Out of the Depths

A Sermon Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church

On March 13, 2005

By the Rev. Thomas C. Davis, Ph.D.

Texts:

John 11: 1-45

There was a man named Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha, and he was ill.  It was the same Mary, the sister of the sick man Lazarus, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair.  The sisters sent this message to Jesus, 'Lord, the man you love is ill.'  On receiving the message, Jesus said, 'This sickness will not end in death, but it is for God's glory so that through it the Son of God may be glorified.'  Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he heard that he was ill he stayed where he was for two more days before saying to the disciples, 'Let us go back to Judaea.'  The disciples said, 'Rabbi, it is not long since the Jews were trying to stone you; are you going back there again?'  Jesus replied:  are there not twelve hours in the day?  No one who walks in the daytime stumbles, having the light of this world to see by; anyone who walks around at night stumbles, having no light as a guide.  He said that and then adds, 'Our friend Lazarus is at rest; I am going to wake him.'  The disciples said to him, 'Lord, if he is at rest he will be saved.'  Jesus was speaking of the death of Lazarus, but they thought that by 'rest' he meant 'sleep'; so Jesus put it plainly, 'Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad I was not there because now you will believe.  But let us go to him.'  Then Thomas-known as the Twin-said to the other disciples, 'Let us also go to die with him.'  On arriving, Jesus found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days already.  Bethany is only about two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.  When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went to meet him.  Mary remained sitting in the house.  Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him.'  Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.'  Martha said, 'I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.'  Jesus said:  I am the resurrection.  Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?  'Yes, Lord,' she said, 'I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.'  When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in a low voice, 'The Master is here and wants to see you.'  Hearing this, Mary got up quickly and went to him.  Jesus had not yet come into the village; he was still at the place where Martha had met him.  When the Jews who were in the house comforting Mary saw her get up so quickly and go out, they followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep there.  Mary went to Jesus, and as soon as she saw him she threw herself at his feet, saying, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.'  At the sight of her tears, and those of the Jews who had come with her, Jesus was greatly distressed, and with a profound sigh he said, 'Where have you put him?'  They said, 'Lord, come and see.'  Jesus wept; and the Jews said, 'See how much he loved him!'  But there were some who remarked, 'He opened the eyes of the blind man.  Could he not have prevented this man's death?'  Sighing again, Jesus reached the tomb:  it was a cave with a stone to close the opening.  Jesus said, 'Take the stone away.'  Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, 'Lord, by now he will smell; this is the fourth day since he died.'  Jesus replied, 'Have I not told you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?'  So they took the stone away.  Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and said:  Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer.  I myself knew that you hear me always, but I speak for the sake of all these who are standing around me, so that they may believe it was you who sent me.  When he had said this, he cried in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!'  The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of material, and a cloth over his face.  Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him, let him go free.'  Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what he did, believed in him. . .

Romans 8: 6-11 (New Jerusalem translation)

Human nature has nothing to look forward to but death, while the Spirit looks forward to life and peace, because the outlook of disordered human nature is opposed to God, since it does not submit to God's law, and indeed it cannot, and those who live by their natural inclinations can never be pleasing to God.  You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God has made a home in you.  Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But when Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.

Psalm 130 (New English Translations)

Out of the depths have I called to thee, O Lord;

  Lord, hear my cry.

Let thy ears be attentive

  to my plea for mercy.

If thou, Lord, shouldest keep account of sins,

  who, O Lord, could hold up his head?

But in thee is forgiveness,

  and therefore thou art revered.

I wait for the Lord with all my soul,

  I hope for the fulfillment of his word.

My soul waits for the Lord

  more eagerly than watchmen for the morning.

Like those who watch for the morning,

  O Israel, look for the Lord.

For in the Lord is love unfailing,

  and great is God's power to set people free.

God alone will set Israel free

  from all their sins.

Sermon Text

Out of the depths have I called to thee, O God, says the psalmist this morning.  He's brooding about the ways he's fallen short.  He's in the depths of shame.  We know that because he pleads for mercy and hopes for forgiveness. He waits for God to answer his cry for help-- more eagerly, he says, than the watchman waits for the morning.  If you've ever stood a night watch, you know just how eager that waiting is.

My sermon this morning is entitled "Out of the Depths."  I want to expand the phrase beyond how the psalmist uses it.  I want to talk not just about the depths of shame, such as he experienced, but other kinds of depths, too.  Any sort of extreme stress can send even the healthiest and strongest individuals into the depths, such as a chronic illness, a devastating accident, an overwhelming work load, the inability to make significant progress at much of anything, a crushing burden of debt, the shock of being robbed or mugged or raped, the daily grind of unrelenting disrespect from ignorant, hateful bigots, losing your job that not only paid the bills but also gave you a purpose for living, losing a dear friend, a mate, or your son or daughter.  Who among us has never fallen into such depths?  Who among us has never said:  "What now?  I don't see how I'm going to get through this.  How can I possibly keep going?"

Many psalms speak of this all too common human condition as being in the pit, or in the mire.  Have you ever dreamed that you were running from something or someone and you were pumping your legs as fast as you could, but you just couldn't move?  Your feet were either stuck in the mud, or else they were slipping and you couldn't get traction.  Well, that's what it's like to be stuck in the depths.  "Out of the depths I cry to thee, O God," says the psalmist.  And what does one cry from the depths?  One cries "Help!  Help me God!  I can't manage anymore.  I can't make it.  I need some kind of miracle here!"

While I was in campus ministry at Duke I got to know an English professor named Reynolds Price.  His writing and teaching career were really zinging along, until he contracted cancer of the spine.  He writes about falling into the depths of excruciating pain and depression in his book called A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing. Out of the depths Reynolds Price cried for help.  In a dream Jesus bathed him in healing water.  That was a turning point for Reynolds.  After that, he knew he was going to make it, somehow; and he did.  He lost the use of his legs, but he found, as he says, a "whole new life," much better in some ways than the one he had been living.  God answers us when we cry out of the depths.

There is no depth too deep for God to hear our prayer and save us.  That's the point of the two main lectionary passages this morning:  the story from Ezekiel about God drawing bones together and making living people from those dry, dead bones; and also the story of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus who has been dead four days and is starting to stink.  Those stories celebrate that God can rescue us from even the deepest depth:  death. What pit of despair could be deeper than that?  So, we mustn't let temporary discouragements, no matter how severe, limit our hopes and expectations.  Let us cry out to God from the depths, and then wait confidently and eagerly for God, as a watchman waits for the morning.  God is able to create new possibilities when it seems to us that there are none, none whatsoever.

My heart aches in sympathy with brothers and sisters who are struggling with such stresses as I mentioned in the beginning of this sermon.  When you fall into the depths, into the pit, into the mire, sometimes you get to feeling that you're all alone down there.  You're off the radar.  Nobody sees you or cares about you anymore.  That's one of the symptoms of falling into the depths--that false sense of isolation.  In fact, you're not alone.  You never fall off God's radar.  One psalmist (Psalm 139) put it this way:  "Whither can I go from your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, you are there.  If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast." 

No hole is too deep for God's surveillance.  And the servants of God, the people who keep you in prayer, they too are more attentive than you likely give them credit for, sometimes in your funk.  You are not alone.  God's Spirit is with you always and everywhere, and you remain in that fellowship that binds us together in Christian love.  As the old hymn says:

Blest be the tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love;

The fellowship of kindred minds

Is like to that above.

We share each other's woes,

Our mutual burdens bear;

And often for each other flows

The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,

It gives us inward pain;

But we shall still be joined in heart,

And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives

Our courage by the way;

While each in expectation lives,

And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,

And sin, we shall be free,

And perfect love and friendship reign

Through all eternity.