In the mid-1980s, I saw a South African anti-apartheid play called Woza Albert!  First a word about the title: Woza means rise up and Albert is Albert Luthuli, who was a South African, a teacher, an area chief, and an anti-apartheid activist.  He was elected president-general of the African National Congress in 1952 and received the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of anti-apartheid struggle.  He died under mysterious circumstances in 1967.   In the satirical yet serious play Woza Albert!, Jesus flies to South Africa via jumbo jet from Jerusalem.  The news of his arrival is seen through the eyes of ordinary black South Africans: A vendor, a barber, a servant, and a manual laborer.  Just two actors play all the parts, and they express their hopes for the future with both humor and pathos.  At first Jesus is embraced by the white authorities but he is soon imprisoned.  He ends up on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, but being Christ this is no problem, and he walks across the bay to Cape Town.  He ends up in a graveyard where he proceeds to resurrect the martyrs of the anit-apartheid movement, like Steven Biko and Albert Luthuli.   Woza Steven!  Woza Albert!  This is a play about hope; remember, it was written and performed years before apartheid fell.  It is a prophecy of hope; hope for the resurrection of a people and a nation.

Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones is also a prophecy of hope; hope for the resurrection of a people and a nation.  Ezekiel ministered to the Jewish people living in captivity in Babylon.  The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 587 BC and taken the people away into exile.  In Babylon the Children of Israel felt as dead and useless as a pile of bones.  They said, “’Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’”  In this hopeless situation, Ezekiel offers a message of hope.  He says that the people will be resurrected.  They will come back to life; they will come out of their graves; and they will once again live in freedom in their own land.  Ezekiel prophesies hope; hope for the resurrection of a people and a nation.

This morning we are celebrating the hope for the resurrection of another people and nation.  The nation of Liberia, home to so many of our fellow parishioners and fellow Episcopalians, is just now recovering from a dreadful civil war.  In that war many lives were lost and many institutions were destroyed.  Among those destroyed were the Episcopal schools – the Episcopal Elementary School, the Episcopal High School, St. John’s, and the House of Bethany -- in Robersport, Capemount County.  These schools were founded by the Episcopal Church in 1878.  Throughout their long and distinguished history, these schools have educated doctors, lawyers, priests, engineers, teachers, and other professionals for all of Liberia.  The schools were destroyed during the recent civil war, but its alumni now pray, and work, and hope for their resurrection.  The hope for the resurrection of the Episcopal schools in Capemount is part of the greater hope for the resurrection of a people and nation.

God doesn’t just resurrect peoples and nations, He resurrects individuals too.  Today’s Gospel lesson, the story of the raising of Lazarus is also a prophecy of hope.  The story of Lazarus matters to us not because some guy was resuscitated two thousand years ago.  The story of Lazarus matters to us because we believe that what happened to Lazarus will one day also happen to us, except that Lazarus rose and died again, but we will be raised to eternal life, never to die again.  This is the hope we have in Christ: One day Jesus will stand at the door of our tomb and will say, “Woza! Rise up! Amen.