Outside the grave

HOME

03.09.08

Fifth Sunday in Lent

THINK OUTSIDE THE GRAVE

EZEKIEL 37:1-14; JOHN 11:1-45

Childhood Play

Lego Blocks

When I was a child, a box of Lego blocks would keep me busy for hours

My brothers and I had an enormous collection of those colorful, interlocking bricks
The box we kept them in was two feet wide by two feet long by two feet tall, and that box was full to the top
We’d dump that box out on the living room floor and sit there for hours on end creating an entire city
I’m not a very creative person with crafty-type things, but give me a box of Legos and I’ll build anything imaginable
I still enjoy playing with Legos even today

On a rainy afternoon, my brothers and I would sit all afternoon with Legos scattered around us, piecing together houses and skyscrapers, building roads and sidewalks, even creating cars and airplanes out of them

We were involved in creative play, and there was no limit to the things we could create
Then our baby sister, who is five years younger than me, would wake up from her nap
She would come toddling into the living room with arms flailing and feet kicking, and everything we worked so hard to create would suddenly be gone
The life we worked so hard to build in our imaginary world of play was destroyed
The Legos we meticulously pieced together would once again be scattered all over the floor—separated and disjointed from each other—much like the bones Ezekiel saw scattered in the valley

Creative Play

The thing I like about Legos is that there’s so much you can do with them

There’s really no limit to the things you can create
You can snap them together in so many different ways to create whatever you can imagine
And if something isn’t going together as you imagined it would, you can take it apart and start over—you can re-create it into something new and different
But Legos aren’t any fun if you never take them out of the box
Inside the box, they’re just ordinary pieces of plastic, but once you open the box, there’s no limit to the things you can create

Surprisingly, the business world has begun to tap into the potential that’s contained in a box of Legos

Any number of corporations are now holding Lego workshops for their employees
Lego consultants are brought in, for a fee of $7,000, to hold a two-day Lego workshop
During these workshops, employees are involved in creative play, using Legos to address and solve problems in the workplace and to generate new ideas to help the company improve and grow
And these workshops have been remarkably effective

According to The Economist magazine, these workshops are now available in 25 countries, and business is booming

At one workshop, the chief executive of the company was portrayed as so fat that he blocked a hallway, suggesting that his actions were clogging up the company
A firm with rotten customer service was modeled as a fort under siege
And an overbearing boss depicted his staff as soldiers who were heading off to battle

These Lego creations can provide a picture of an organization that people have trouble seeing in any other way

They unlock creative potential to help with problem solving and to generate new ideas and creative ways of thinking
Legos can be an effective tool to help us look at life differently
Yet, they can only help us “think outside of the box” when we take them out of the box

Legos and Life Lessons

The situation my brothers and I often found ourselves in when our creative play with our Legos was disrupted by our baby sister parallels what often happens to many of us in real life

We would work hard to create the world of our dreams only to have it decimated in seconds by Judy’s flailing arms and kicking feet
The beautiful world we worked so hard to build is devastated—scattered all over the floor
And we were left to pick up the pieces

In certain ways, that was an early experience of death for us

Death comes to us in many different forms
Death isn’t just the end of physical life for a person or pet we love
Death also comes in the form of a broken relationship; in the loss of a job; in the form of moving from one community to another, leaving behind family and friends; in the limitations we often face as we get older and find that we can no longer do all the things we used to do
So the havoc wreaked by my baby sister on our Lego village mirrored for us many of the experiences we would ultimately face in life
The destruction of the Lego village felt like a death to us, but the lessons we learned from that would help to shape the way we looked at life and shape the way we dealt with more significant crises when we faced them

One of the lessons we learned was that death, in whatever form it takes, is not the end of anything

Although what we worked so hard to build was scattered in pieces on the floor, we could do more than simply pick up the pieces
We could put them back together again in new and different ways, limited only by the limit of our imagination
What we would build anew might also be destroyed, but with every act of tearing down came a new opportunity for building up
With every death came the possibility of new life
Through this experience of childhood play, we learned to think outside the grave

The Opportunity to Live Again

Israel in Exile

The vision Ezekiel saw of the valley of dry bones was a graphic portrayal of what the people of Israel experienced

Their world had been crushed and decimated, not by a flailing two-year-old, but by the armies of Babylon
Theirs was not a make-believe world—it was the real world in which they lived
Their homes and temple were destroyed, their land forcefully taken from them
They were stripped of their possessions and their freedom and held as slaves in a foreign land
Everything they worked to build for themselves was gone—and it felt very much like death
Faced with the intensity of the moment, death was all they could see
At the end of their hope, they had neither the will nor the strength to even pick up the pieces

As God shows Ezekiel this valley of dry bones, God asks Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

Ezekiel wisely responds, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
Too often when we are faced with tragic and difficult circumstances, we feel that it’s impossible for us to live again, yet what happens next in the vision confirms for us that we can
As Ezekiel speaks the word of God, the bones come together and flesh covers the skeletons
As he continues to prophesy, breath comes to these lifeless bodies and they are raised to life again

What happens in this scene is a testimony to the power of the Spirit of God

The words “wind,” “breath,” and “spirit” in this passage are all the same Hebrew word
As Ezekiel prophesies to the wind, breath comes to these lifeless bodies, but it is the Spirit of God that infuses them with life
It is the Spirit of God that resurrects them and brings them new life

This scene is a graphic depiction of the new life God had in store for Israel and has in store for us as well

Death is never the end—new life is always possible
So we must learn to think outside the grave
We must be open and receptive to the fresh breath of the Spirit of God
As we allow that Spirit to fill us, life is infused with hope and promise and we discover the possibilities that lay ahead—possibilities that we have never seen before

Mary, Martha & Lazarus

Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, faced death in a very real way

Over the years of his ministry, Jesus established a strong friendship with them
John tells us that Mary was the one who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil and washed them with her tears one day as Jesus dined in the home of a Pharisee
Scripture also tells us of a day when Jesus visited there and Mary sat at his feet while Martha busied herself with preparations in the kitchen
Jesus returned to Bethany many times during his ministry, and scholars believe that when he was in Bethany, he stayed at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus

So, it seems strange to us that Jesus delayed his coming when he heard Lazarus was sick, yet this delay was for a purpose—to reveal the glory and power of God

When he arrived, Mary and Martha were overcome with grief
All they could see was the crisis of the moment
Death was too real and too fresh for them to think outside the grave

Although they professed their faith that Jesus was the Christ of God, they didn’t really understand what that meant

To Martha, Jesus speaks the amazing promise that he speaks to all of us: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
And with these words, Jesus confirms that death is not the end of anything
Death surely will come, but with it will also come the hope and promise of new life
And Jesus demonstrates the power of that promise in the raising of Lazarus from the grave

The raising of Lazarus is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ own resurrection from death that will occur in the not-too-distant future

Yet, there is a difference between what happened to Lazarus and what will happen to Jesus
Lazarus experienced resuscitation, a miracle in itself since Lazarus was dead four days and his body began to decay
Lazarus was not raised to new life but to his old life once again, to pick up living where he left off, and Lazarus would have to face death once again
Jesus, on the other hand, was resurrected to new life
Jesus defeated the power of death, never to die again, making that new life possible for all who have faith in him, and giving us the opportunity to see beyond death and realize the potential that new life in him brings to us

New Life In Christ

So often it feels like the pieces of our lives are scattered on the floor like Lego blocks, and it’s all we can do to pick up the pieces

That’s how I felt eleven years ago when I was told my life would soon end because of the cancer that invaded my body
It’s hard to live when death stares you in the face
But through the power of the Spirit of God, I was given back my life

Like Lazarus, I too will face death again, but I was given another opportunity to live—to do something new and different and worthwhile with each day God gives me

I’ve learned to think outside the grave—to look for new possibilities, to make life different and better for others as well as myself
What I’ve learned is this: the quantity of life is far less important than the quality of life, and I can live a life of great quality because of what God has done for me through Jesus Christ

Although we may not always see it, the pieces of life do fit together

Like Legos, they can be configured in very unique and different ways
Sometimes life comes apart, but it can always be put back together again
So we must never allow death to stop us, no matter what form death happens to take
Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we can think outside the grave
And when we think outside the grave, life is filled with limitless possibility