “larger truth:” the life-changing truth for those who believe: that the world and human life are no longer what they were. Christians mark a change in human history with the birth of Jesus. We view Jesus’ Incarnation as the center, the pivot-point in the entire history of humankind. And, we are leading up to Easter, without which we would have remained “in the dark” about the significance of the Incarnation. With this week’s Gospel, we have the event that many observers call the crux, unveiling the central truth about Jesus and God’s purpose. We might view the raising of Lazarus as a kind of key that begins to unlock the mystery of Jesus’ time on earth.
Before thinking more about Lazarus, let’s get inside John’s head for a moment. He’s living about 100 years after Christ’s birth and becomes convinced that the man known as Jesus was in fact the Messiah, sent by God to change the nature of the human condition. He’s familiar with the Synoptic Gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke, which he now wants to interpret for a new age, in a primarily Greek world. But there are challenges: The ties with Judaism are breaking; many Gentiles are coming into the new Church. Most threateningly, some are endorsing what are called the Gnostic heresies—or Gnosticism. These folks believe that salvation is available only to a select few—“insiders” who have acquired the special knowledge and insights that they believe have gained for them God’s assurance. Some heresies teach that the material world is evil, created by a lesser, flawed god. Others assert that Jesus only appeared to be human, so they seek other explanations for the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection.
If we think this funny word Gnosticism refers to odd beliefs long dead, we need to think again. It appears alive and well here in the U.S., having taken a form that’s referred to as Christian nationalism. To careful readers of the Gospels, Christian nationalism harshly misinterprets Jesus’ teaching—in fact, its adherents seem to have it upside down or backwards. For it appears to be the worship of power in the name of Christ, held, once again, by insiders with the right qualifications. One candidate for public office in Texas is challenging that misinterpretation. He asserts that “what’s happening increasingly in the American Church is that people are starting with their politics, and their faith is growing out of that; it’s a fundamental reversal,” he says. “People are baptizing their partisanship and calling it ‘Christianity.’” This young man, James Talarico, is pushing Christians to reclaim what he sees as the core principles of their faith…including compassion for immigrants, helping the poor, and loving one’s neighbors. “I’m tired of being pitted against my neighbor,” he is quoted as saying. “It’s been more than ten years of this kind of politics—politics as blood sport, as trolling and owning, as total war. It tears families apart; it ends friendships, and it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time.”
Within the writings of John the Evangelist we find a very different truth--the great truth of the Incarnation that gives itself entirely to the core principles of our faith. These principles include the conviction that respecting and upholding the welfare of others ahead of self leads to eternal life, whereas the quest for personal power through self-interest leads inevitably to death. So here we find John’s Gospel raising essential questions about life and death. What is life? How does it come to be—not only human life but all existence on earth? Is death an ending or the beginning of something else?
Setting aside John’s purposes for another moment, how can you and I talk about these essential questions? We might start with an image—the image, for instance, that’s conveyed by a great painting. If we get too close, we see brush strokes; we see the lines where colors blend, see the artist’s technique; but we may then miss the overall concept and the artist’s intention. What is the spirit of the painting—its reason for being? So it is with this miraculous event in Jesus’ ministry—the raising of Lazarus. If we stand back and consider what the artist—in this case God—had in mind, we can see the whole happening in its fullness.
So what are the overarching questions we ask about the event described in today’s Gospel? We might start with the event’s historical accuracy—did it really happen? But saying “no” will put an end to our investigation—not a helpful way for Christians to interpret John’s intention and meaning. Let’s look at the larger purpose, as Martha did. Martha provides a key to our interpreting what’s going on. The steps and stages she passes through are much as ours would be—a mix of new faith and old beliefs. If this event were a novel or short story, it might well be told through Martha’s eyes.
What, then, does Martha learn? That death is not an end. That faith in Jesus Christ brings about new life, both for the living in this earthly existence and in “life everlasting.” “Rising from the dead” describes an event for Lazarus, and also for Jesus himself. And Martha also learns that we can “rise from the dead” by recommitting ourselves to God and to God’s ways, and by embracing the core principles of Jesus’ teaching. As one NT scholar puts it: “It looks as if what has usually been thought of as the miracle, the restoration of Lazarus to the life of his family, is simply the consequence of the real miracle, the life that is given by Jesus Christ to those who believe in him.”
In a week, we begin the final stages of Jesus’ journey toward and into Jerusalem. He will walk the via dolorosa, the route of humiliation and suffering that John’s Gospel anticipated with the suffering and death of Jesus’ friend, Lazarus. But both deaths, as Jesus assured us, bitter as they are, will allow us to witness God’s glory, so that we, like John, may continue to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. AMEN