John 11:16 New Revised Standard Version

Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

-----

May I direct your attention to the cover of the bulletin. I took this photo at Green Lake Conference Center during a week at quest a few years back. The photo is of the climbing wall that is part of the ropes course there. I’m quite confident that the person climbing the wall is Wah Gay Moo.

The way this climbing wall works is that you are connected to a rope for safety and climb the wall using the hand and foot holds. It is a team building exercise and that the people holding the rope keep you secure as your climb. Once you have made it to the top you zip line down to the ground.

For many students, it is one of the favorite activities of the week.

I have never done a climbing wall. I’ve watched, I have cheered and encouraged, I’ve taken pictures, but I’ve never done the climb myself.

I don’t remember climbing walls when I was a kid. Wikipedia says they’ve been around since the 1930s but I certainly don’t remember them.

But when I was younger, I loved to climb. I was a tree climber. Most of you have heard the story of my first date with Judi which consisted of climbing a tree by the tennis courts at Milligan College. There are several trees on that campus that I liked to climb. In fact there was one tree, just outside Sutton Hall that I would climb, sit up on one of the branches, and read.

While I was in college I also really enjoyed bouldering and free rock climbing, which is climbing up rock faces without ropes.

I have a picture of me climbing up the outside of the college chapel using the large corner bricks as hand and foot holds.

I used to dig climbing.

When one is determining how to climb a tree or a rock face, one stands at the bottom and looks up. One decides if the climb is worth the risk of falling. And a plan is made. One thinks about where the feet are going, and where the hands are grabbing and one plans out a process for climbing.

Of course once you’re actually climbing, things happen. A toehold might not be where you thought it was or a branch of a tree may be too weak to hoist your body and so you adjust along the way. From the bottom looking up, you make a decision that the climb is worth any risk, you make a plan, and based on the plan, you climb.

The scripture lesson today is a single verse.

“And Thomas said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

It is a verse taken out of a larger section that tells the story of Jesus and his friend Lazarus.

Lazarus lives in Bethany, a mile and a half or two miles east of Jerusalem, past the Mount of Olives. Lazarus gets sick, very sick. His sisters, Mary and Martha, send a message through a messenger to Jesus that their brother is very ill. The message travels the 80 or 90 miles to wherever Jesus is in Galilee at the time.

In addition to being his home region, there are reasons why Jesus does much of his ministry in Galilee. For one, It is safer in Galilee for a revolutionary Messiah to speak up and speak out. In Judea and especially around Jerusalem, the military presence of the Romans, and the sometimes overzealous local authorities could wreck havoc on would be messiahs and misunderstood revolutionaries. The pages of history are littered with the deaths of inspired insurgents who tried to stand up against the Roman oppressors.

In Galilee, with the Mediterranean on its west border, the sea of Galilee on its east border, and the region of Samaria forming its southern border, there was a sense of isolation without a lot of interference from the Judean political regime.

So, While Jesus was confronted on a daily basis by those who disagreed with him and challenged his allusions to Messiahship, the heavy hand of Rome was a fairly distant threat.

The message from Mary and Martha present a quandary for Jesus and his disciples. While his popularity remains strong among the peasant class and true believers, the reaction against Jesus is growing stronger and stronger. The idea of leaving the relative safety of Galilee to venture into the more inhospitable territory of Judea is daunting.

Jesus knows this, his disciples know this, but now there is a request from dear friends for Jesus to travel south to the heart of Judaea, two miles outside the capital of Jerusalem to see an old friend who is sick, sick to death.

Jesus hesitates for a couple of days.

Perhaps because he’s afraid,

Or perhaps because he is making a plan, a plan for safe travel and an undercover visit,

Or perhaps he waits because he knows that once he goes, he is going to be exposed and plans the biggest splash possible.

After a couple days, Jesus says to his disciples, “let’s go south. Let’s go see my friend Lazarus. He needs our help.”

The disciples, to the person, try to reason with Jesus about the danger of going to Judea. There is talk about stoning and murder and suffering. Surprisingly, there is no talk about crucifixion, because that seems like a ludicrous over the top notion.

Jesus just listens to their arguments. And then responds, “It’s time. It’s time to go to Jerusalem. It’s time to turn up the light.”

In Luke’s Gospel, while there’s no Lazarus story, when Jesus makes this decision to head to Judea, the Greek of the gospel says that Jesus “sets his face toward Jerusalem.”

If you think in terms of a old western show down, Jesus has decided that now is the time. It is high noon at the OK corral and Jesus is willing to experience the heat and the pain and the struggle that he has known would come in response to his message of love and forgiveness and the incoming kingdom of God.

And once Jesus comes to Bethany, and calls Lazarus, now dead Lazarus, out of the tomb, Jesus’ fate is insured. A messiah who preachers hope is one thing, but one who also raises people from the dead is not a messiah that the political leadership can abide.

Jesus, by going south to Bethany, and then by raising from the dead his dear friend Lazarus, is setting in motion what will happen in the coming days in Jerusalem, in Gethsemane, at the Pilate’s palace, on the cross.

I am making an assumption here, but I am assuming that Jesus has given his disciples an out, telling them that he is going but if they choose not to go, they can remain behind.

There’s something about Thomas’ words that caused me to think this. I am imagining grumbling and consternation from the disciples, and then Thomas speaks up and says “let’s go as well that we might die with him.”

Some think Thomas is being sarcastic

Some think Thomas is being fatalistic.

Some think Thomas is being pessimistic.

Some think Thomas is showing his doubting personality.

I think Thomas is standing at the base of the tree, looking up and determining that it’s worth the climb. I think Thomas is being real. No blather. No piety. Simple truth- we should follow Jesus, even if it entails sacrifice and leads to struggle.

May we all have the determination and courage to step out and step forward as Jesus calls us to climb out of our places of comfort and into the fray, as Jesus calls us to love unconditionally, to seek justice for those who are mistreated, to walk beside the bullied and the underdog, to stand up to those who would diminish the personhood of those whom God loves dearly.

It’s worth the climb.

Amen.