HYMN FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT Jesus is a Rock

Text and Tune: African American spiritual Arranger: Harry Burleigh (1866-1949) Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Giotto Refrain:Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a weary land, a weary land; My Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a shelter in the time of storm. 1 No man can do like Jesus, Not a mumbling word He said; He went walking down to Lazarus’ grave, And He raised him from the dead. [Refrain] 2 When Jesus was on earth, The flesh was very weak; He girdled himself with a tow'l, And washed his disciples feet. [Refrain] 3 Yonder comes my Savior, Him whom I love so well; He has the palm of victory, And the keys of death and Hell. [Refrain REFLECTION Raising of Lazarus. Van Gogh The shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. It goes deep in our souls. Human woe is endless and awful. There is a saying that if preachers knew what was really going on in the hearts of the people they were preaching to, they would weep bitterly for hours. Jesus knows this, but we see it most vividly here. The group with Mary and Martha were weeping their loss and their grief was keenly felt by Jesus. So he bursts out weeping, bawls loudly, shaking the universe, one commentator says of the account.   What we see in Lazarus’ death is the result of the power of sin, death and the devil, our three great enemies. We get used to the enemy of sin in particular. It is easy to think of sin as minor infractions, mistakes, like white lies, that don’t really hurt much and can be easily corrected. We have a list of sins that we can avoid: like the old man I heard once say that he could say he had lived to be eighty five because “I ain’t sinned once yet!” He had a list: drinking, dancing, playing cards, etc. His hearers, however, knew him to be a miser who made his wife and single daughter suffer penury. He wrote nasty letters to the pastor on butcher paper to save money on paper. Others pride themselves on being fiercely honest in their business dealings but mistreat their children. The great deceiver has been at work in us to delude us into thinking we aren’t so bad after all and, oh, yes, by the way, forgive me for my little sins.   Sin, however, that began in Eden with the tempter, unleashed an evil that seeks to destroy and corrupt everything on earth. It goes right down to the fundaments of our lives. Satan causes disorder and terror everywhere, from church basements to international conflicts. We are all bound in its clutches. We can’t untangle this web on our own. Only God, in Jesus, can. Repentance for our part in all of this needs to be deep and wide. Like Jesus bawling over the human grief he sees at the grave of Lazarus.   In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Jacques Ellul in his wonderfully prophetic book Presence in the Modern World elaborates on how that might work in our lives, compromised as we are by the networks of evil tangled around us. He suggests prayer and being the salt and light he has made us to be. Salt doesn’t have an agenda, it does what it is: seasoning the loaf, preserving and curing the rot. Writing mission statements can satisfy us that we are doing the right thing, but it is not what salt does. We, if we use that model, simply need to be present ito our immediate neighbors where we find ourselves and bring to them the salt that is in us from the Lord. He will do the work.That goes against a lot of our need to do something, like design a program, to be God's hands. I heard of a Christian couple moving into a bad neighborhood and simply living their lives serving their neighbors when they needed help. Looking into their faces and seeing them. They noticed after a bit that crime had gone down since they arrived. Can we believe it? Can we do it? I find it hard to believe, but something must come from Christ's dwelling in us and we in him not what we do. The spiritual has it right. "Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a weary land, a weary land. He has the keys of death and hell." HYMN INFO Like all spirituals, this is by anonymous and uses the conventions of orality—that is repetition and reference to the stories from Scripture, Lazarus, him washing the feet of the disciples.Harry Burleigh, the first African American composer, who arranged one of the performances above, brought these spirituals to the attention of Antonin Dvorak when he was in New York. Dvorak used them especially in his New World Symphony. Diethrich Bonhoeffer became acquainted with Burleigh in 1930-1931 while he was studying at Union Theological Seminary in New York and learned much about spirituals from him. Burleigh had a distinguised career as a singer and composer, arranging spirituals into art songs, and choral arrangements, such as the version sung by the Lamont School of Music.   LINKS David W. Carter Choir https://youtu.be/gUh0csSsXkk?si=1drvk4Zw-6DsbOub   Lamont School of Music. Denver University https://youtu.be/0fPEKrtMW5o?si=hwEpi2FROvGVhrfH   Boys and Girls Choir of Harlem https://youtu.be/uGEXqGhlsvA?si=OWqvlbdDKDswUMj8