Sermons

Roll Away the Stone

The Rev. Beth Ellis
Associate Rector, St, Matthew's Episcopal Church

In the early 1940s, a desperate man made a desperate move. His wife had left him, taking with her their two young children. His world was falling apart. It was his own fault and he knew it. Still, he couldn't seem to do anything to stop it. He was powerless against the force that was pulling him down: alcoholism. The desperate man's name was Elliott and the desperate move he made was to cry out to God for help. God led him to Alcoholics Anonymous-AA. Some years later when Elliott moved to the Sacramento area, he took AA with him and started the first chapter there. When I first met Elliott, he had been sober for 35 years, and he was quite plain-spoken about his experience. He knew that before he got help, he had been dead in his heart and soul for years. He knew that before getting help, he had been almost literally dead. He also knew that he had been given a tremendous gift of love. Elliott knew what it was to have been dead and to come back to life.

You see where I'm going with this, of course. Yes, Lazarus was physically dead and in a literal tomb, but this story applies to us today in our own lives. It's been a theme of mine this Lent to speak of things such as this: the courageous and costly choice to move from those soul-killing places of darkness into the light of God's healing love. If I dwell on this subject, it is because I want to stand with you this Lent, experiencing and responding to God's voice, hopefully rolling away the stone that isolates us in our woundedness. So, with that in mind, I offer you the story of a second man, tightly bound in his own dark tomb and dead to the world. He had left behind all the pain that being in the world had caused him and now lay in deepest slumber-that is, until he hears a familiar voice calling his name. Now he is awake, though he hasn't yet opened his eyes. Lying there, he wonders, "Where am I? How did I get here? Why am I bound?" Perhaps there was some fear in that moment about going back into the world. Would there be more pain waiting for him like he experienced before his death? Did he want to live again when that meant he'd have to die again? Maybe he wouldn't go out there. But then again, he knows that voice: it's Jesus who's calling his name. His best friend and Lord is on the other side of that stone, and there's so much love in his voice. Perhaps, he will go out there, after all, even if it's risky. And so Lazarus steps out of the known darkness of death and into the unknown brightness of new life.

Each of us harbors a place within us where we go to hide parts of ourselves; parts that we wish we could bury forever. There are old wounds and new ones. Be they emotional, physical or spiritual, they are hard to look at, hard to acknowledge, hard to speak of. Thus, there is one last story to be told: our own. There, in that still, dark and quiet place, is there a part of you long ago gone to sleep? Will you listen to Jesus' voice calling to you in the tomb? Can you hear in His voice the tears He's wept for the pain you've suffered? Will you count the cost of leaving the tomb and then be willing to walk out into the light and into Jesus' arms? Of course, He'll wait for you as long as it takes, with outstretched arms, just as He did for Lazarus, and Elliott, and countless others. The healing he gives is greater than we can ask or imagine, because He desires wholeness for every one of His beloved children.

My Great-Grandfather Elliott lived to be 83. At his funeral, there was standing room only, so many members of AA were there. I sat in the midst of a sea of faces, each one of them having known what it was to be alive after having been inwardly dead. They had cried out to the One who could heal them, and He did. He brought them out of darkness into the light of new life. On that day, He brought Elliott into new life for the second time-eternal life in heaven. This is the Good News. Not that life will be perfect and without pain. Rather, we are given the promise of God's healing love and of life eternal with Him. We cannot bury our pain. We must live with it and work through it. When we invite God into our pain, He will give us what we need and heal our brokenness. Just as Lent does not end in death but in the resurrection, we have the chance to move from spiritual death into new life. My brothers and sisters, it's time to roll away the stone.

Amen

Sermons

Roll Away the Stone

The Rev. Beth Ellis Associate Rector, St, Matthew's Episcopal Church

The Rev. Beth Ellis
Associate Rector, St, Matthew's Episcopal Church