Chapel of Theology, Propers for Wednesday, the 4th week of Lent, 2000

I. Can these bones live? Can this dear ruined city rise from the ashes and prosper? Is there any hope for the dead? These are the Lenten questions in our texts, and the resounding answer is “YES.”

II. The Isaiah passage is one of the most beautiful of the servant songs of second Isaiah. It affirms, in the face of the ruin of daughter Zion and the exile of her people that God is still God, and can never forget Zion, though a nursing mother forget her child. Israel is engraved on the palms of God’s hands (a Christian cannot help but see, with nail prints), and she cannot be lost for good. There must and will be hope. Her children will yet be gathered from all the corners of the earth; the nations will yet come to her to hear the Word of God, however bad the current disaster appears.

III. From today’s Gospel from John 5: “I solemnly assure you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead shall hear the voice of God’s Son, and those who have listened shall live.”

Last week, Joe talked about not being shy to say, in Gospel terms, “Why we are here,” in wherever, WI. What do we have to add to a seemingly already rich and perhaps complete Christian mix? One thing is this: you do not have to accept a developed doctrine of Purgatory to believe there is still hope for the dead. This is a bone of contention on one side (Purgatory) with the Church of Rome, and on the other (hope for the dead), with virtually all Protestants. I want to say why it true today, but in passing I want to suggest it could actually be a doctrine of great comfort to many.

The real problem with Purgatory is that it claims to know details which simply cannot be substantiated in the authoritative sources we or most Protestants recognize. It is also hard to give an account of it which does not sound like more punishment than really necessary, and perhaps a not small bit of works righteousness. I probably would not argue with a Catholic about it, but anyone with Protestant leanings will never be comfortable with the idea.

In extreme reaction against a doctrine of Purgatory seen as non-biblical, most Protestant churches, especially Calvinist, deny the possibility of any further hope for the dead. Election or damnation is sealed at death, if not from all eternity. There is thus no hope for the dead, only consummation or desolation.

Anglican formularies have always suggested some hope, indeed some spiritual growth after death, while remaining agnostic on all detail, especially Purgatorial. I think we are right and should say so! The scriptural warrant is today’s text — the time is coming when even the dead shall hear the voice of God’s Son, and those who listen shall be saved.

IV. Brown Exegesis Sabbath Jesus, etc.

A. That would not be particularly interesting if it were a mere matter of hope for the dead, though even that point has significant ecumenical and pastoral implications — what is the fate of someone who dies professing a faith other than Christianity? Can I do a funeral for someone I know did not adequately profess or practice the Christian faith.

No, the significant theological question is why there is hope for the dead.

B. While I agree with and normally practice the dictum, “Don’t preach your exegesis,” today is an exception. Sometimes the Goispel is in the details, and today the theological point emerges from Raymond Brown’s careful interpretation of the text. So hang onto your hermeneutical hats and consider the following:

1. First, the text as we have it is apparently two accounts of the same teaching. The first account, verses 19-25, comes from a layer of the Johannine tradition which used a framework of realized eschatology. In verse 25, therefore, the dead who will hear the voice of God’s Son may well be simply the spiritually dead, or perhaps the dead to whom Jesus preached in the “Harrowing of Hell” during the three days in the tomb. But verses 26-30 come from a layer of Johannine tradition characterized by a more apocalyptic eschatology, looking forward to a distant but real day of judgement. The dead in verses 28 and 29, therefore, are the just plain dead. And the work of the final redactor brings the two together — the whole range of deadness is included in that which will be addressed by God’s Son with what is obviously a message of a hope yet for salvation. The redactor has apparently pulled the two stories together by starting the one, and finishing the second, with the saying about Jesus’ will, judgement and actions being identical to the Father’s.

2. One more bit of technical archaeology and we are there. As appointed in the lectionary, today’s Gospel did not include vss. 16-18, but after checking Brown’s commentary I decided I must read them. Why? Because without them we are left with a very abstract treatise which might lay some groundwork for both a good doctrine of Trinity and Incarnation, and also for an Anglican assertion of hope even for the dead, but without much Evangelical punch.

Brown makes clear, however, is what this discourse is about. It is Jesus’s defense against the charge of being a Sabbath breaker. It is his assertion, indeed, that he is right to heal on the sabbath. The guts come in why. At many points where he is so challenged, Jesus replies on more or less humanitarian grounds — if you would pull a donkey out of a ditch on Shabbas, surely it is right for me to heal a human. But here he gives a more direct theological response — because the work I am doing on the Sabbath is God’s work.

Brown reports that there was some theological discussion among the rabbis about just how deep a nap God took on day 7. Obviously, God could not have taken the day off entirely, or creation would simply have returned to nothingness. So, God does continue to do at least some work on Shabbas, but only God is so permitted. Specifically, God holds three keys, the key of rain, the key of life, and the key of death. Sometimes it rains on Shabbas. Some people are born on Shabbas. Some people die on Shabbas. So God must still be at work, but only God is so at work, as only God holds these three keys.

Rain does not come into this story, but there are many throughout the Gospels which show Jesus as Lord of Nature. Jesus is declared by the words of today’s Gospel, by the acts of healing on the Sabbath which lead to this apologia, and by what he is just about to do — go to Bethany and raise Lazarus from the dead — to be one who holds the keys of life and death and can wield them on the Sabbath. But only God holds those keys — therefore . . . therefore, among other things verse 18 is spot on. Jesus’s opponents begin to seek his death because he is a blasphemer by making himself God’s equal. The whole Johannine tradition is clear that is the problem. The enemies and opponents will appear to succeed, of course; he will be killed. But he who holds the keys of life and death does not stay killed; the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, raises Jesus from the dead, thus showing him to be both Lord and Christ, that is, Son of God and Messiah, which put another way is Lord of the Sabbath. That, of course, is precisely Robert Jenson’s one sentence description of the Gospel.

So, in conclusion, can these bones live? Whatever bones you please? Can daughter Zion be reborn and filled again with children and laughter? Is there hope even for the dead in the tombs that they might yet hear the voice of the Son of God and be saved? Well, yes. Why? Because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and can heal on the Sabbath, and therefore holds the keys of life and death. As Lord of the Sabbath he sends upon all flesh the Spirit of Sabbath Holiness so that we might all commune with God in rest. The same Spirit he sends will breathe lkife again into all those bones. There is hope for me, hope for you, hope for any old pile of beloved bones or dear rubble over which we mourn. We have hope from Covenant promises being fulfilled as during this season we rejoice in the sure and certain hope that we are graven on the hands of Jesus our Mother with the nails of God’s nursing compassion. There is hope for us and for daughter Zion because those hands, now risen, ascended, and glorified, are the hands of the Lord of the Sabbath, the hands of Jesus, and still bear those glorious scars.