Written for The Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis for March 21st and 22nd 2026. This sermon can be viewed on their website and youtube channel.
Sunday Morning John 11:1-53
Opening
One of the hardest things to live with
is the feeling that God has arrived too late.
That if things had gone just a little differently—
if help had come just a little sooner—
things might not have ended the way they did.
And that is exactly where this story begins.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
It is a statement of faith.
And it is a statement of grief.
All at once.
We know what that feels like.
When timing doesn’t line up the way we hoped.
When help comes—but not soon enough.
When answers to prayers feel like they arrive… just a little too late.
And we’re left holding both things at once:
trust… and disappointment.
We are feeling some of that even now.
We had hoped Pastor Rebecca would have a quicker recovery.
We know that she is healing—
and that is something to be grateful for.
But it is not happening as quickly as we wanted.
And certainly not as quickly as she would want either.
And in moments like that, it can feel like our prayers
have been answered—
just not in the timing we had hoped for.
Which doesn’t mean faith is absent.
It means faith is still trying to make sense
of what is unfolding.
Entering the Story
Martha and Mary are not questioning Jesus’ power.
They believe in him.
They trust that he could have done something.
But underneath that trust is an assumption:
That Jesus’ role is to prevent death.
That if he had arrived sooner, this could have been avoided.
And that is where the tension in this story begins.
Because Jesus does not come to Bethany in time to prevent death.
He comes after.
And what he reveals is not about avoiding death altogether—
but about something deeper.
About what it means to be alive in relationship with God—
even in the presence of death.
Because it is one thing to believe that God can fix what is broken.
It is another thing to trust that God is present
even when what is broken is not fixed.
The people in this story are still hoping for the first.
Jesus is revealing the second.
Clarifying Resurrection (Theological Grounding)
When Martha speaks with Jesus, she says something faithful and familiar:
She believes her brother will rise again—
on the last day.
That is a real and meaningful hope—
a belief that God will, in the end,
restore life fully.
But Jesus shifts the ground beneath that belief.
“I am the resurrection and the life.”
Not I will be.
Not someday.
“I am.”
He is not dismissing her hope—
he is expanding it.
Because in John’s Gospel, resurrection is not only something that happens in the future.
It is something that is already breaking into the present
in relationship with Jesus.
As the Wisdom Commentary on John 11–21 puts it, resurrection here is not just an event to wait for—it is a reality revealed in encountering Christ, who embodies God’s life now.
And this is consistent with how our tradition speaks about life with God:
We are not only promised life after death—
we are drawn into life with God even now,
a life that death cannot ultimately interrupt.
(See Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) theology on union with Christ and eternal life.)
Resurrection is not only a future event.
It is a present reality
embodied in him.
Jesus is revealing a life
that is already present—
already unfolding in relationship with God.
And still, it cannot yet be seen.
They are surrounded by loss.
They are speaking from grief.
They are holding on to what has been taken from them.
And maybe that is what makes this moment so heavy.
That life is already present—
and still, it cannot yet be recognized.
And it is right there, in that space,
that Jesus weeps.
Not to correct them.
Not to argue with them.
But to be with them.
To stand in the space
where grief and misunderstanding meet.
To share in what they are carrying—
even as he reveals something
they cannot yet see.
Jesus Weeps
Jesus weeps.
Not because he is powerless.
Not because he does not know what he is about to do.
But because the people he loves
cannot yet see what he is revealing.
They believe in resurrection—
but they cannot yet recognize
that resurrection is standing in front of them.
There is a distance
between who Jesus is
and what they are able to understand.
And that distance is filled with grief.
The Complication (Lean Into It)
When Lazarus walks out of the tomb,
this should resolve everything.
But it doesn’t.
Some believe.
Some are afraid.
Some go to the religious authorities hoping for guidance.
The raising of Lazarus does not create unity.
It creates division.
Which is unsettling.
Because we might expect that something this clear—
something this powerful—
would remove all doubt.
But it doesn’t.
Because faith is not forced,
even by miracles.
In the verses that follow,
this moment becomes the turning point
that leads to the decision to kill Jesus.
As the Wisdom Commentary notes, this sign does not produce universal faith; instead, it exposes the fault lines already present—fear, power, control, and misunderstanding.
Even the religious leaders interpret what has happened through the lens of survival:
“It is better for one man to die
than for the whole nation to be destroyed.”
Which, in a way they do not fully understand,
becomes true in Jesus Christ.
Life breaks into the world—
and it unsettles everything.
Lazarus — A Sign, Not the End
Lazarus himself—
He is called back.
Back into a life that will again include grief,
loss, and eventually death.
This is not the fulfillment of resurrection.
It is a sign pointing beyond itself.
Which matters—because it reminds us:
Jesus is not simply here to resuscitate life as it was.
He is revealing a life
that death itself cannot undo.
Mary — A Subtle Thread
John tells this story in a curious way.
He introduces Mary as if we already know her— the one who anointed Jesus (although this story happens a few chapters after today’s scripture)
as if her story, her faith, runs deeper
than what we can immediately see.
And maybe that’s part of what’s happening here too—
That there is always more depth,
more faith,
more struggle
than what appears on the surface.
Eternal Life — Bringing It Home
So what is Jesus actually revealing here?
Not that death will never come.
Not that faith prevents loss. Not even a faith as deep as Mary’s.
But that life with God
is not interrupted by death.
Eternal life is not something that begins after we die.
It begins in relationship with God—now.
And:
Eternal life is not about escaping death.
It is about living so deeply in God
that even death cannot separate us from that life.
This is not always easy to recognize.
Because we are still looking for the moment
when everything is fixed,
everything is clear,
everything is resolved.
And instead—
Jesus stands in the midst of grief,
in the presence of death,
in a world that does not fully understand him—
and says:
Life is here.
Ending
So maybe the invitation is not just to believe in resurrection someday.
Maybe it is to begin recognizing life—now.
In the midst of grief.
In the presence of uncertainty.
This does not mean everything suddenly makes sense.
It does not mean grief disappears.
But it does mean that even here—
life is not absent.
To trust that life with God is already unfolding—
even here.
Because life with God is not something that begins after death.
It is something we are drawn into even now—
in Christ, who is one with God from the beginning.
A life that death cannot undo.
A life we are still learning to recognize.
Amen.
Gracious and loving God,
We come before you in this Lenten season
carrying many things—
faith and doubt,
hope and grief,
trust and questions
that do not always have easy answers.
We bring to you the places in our lives
where timing has not unfolded as we had hoped.
Moments where we have prayed
and waited
and wondered
if you might have come sooner.
And we bring before you our community.
We pray for Pastor Rebecca.
We give you thanks that she is healing,
and we ask for your continued presence with her.
Grant her strength, patience, and peace
in the midst of recovery.
And for all of us,
when healing feels slower than we hoped,
when answers feel delayed,
remind us that you are still at work—
even in the waiting.
God of life,
You meet us not only in what is resolved,
but in what is unfinished.
You meet us not only in clarity,
but in confusion.
You meet us not only in strength,
but in our grief.
And so we remember that Jesus stood among those who mourned
and wept.
Not because hope was gone,
but because love was present.
Be with us in that same way.
When we struggle to recognize your presence,
open our eyes.
When we feel surrounded by loss,
remind us that life is not absent.
When we cannot yet see what you are doing,
hold us in your steady care.
Draw us more deeply into your life—
a life that is not undone by death,
a life that holds us even now.
We place all of this before you,
trusting not in our understanding,
but in your abiding presence.
And we pray together as Christ taught us, saying,
[Lord’s Prayer]
Amen.
Go into this week not rushing past what is hard, not denying what is unresolved but trusting that God meet you wherever you are.
Pay attention to where God is already present – in small moments, in quiet strength, in the midst of things not yet finished.
As you go, may you be surrounded by God’s love. Amen.
Experimenting with Chatgpt continues. This week, my husband helped by providing me with the information I needed to create a master prompt. I’m not sure how long he spent doing it, but it took me a little over an hour to do the prompt and answer the questions from chat and edit the prompt. It wasn’t as hard as I was afraid it would be. And now, I feel more confident about what information it pulls from for research and sermon fillers. I also created a sermon writing prompt that follows the process I use, so this week I did everything in chat instead of in a document and then copying it over. It went much faster, this sermon came together in about 6ish hours. I did a couple of times copy and paste things in to a word document from Chat because I didn’t want to loose edits. Chat is good and moving forward but it’s harder for me to get it to bring back text that I liked before the edits. I think I’m more comfortable putting important ideas into a document before putting them into chat so I feel like I have more control (feel like, not that I actually have less control otherwise). The process is still strange but the sermon results sound like me and fit the theological framework that I want to give to the congregation.
I’ve never had to preach weekly before, so I think that process feels unusual to me too. At most, I would preach once a month (unless I was covering the senior pastor’s vacation and then maybe 2-3 times in a month), so I had more time to think about the text, find real life examples/stories that fit the context because I had a lot of lead time. When I sat down to research or to write, it was usually after the scripture had been on my mind for at least a week. In writing weekly, I feel less….integrated?…. not sure if that’s the right word. And I think that’s the nature of wiring faster and not necessarily the nature of using chatgpt.
I left the headings in this week because when I practiced they seemed to help me keep my place. Although, if you watched the video of Sunday morning, you will noticed I really lost my place at one point. I was looking around and the intrusive thought, “none of them understand what you are saying” got me and then the next thought was “I don’t know what I’m saying” but luckily to the congregation (according to my husband) it looked like I lost my place and not that I lost my nerve. Ugh. This congregation is really sweet too and said they enjoyed the sermon. One person said she wrote a note down that eternal life starts now (which was one of my main points) so I know that at least she understood the sermon. Just those wild thoughts sometimes get me.
Again, I’m trying to be mindful of possible anti-semitism in preaching the Lent texts. Not sure that I’m doing a great job there. The text itself uses “the Jews” and refers to Jewish leaders plotting to kill Jesus. For me, these people are really the friends and family of Mary and Martha who happen to be Jewish. Religious leaders are people who are consulted when their people have questions about faith or living out faith.
Also, I wanted to include Elizabeth Schrader‘s textual work. She found that “Martha” was added to this story (she wasn’t in earlier manuscripts). It’s also likely that this Martha, Mary of Bethany, and Mary Magdalene were created characters to dilute the importance of Mary Magdalene. These three women were assigned roles that possibly only included Mary Magdalene. “Magdalene” is likely not a place, but a description or nick name meaning, Mary the Great or Mary the Tower. This would be in the same vain as Peter the Rock. Diana Butler Bass gave a sermon using Elisabeth Schrader’s findings about Mary Magdalene that had me in tears the first time I hear it. Near the end she asks this question, “What if we’d known about Mary the Tower all along? What kind of Christianity would we have if the faith hadn’t only been based upon, “Peter, you are the Rock and upon this Rock I will build my church”? But what if we’d always known, “Mary, you are the Tower, and by this Tower we shall all stand?”” This gets me every time. What if a Mary was held in the same regard as Peter throughout Church history? Would that have given women equal status in church? Would we still be fighting for equality if it was seen as God-given sooner? What other texts or stories from my faith tradition should be re-examined? Were other women erased? And if we get the answers, how will we make changes? It wasn’t something I thought I could get across in a sermon. And I wonder if for our congregations this information is probably better introduced in a bible study or small group setting as there is so much to unpack.
Period Pastor Pad 