Christ the King Epiphany, Wilbraham MA

John 11: 1-45

Dcn. Michael Hamilton

March 22, 2026

Please pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts may be pleasing and acceptable to God. Amen. (pbs)

I must admit that each week I spend way too much time on Facebook and at times my partner Dan will complain that FB will rot my brain, and he might not be wrong. Rot or not, I continue to scroll and sometimes, I happen upon a time-stopper or a moment when a real-life lesson is revealed. This week, I read a posting that brought a piece of today’s Gospel to life. The posting was made by our own Ginnie K., and it opened with a picture of a woman in her 70’s with her gray hair tied-back, wearing a summer peasant-type blouse with her arm outstretched and a HUGE red, blue, and yellow parrot sitting on her arm. The posting included that Ginnie’s friend and cousin, Wendy, had died unexpectedly at home and I could imagine the pain and sense of loss that Ginnie was feeling as she lovingly paid tribute to Wendy. Then postings began to flow in with condolences, sorry for your loss, and prayers for Wendy, Ginnie, and all of the people that loved Wendy at this time of grief. This made me think, “Jesus wept.” If you are like me, whenever you hear, Jesus wept, you are sitting there recalling that great childhood Sunday School fact, that this is the shortest sentence in the Bible. Now I suppose that this is great information for Bible trivia night, but why is it important? Jesus is standing at the grave of his friend and we read, “Jesus wept.” What is strange about this situation is Jesus had complete trust in the plan of God, and at the time of Lazarus’ death, Jesus was the only one with first-hand knowledge that death would not have the final answer, and still, He wept.

This emotional response was prompted by Mary’s statement of, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” and it was her grief that brought Jesus to tears. I imagine Jesus wept out of not having the predictability of seeing and talking with Lazarus when He wanted. He wept out of compassion for Mary and Martha as they grieved their brother. He wept out of His humanity that recoils at the death of another living being, as we all do. Death reminds us of our Ash Wednesday pronouncements of, ‘I am made of dust and to dust I shall return’… again, a condition of our humanity and mortality. In the facebook posting, Ginnie and Rob were seeing emoji’s of hearts, smiley faces squeezing a compassion heart, and folded hands of prayers as other commentors joined alongside of them and wept/ posted/ and grieved for their loss in the death of their adventurous, free-spirited, and generous friend and cousin, Wendy. It is  , it is human, it is not a lack of faith or non-belief in the resurrection and the kingdom of God to grieve. It hurts, and life as we know it has changed.

Martha heard that Jesus was coming and she went out to meet him and what does she say? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus says, “your brother shall rise again”, and Martha responds with complete faith, “I know that he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day” and she attests that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah that has come into the world. This declaration of Martha is one of the two most poignant verses in the entire New Testament in my opinion; “I AM the resurrection and the life, and those who believe in me, even if they die, will live.”

As an aside, for $200 under Bible-trivia, what is the other most important verse according to me and all the smart people? Remember to answer in the form of a question…

What is, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him shall have eternal life and not perish?”

When I was much younger, the reading from Ezekiel was uncomfortable and scary. I suppose it is similar to what some people today feel when they reference the Zombie apocalypse with the dead coming back to life in grotesque way… a valley of desiccated bones lying in the scorching dessert sun being commanded to rattle, join bone to bone, then adding sinew, muscle, skin, and finally breath. But as an older person with much wisdom and humility, I believe that truly nothing is impossible for God even if my own imagination cannot conceive what the end will be like. Now, I can imagine a herd of reanimated beasts standing in front of me, that is in-Spired by the breath of God and the Spirit of life. For even in death and decay, the power of God lies outside of our human existence. It is the faith of Martha, the humanity of Mary, and the tears of Jesus, that reminds us to not be afraid because God is in control even beyond our own death or our acts of destruction. If we include the knowledge that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, then we have an arsenal of protection that allows us to live without fear.

With all of this knowledge as our protection for our body and soul, I want to speak to the current world events that we are experiencing. What we are witnessing are forms of death, an apocalypse, and dry bones of what used to be. We see what is lying broken, dead, and the need for reanimation and the sacred breath of God. We are mourning all sorts of deaths and changes that we never could have imagined. Many predictable ways of being in the world have changed. We are aware of injustices and hateful decisions being made globally, deplorable and evil acts surrounding us, pain, starvation, and grief creeping into our vision from all corners of the world. The current societal responses right now are fear, hateful speech, and vilification of anyone that does not believe the same way that I do. As Christians, we possess the starting blocks of recreating what is being torn down. Remember, “we are not responsible for fixing all of it, but we are also not free to ignore the work in front of us” (another FB post this week, so it is not a total waste of time).

Our plan of response, I say plan of response and do not use plan of ‘attack’ because the words we choose do matter. I believe, as Christians, we need to see this more like a medical intervention of bringing healing action into the mix instead of combatting and fighting to reset something or arming ourselves in rising to the challenge to win at some competition. In our spiritual-medical bag we have the humanity and grief of Mary crying over a death, the faith of Martha proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah, and the willingness of God to breath live into what appeared to be dead. God has proven His commitment to humanity by sending His own Son into the world, the Son who is the resurrection and the life of the world.

What else do we need? What can we do?  We can continue to support the Survival Center, we can protest the decisions that we believe need to be changed and work to support the people that are being crushed by oppression. We can plant a garden and share the produce, we can believe in the goodness of others, we can treat people with respect… all of these acts of resistance can change behaviors because society is operating in a mode of fear, with a sense of scarcity, and acting out of distrust or malice. By our supporting the people that are feeling particularly lost and vulnerable we produce positive actions of resistance that we are capable of.

Jesus trusted in God’s plan and still, He wept. We trust what the Go spel proclaims and at times we are still afraid or have doubts, BUT because of our knowledge that God is larger than the troubles we get ourselves into, we have HOPE. We know that living with hope and love are signs that we believe God is in charge, and according to FB- God has a preferential love for the poor and the lost so we are called to seek them out. If we reach out in prayer and action and we ask for help, I believe we will see a new valley of bones come to life again.

Pray for those that are grieving, assist where we see suffering, campaign for those that are being crushed or do not have a voice as strong as ours. We know that we are called to love mercy and do justice. We have the resources to meet that challenge. Let us be brave. Let us be peace and let us be love in the world. Amen.