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In our Gospel readings through Lent, we've been reading some of the great stories in the Gospel According to John - the story of Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, the blind man at the pool of Siloam.

When It's Too Late - John 11 - March 9, 2008 - Cicero United Methodist Church

­Everett J. Bassett

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In our Gospel readings through Lent, we've been reading some of the great stories in the Gospel According to John - the story of Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, the blind man at the pool of Siloam. Today, it's the story of Lazarus, one that always seemed a little misplaced for me during Lent. This story, a celebration of Resurrection, life, and the victorious power of Jesus, makes more sense in three weeks, during the Easter season As one Sunday School child said, "It's a good thing Jesus said, 'Lazarus, come forth.''' Why's that? "Because if he'd just said, 'Come forth,' without calling Lazarus's name, all the dead people from all time would have risen."

That child was wiser than he or she knew - according to biblical Christian tradition, someday exactly that will happen - the dead will all be raised. But that's somewhere at the end of the story. There is something about that - and in fact, about Easter Sunday ­that is a little surreal. It is the hope that sustains our faith, but it is somehow lifted from reality to another place beyond where we live every day.

The raising of Lazarus, as John tells it, was an event in real life: the grief was real.

The tears were real. The stench was real. The funeral cloths were real. And the resulting plot against Jesus was real. Certainly as this story is told, the most amazing thing about it is that life went on. We have no clue what happened to Lazarus after he was raised. There is one tradition that he eventually was a bishop in the church, but that is almost certainly not true. He seems to have no role to play in the scriptures after his revival from the tomb. And Jesus, for someone having accomplished his greatest miracle, went on amazingly unfazed. Real life didn't stop.

So my inclination with this scripture story is to look for a real life lesson. How do resurrection and life affect the daily lives that go on? And one of the things that strikes me is the whole issue of timing. It seems throughout the story that people were telling Jesus it was too late. "Lord," said Martha, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died." What is unspoken there is the implication, "But now is too late." Then Jesus says, "Your brother will rise again." And Martha says, "I know he will rise again ... on the last day." She still doesn't get it; in her mind it's too late for this life. Then Mary comes out and has the same conversation. And then some in the crowd says, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" But, of course, now is too late. And finally, when Jesus instructed them to remove the stone form the tomb, they protest - Lazarus is four days dead; the body was far gone when they buried it; it's too late to open the tomb.

Well ... when is it too late for God? Look at some of those times we tell God that it's too late. For example, there are some people who tell God that it's too late to learn. I've been depressed many times to think back to when I was in fifth or sixth grade and realize that my mind was a sponge at that age. I think I peaked at ten. At ten years old, I seemed to retain everything; I learned stuff that I never should have learned. And I don't feel I've had that same mental grasp since. You know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Well ... or can you? I'll never forget an afternoon I sat with a neighbor who was observing her 99^th birthday. It was great. She talked about 'this young man' and 'this young woman', and it gradually dawned on me that some of them were in their late eighties. And then she got up and sat at the organ in her living room and played, "How Great Thou Art." And I asked her if she had played the organ in church, and she said, "Oh no, that's something I took up when I turned 90." It happens that that very same afternoon I spent time with a 16-year-old young man. And he said that he wished he knew how to play guitar. And I said, "Why don't you take guitar lessons?" And he said, "Oh no. It's too late now. You've got to learn something like that when you're young."

Well- when is it too old to learn? Scientists tell us that the mind does slow down -but only when we stop using it. We can exercise the mind just as we need to exercise the body, and keep it alert and learning in most circumstances. And while I still remember my fifth grade jokes better than the one I heard yesterday, the experiences of life teach me lessons today that I could never have grasped back then. Too late to learn? Only if we believe the naysayers and don't believe God.

How about too late to begin again? One of the realities of life is that we fail. We have dreams and plans, we venture forth, and many times they don't work out. So, what do we do? We can give up - say I tried it, it's too late to try again. But I keep hearing about people who didn't do that. For example, Michael Blake left home at 17, convinced that he was called to write a great movie. He failed, and failed, and failed. Over a period of 25 years, 20 screenplays were rejected. At what point did he say it was too late - there was no point in trying again? He never reached that point. And in 1990 he won the Academy Award for writing Dances with Wolves. History is full of stories like that. I heard an insanely wealthy man interviewed, and he said that he lost everything he owned three times. Failure isn't the question; failure is inevitable if you're going to do anything at all. But failure doesn't mean Too Late. And success? All that means is you picked yourself up one more time than the number of times you fell down.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again." The great thing about that statement is that "You can be born again." It's not too late for a new start. And there are people here today who are close to giving up, because things have not gone according to Plan A. And, of course, it's too late to try again, or so it seems. But why close the door on dreams when we have a Lord and Savior who can reopen tombs? With God, success is just getting up one more time than the number of times the world knocks us down.

Now here's a tough one - when is it too late to forgive? Forgiveness is one of the most essential jobs we have as Christians. Every Sunday we pray together, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," linking our forgiveness from God for our sins to our willingness to forgive others who have sinned against us. Jesus clearly taught that principle again and again, and demonstrated it from the cross. L. Gregory Jones, in his book Embodying Forgiveness makes a compelling case that forgiveness is what truly makes up the Christian life. And a Christian community - a church - is a group of people who have formed together a forgiving community, embodying forgiveness in the name of Jesus - forgiveness for others, forgiveness for themselves, and receiving forgiveness from the loving arms of God.

Yet forgiveness is the issue that people find about as hard to do as anything you could name. Last November, the New York Times published a statement signed by 130 religious leaders from the Christian and Muslim faiths stating the need for those two religions to affirm their commonalities. Since the publishing of that ad, some of the Christian leaders who signed are backing out of the agreement. Why? Because the Christian groups they represent object to the statements about forgiveness - that Christians need to ask for the forgiveness of Muslims for atrocities committed by Christians, and to forgive Muslims for atrocities committed by Muslims.

Forgiveness is tough. People carry around grudges for all kinds of large and small misdeeds. Marriages crumble around unforgiven slights; neighborhoods become battlegrounds; nations and ethnic groups launch deadly attacks. Jesus taught mercy, but we just don't get it. And the cost is so great. Someone has written, "When you harbor bitterness, happiness docks elsewhere." It is impossible not to be negatively affected by a grudge you are carrying; it is poison to the system. It is impossible to grow spiritually if your soul is shackled by a bitterness you have not dealt with.

That's one of the reasons why one of the three seeds that we encouraged all of us to plant this Lenten season was a seed of reconciliation. Now, I'm going to make a guess here. I'm going to guess that the other two seeds were decided on fairly quickly by most people who took this exercise seriously. A seed of faith - well, that we can plant - it just means getting more serious about our prayer life, or our study life, and so on. A seed of service - that, too, is not hard to conceptualize - I suspect we announce a half dozen opportunities to serve every time we worship together on a Sunday morning. But planting a seed of reconciliation - that is a much tougher deal. That digs into personal stuff, and hits us where it hurts. But unless we're willing to dig in, to become vulnerable, to let Christ teach us at the most tender pocket of our hearts - then there will be a giant gap in our spiritual peace. Jesus and grudges can't occupy the same house.

And I really urge all of us to prayerfully consider where we can plant that third seed. It can make all the difference in our lives. We have the example right in front of us. They betrayed him, denied him, arrested him, falsely accused him, mocked him, whipped him, crucified him. And he forgave them. He forgives us. We must accept that gift, forgive ourselves, and forgive those who have trespassed against us. There is no other way to grow in Christ. It's not too late.

Finally, it is not too late to believe. Remember when it was easier to believe? We started out, in most cases, with a childlike trust in what we were taught. I see it in the children that are here in this place - the ability to believe. And I remember it. I remember the child Everett who believed those things decades ago, because that child never quite left me. Remember that childhood innocence in your past?

But then we grow up, and things are no longer innocent. And this is not some idealizing of childhood. We're supposed to grow up; we're supposed to examine the things we've been taught, and some of them we have to put aside. But what is tragic is that in this skeptical, harsh world, of doubts and sophisticated theories and all sorts of prideful human claims and all sorts of tragic events and greed and cruelty - we get so jaded that nothing of innocence is left. And we reach a point of weariness, where we might say, "I've seen too much. It's too late to go back. I can't believe anymore."

I suppose that's true if God is powerless or obsolete. But in the world where Jesus raised Lazarus, it's not too late to believe. Jesus held up a little child in front of his disciples and said, "It's not too late. Become like this little child - reclaim the power to believe. Believe in the power of God to do great things - believe in the ability of Jesus to call forth the dead parts of your soul and revive them - believe in the extraordinary gifts of grace and love and hope that are still the strongest force in this world - believe in the gifts of salvation and eternity that Jesus came to deliver to you and to me. Become like this child and believe, said Jesus, and you will enter the kingdom of God.

That is the offer that is before us today. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. That means it is not too late - to learn, to begin again, to forgive, (and to receive the gift of forgiveness), and to believe. As we move into this prayer time today, I invite us to think about the ways we have given up on the power of God. I invite us to confess the weariness and the doubts and the loss of innocence that tries to tell God that it's too late to do something extraordinary with our lives. God is calling every one of us to recapture that childlike faith and take a step forward.

As we pray, you might want to express that on a prayer card, and bring it forward. Or you might want to consider a new seed to plant in your life. We again extend an invitation to anyone who might want to pray with someone to come forward after the benediction, and someone will meet you here. God is so good, and so powerful. It's not too late for your dreams and hopes, or for you to do something great for your Savior. Can you take a step of faith today?