Monthly Archives: March 2026

Sermons

Faith Makes Space for Grief [OR Raising Lazarus and a Valley of Dry Bones]

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 22, 2026

[sermon begins after two long Bible readings–hang in there, they’re worth it]

Ezekiel 37:1-13

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

 

John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

45 Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him.

[sermon begins]

I recently rewatched the Harry Potter movies, having also read the book series a few times over the years.[1] The magical world-building seen through Harry’s eyes is a wonder to behold, including the Hogwarts school’s carriages that seemingly propel themselves without horse or engine.[2] In the fifth movie we learn that the carriages are pulled by Thestrals, a horse-like winged reptilian creature that can only be seen by someone who has seen death. If you hadn’t seen someone die, then you couldn’t see the Thestrals pulling the carriage. The carriages seem to be pulling themselves. Harry had seen his friend Cedric die at the end of the last movie so Harry could now see these creatures. Seeing his friend die opened his eyes to see something new amid his grief and anger.

Some of us here today know what it’s like to see death, to watch someone’s life leave their body. Mary and Martha certainly did. There was enough time after Lazarus became ill to send word to Jesus. There was more time after the sisters sent word and even more before Jesus finally arrived after Lazarus died. Martha was angry. Mary was miserable. Both were heartbroken and grieving. Both proclaimed their faith in their Lord—if he had been there then Lazarus would not have died. Martha’s confession of faith is one of the big three in John’s gospel along with Peter and Thomas. Martha said to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mary’s faith acts—she kneels at Jesus’ feet and cries. Simultaneous faith and grief. Many verses in the story are given over to grief. Only a couple verses describe the raising of Lazarus.[3] Faith makes space for grief. Some of us know how long those days, hours, and minutes can be while we watch a loved one die. We know the powerlessness, anger, and broken hearts as we wait and watch and pray…as we lose, as grief enshrouds our hearts.

This Bible story about siblings and friends grieving together describes an important truth about people of faith. We make space for grief and we grieve with each other. Just ask our friends who have been through Augustana’s Grief Support Group. Faith in Jesus doesn’t take grief away. Indeed, Jesus’ is greatly disturbed and deeply moved by grief, soul wrenching grief for his friends. And grief maybe even for himself as he knows what’s coming for him and the grief that will bind his friends again when he dies on a cross. The story of Lazarus is as much about Jesus’ humanity as it is about his divinity.

The prophet Ezekiel and his people knew grief, too. 500 years before Jesus, the Babylonians took Ezekiel’s people from southern Israel into far away Babylon. The temple in Jerusalem was God’s dwelling place, but Ezekiel and his people ended up far, far away in a land where their God was not known. They lamented, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Ezekiel’s valley of the dry bones goes against Jewish burial custom.[4] It was a mass casualty decimation and there was no one to bury them. Another story of grief but this time it’s one of collective grief. A grief that exemplifies our own when faceless groups people are annihilated by war, bombs, and hunger inflicted by politically powerful people who feel neither the suffering of the dying nor the sting of death themselves.

For Mary, Martha, and Ezekiel, faith and grief walked together. Faith made space for their grief for their brother and their community. Faith didn’t erase grief or explain it away as just the way life works. Sometimes we’re inclined to minimize or feel shame about our own grief. It’s too big. It’s too messy. Or we think that if only we had more faith then we would feel less pain. Or if only someone else had more faith, then their grieving wouldn’t hurt our hearts. These Bible stories are an antidote to such thinking. The faithful people in these stories are the ones who are sad, angry, and ugly-crying. Even Jesus. Even Jesus! The English translation of “Jesus began to weep” doesn’t do justice to the Greek word which means soul-wrenching sobs.[5]

Minimizing grief, whether our own or someone else’s is antithetical to the crescendo of the cross and the silence of the tomb that we are edging toward as Palm Sunday and Holy Week loom on the calendar a week from today. We are treated to whispers of Holy Week in our John reading. Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet is remembered to us even though we don’t get to that part of the story until the beginning of the next chapter. Anointing is done for divine kings and for the dead. Jesus’ anointing conflates the two. In verse 25, using yet one more divine “I am” saying, Jesus said, “I AM the resurrection and the life.” In verses 4 and 40 Jesus talks about God’s glory in conjunction with the Son of God being glorified.  When the word “glory” is used in the Gospel of John, it is code for Jesus hanging on the cross. We tend to think all kinds of things when we hear the word “glory” but hanging on a cross is not typically one of them.

It’s common to avoid Lent and Holy Week, to go from the Transfiguration straight to Easter buffered by the mini-Easters of Sundays in Lent. Lent is quiet and grey, culminating in Holy Week that is dark and ends in a tomb. Holy Week runs smack up against our addiction to optimism, smack up against our discomfort with grief, and smack up against our desperation not to look at the ever-so-obvious tomb. But sinking into the depths of Holy Week, focusing on cross and tomb feels like freedom. It feels like freedom because it feels true. There IS pain in the world. Sometimes we cause that pain. Sometimes the pain is inflicted on us. Sometimes we watch helplessly as the pain is inflicted on other people. The relief and truth of Holy Week is enormous. Facing this truth head-on, neither looking away from grief nor blocking out God in the midst of it, reveals what God does when confronted with a tomb. Our journey into the abyss of death and grief places in stark relief an ever more vibrant Easter dawn when the trumpets declare victory over death.

In Ezekiel, God breathes into the decimation, restoring the forgotten dead into community. In John, Jesus raises Lazarus reconnecting him with his community. In the tomb of Lazarus, lays a man who’s about to walk again.  Jesus tells him to come out. Lazarus comes out. His disorientation must be staggering. Jesus looks at the people and says, “Unbind him.” These people had a role in his unbinding. Jesus gave them work to do to welcome him.[6] Among the people who unbind Lazarus are surely many who loved him or at least knew him. The moment reveals that “resurrected life needs a community.”[7]

Raising Lazarus is Jesus’ final sign before the execution plot unfolds. A sign of life that declares his divinity and incites his execution. The people are ready to crucify because they fear that the one who brings life might get noticed by the powers that be in Rome and bring death to them all. As Holy Week whispers to us from the faraway place of next week, we pause with the crowd of people who unbind Lazarus. We, like them, wonder about the power that can resurrect. The power that can draw unwanted attention. Lazarus isn’t the only one standing there dazed and disoriented.

As we the people acknowledge the mercy of God, we see the fullness of life that God pours through us as we grieve and celebrate life. We see the Christ, the Word made flesh. We see each other receiving the Spirit who breathes life into our bodies – here, now, today, with these people whom Jesus calls to help unbind us as we are called into resurrected life. Thanks be to God and amen!

__________________________________________________________

[1] Link to IMDB: Harry Potter Movies

[2] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) – IMDb

[3] Karoline Lewis, Professor of Homiletics, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Lectionary Discussion for 3/22/26. #1074: Fifth Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2026 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[4] Cody J. Sanders, Associate Professor, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Lectionary Discussion for 3/22/26. #1074: Fifth Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2026 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[5] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Lectionary Discussion for 3/22/26. #1074: Fifth Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2026 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[6] Laura Holmes, Professor of New Testament, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington D.C. Commentary on John 11:1-45 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[7] Ibid.

Sermons

Jesus Meets a Woman at a Well—Meet Cute? Auspicious Sign? World Changing?

**Samaritan Woman at the Well by He Qi

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 8, 2026

[sermon begins after Bible reading – hang in there, it’s a great story]

John 4:5-42  [Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

[sermon begins]

In last week’s gospel episode, Nicodemus lurked at night and found Jesus where he was staying. He did not want to be seen by anyone, especially by any of his religious friends, Nic at night brings serious questions to Jesus and leaves confused. This week brings us into the light of day. High noon. In the big heat, Jesus sits down to rest at a well while the disciples go to town to rustle up some lunch. Jesus isn’t sitting by just any old well. This is Jacob’s well. Wells were THE ‘Match.com’ of 2,000 B.C.E.[1]  Jacob and Rachel met by a well in the book of Genesis.[2] Moses and Zipporah met by a well in Exodus.[3] Wells are a place of auspicious beginnings.

No need to get too nervous about where we’re headed with Jesus running into this unnamed Samaritan woman at the well. More than a “meet cute,” it is an auspicious sign that Jesus showed up by a well the way a bridegroom might. It’s auspicious because it’s consistent with language of the Gospel of John. “Jesus assumed the role of bridegroom earlier in the Gospel by providing wine for the wedding at Cana, and John the Baptist identified Jesus as the bridegroom.”[4]

John the Baptist used the bridegroom language right before Jesus walked into Samaria and sat by the well. He said, “The friend of the bridegroom…rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.” A few verses later the Samaritan woman is at the well at an usual time. Not in the typical cool hours of the morning. At noon. In the heat of the day. Perhaps her first surprise was finding anyone else at the well – followed quickly by the shock at finding herself there with a Jewish man who would speak with her. Note that Jesus doesn’t condemn her. She told him the truth about living with a man, and he added to it with more truth about her marital history. Awkward? Maybe. Regardless, their conversation avoids shame and condemnation while exposing tensions between gender and ethnicity.[5] Their conversation about water from a well reveals centuries of ethnic strife. Their unusual conversation is a beginning.

Showing up at a well at noon was unusual. Jesus met her there. His heady words to Nicodemus last week, about the world being saved through Jesus, go live in the story of the Samaritan woman this week. The words go live in a body, in her body – the body representing the bride. She is a solitary person by a well and unnamed but for her ethnicity as a Samaritan. She represents the world that Jesus was concerned about – a world that separates people into us and them.[6] This woman’s story is perfect for International Women’s Day celebrated every year for decades on March 8th to spotlight and advocate for women around the world.[7] Research supports that when women have equitable access to resources, education, and opportunities, it strengthens economic development and health while stabilizing communities.[8]

In the gospel story, the woman empowered by Jesus is a sign that the wider non-Jewish world IS Jesus’ concern. Jesus is the bridegroom. Jesus is about saving the world now. A tidy theological equation, to be sure, but what do we do with it? How does what Jesus is doing at a well figure into life for world here and now? A world at war with itself in conflicts beyond Iran, Israel, and the United States although that’s one weighing on our hearts and minds, to be sure.

Let’s start closer to home with Augustana. It’s an obvious place to begin. After all, the church is referred to in the Bible as the bride of Christ.[9] And we, as a worshipping community here this morning, are part of Christ’s church catholic, Christ’s whole universal church. What might Jesus the bridegroom, sitting with us at this very moment, have to say about us? How do we, the worshipping community of Augustana, live into what Jesus already knows about us? Sent into the city to talk with people like the Samaritan woman does. Leaving her water jar behind, she tells the people of the city, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

A few days ago, 25 of us from Augustana responded to the invitation from Multicultural Mosaic Foundation to attend their iftar as they broke their daily Ramadan fast with prayer and dinner. We’re grateful for their warm hospitality and gracious invitation to get to know each other, to learn, to ask questions, and to observe prayers. Pastor Michael and Dr. Bora presented about Lent and Ramadan as both began on the same day this year.[10] A tremendous evening of connection and respectful dialogue between Muslim and Christian neighbors. These interactions have awkward moments, but they are also world-changing building blocks. They take time and intention. They are a sign of what’s possible.

Like the woman talking with Jesus at the well, Sunday can feel like a place of relief and amazement. A place to tell the truth about ourselves and to hear the truth told about us. A place to simply be with the words of our confession. The confession of what we have done and left undone. But also the other meaning of confession which is remembering God’s promises to us and our trust in those promises. This is a place of living water and truth telling.

And, like the Samaritan woman, we head back into the city holding a sliver of doubt once the conversation happens here with Jesus. She says to the people, “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” She takes her encounter with Jesus out for a spin, carrying her doubt right alongside of it, and invites people to wonder about Jesus with her. Embedded in the Samaritan woman’s invitation and question is an antidote to the 21st century culture that is poisoned by absolutism, anger, and judgment.

We are in a world, right now, that is suffering under absolutes. Conversation, common ground, connecting points are few and far between. The way in which we take our faith out for a spin from this sanctuary matters. THAT we take it out for a spin matters too. Our invitation may connect with others who need a place to wonder about the hope found in Jesus – a hope that does not disappoint.[11] People are scared and people are suffering. This is the world that Jesus came to save today. Right now.

Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it. Jesus came to save the world – to restore our relationship with God and with each other. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn you. Jesus came to save you – to restore your relationship with God, with the person next to you, and the with the person around the world from you. Let Jesus tell the truth about you here and be drawn into the unexpected moments of what happens next.

___________________________________________________

[1] Match.com is a dating website where people meet-and-greet each other online.

[2] Genesis 29:1-12

[3] Exodus 2:15-22

[4] John 2:1-11 and John 3:29 respectively.

Craig R. Koester. Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 48.

[5] Reverend Ron Roshke, retired ELCA pastor in Denver, Third Sunday in Lent. March 8 2026. 2026_03_08Lent3A.pdf

[6] Koester, 48.

[7] Nicole Minkas. The role of participation and community mobilisation in preventing violence against women and girls: a programme review and critique. June 26, 2020. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8904729/

[8] Q&A Series #5: When Women Do Better, Countries Do Better – United States Department of State, 11/22/2017.

[9] Revelation 19:7-9; Ephesians 5:25-27.  See more at: http://www.openbible.info/topics/the_bride_of_christ

[10] Sacred Seasons of Reflection: Lent and Ramadan in Dialogue – Multicultural Mosaic Foundation. March 5, 2026.

[11] Romans 5:1-11