Pentecost 3 Take Away the Stone

[HKHaugan]

Pentecost 3 Take Away the Stone

“There’s no time like the present.” You’ve heard that expression many times. It may just be that today for someone you meet or have been meeting with the time to share your faith is now. There really is no time like the present. But this is not about you it is about the other person. What situation are they in? What is the circumstance they are facing? What problem lies before them? It means stepping out of our shoes and feeling the fit of the shoes of another. Where are they? What are they feeling, thinking and planning to do?

Sharing our faith always seems to center on reluctance, fear of risking looking bad or maybe even offending someone. Sharing becomes all about me rather than all about them. Perhaps what we need to do is to think back to Jesus when He was told Lazarus had died and what He did when He arrived in Bethany.

When Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus he found people weeping. Then there was Martha and others suggesting, perhaps even mildly accusatory, that if Jesus had come sooner Lazarus wouldn’t have died. Even miracle workers can’t do anything about death. The atmosphere was that death is inevitable, that there is nothing to do but accept death for what it is, the final chapter of a person’s life. Even Jesus wept and appeared to be in agreement that death gets us all. You go on with life but the pall of death hangs over everything. So you grieve, get over it and move on.

But let's continue with Jesus and what He did when He stood before the tomb of Lazarus. Yes, He wept. He was feeling the depth of death's destiny and the sin that caused it. However, He was also feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit. “Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” He said (Jn.11:38-39).”

That command began the opening of a cave holding every person's destiny captive from Adam on. Death had been the dreaded end of personal human experience. Beyond death was only speculation. Even the good die. The dead are only forgotten names on forgotten tombstones. When the body dies, that’s it. No one had ever survived death. So when Jesus said to take away the stone it must have been shocking to say the least. But when Jesus rose from the dead we now know that the word 'death' isn't limited to just our physical deterioration. It also expanded its definition to include emotional, relational, intellectual and spiritual death.

Today the expanded definition is for us. Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit has opened up so much spiritual understanding. Now we know there are all kinds of 'caves' people hide in and there are all kinds of 'stones' covering them and through Jesus any stone can be moved. Consider the unbelieving heart as a tomb covered by the boulder of sin. Now we are talking about self-centeredness, hate, resentment. What about divorce, emotional blocks, first impressions, unforgiveness, revenge, social and ethnic division? Aren't these really the stones that cover the entrance to our hearts? Consider anything blocking our hearts from responding openly and freely. Then the more subtle personal ones like the stones of fear, reluctance, excuse, procrastination and the ideas that maybe this isn’t the right time, place or situation? What are the stones we need to take away to let others know God really loves them and that they too can have eternal life that begins right now? There really is no time like the present. Every next moment is a Pentecost. The power of the Holy Spirit is at work in each of us so “Take away the stone.”