Two tides;
One going out,
One coming in,
Each giving to the other
A beginning and an end. [1]

Once, there was a boy who fished the changing of the tides. More than once, when called by his father to take rod and reel in hand, he followed gladly. Together they would drive across a long bridge stretching between the ocean and the sound, toward a remote island on the southern side. Carrying their gear, they walked along the edge of that bridge, high above the swift, churning water some thirty feet below. In time, they settled in for the night. They watched as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, giving way to the quiet sanctity of darkness. Around them, there was only the sound of moving water and the distant cries of seabirds bidding their final goodnights. They fished, but more than that, they waited, and they watched.
Each night, the water revealed something greater than themselves. It flowed outward to the ocean, and then, hours later, returned again into the sound.

There was something astonishing in how much could be learned simply by standing on a bridge, doing nothing more than fishing, and watching the water pass by. For in those moments, one is either waiting for something never before seen or quietly hoping that everything will remain just as it was, unchanged, familiar, and in its rightful place. Yet beyond the need for a catch, what one truly longs for is to be caught up, caught up in the beauty of something ever-changing, and yet somehow ordered. To know, even as all things move, exactly where one stands. This is true for us all.

I spent twenty years of my youth fishing that bridge in North Carolina, spanning Oregon Inlet on the Outer Banks. I remember the good nights, when we caught bluefish, trout, flounder, spot, croaker, drum, cobia. And I remember the bad nights, when we caught only crabs, skates, the occasional shark… and sometimes nothing at all. But it was in those long stretches of nothingness that I learned to listen. Those nights taught me patience. They taught me to pay attention, to the tides, to the rhythm of the water, to something deeper than what could be pulled from it. Those days and nights taught me to see the changing tides as something more, as a reflection of our own lives. The movement from life to death… and, by God’s grace, from death to life again. And that is the great movement set before us this Fifth Sunday in Lent. We stand at the meeting of two tides: life and death… death and resurrection. And because this movement touches every part of us, its power, its swiftness, calls forth a response.

We find ourselves looking back across our lives, remembering moments when we have laughed… and moments when we have wept. We laugh when love enters our lives.
We weep when love departs. So much passes us by. At times, life seems to move too slowly; at others, far too fast. One moment we are born, full of promise and possibility. The next, we find ourselves struggling simply to hold on to strength. It is between these two tides that we live, and where, one day, we die.

The poet William Cullen Bryant once wrote:
“Weep not that the world changes, did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were a cause indeed to weep.”[2]
And then we come to the shortest, and perhaps one of the most profound verses in all of Scripture:
Jesus wept.[3]

He did not weep because he did not know where Lazarus was. He did not weep because he thought he would never see him again. He wept because he knew. He knew where his friend was. He knew what God the Father was about to do. He knew that, for a moment, the tide of death itself would be interrupted, halted, and reversed. Those who stood nearby could scarcely believe it. Death, which seems so final, so unyielding, would give way, if only for a time. Lazarus would indeed die again. But in that moment, God altered the course of the tide. For only God has the power to do so. Jesus wept because he knew where his friend had gone for those four days. And he wept because he knew that one day, He himself would go there as well. He would be cast down into death. And he would rise again, resurrected, eternal, and new. It is not natural to die and then live again. But it is supernatural. The Spirit of God that has been placed within us stirs something deep in our own spirit, a recognition, a longing. It calls us to remember where we came from, and it sets our gaze upon where we are going. These are deep and flowing waters.

As the hymn proclaims:
“O Love of God, how strong and true,
Eternal, and yet ever new;
Uncomprehended and unbought,
Beyond all knowledge and all thought.”[4]

So here we stand, amid the swift and varied changes of this world, waiting, and watching, for something greater than ourselves to break in and change the course.
Between the tides of life and death,
Our hearts are fixed;
Our souls lie in wait
Upon the power of God,
The One who can open the grave,
And raise up those
Who call upon his holy Name.
The blessed Name of Jesus Christ.

For it is Jesus who calls us by name, and who hears our voice. He hears our laughter, and he hears our weeping. And through the Son of God, we are caught up into the love of God and it causes us to fish the tides. That is why Lazarus rose. He was caught up in the tide of God’s love.
It is here, amid all the swift and shifting tides of this world, that true joy and true sorrow are found. And both are gathered up into the great sea-change of Christ’s birth, his death, and his resurrection.

Two tides;
One going out,
One coming in,
Each giving to the other
A beginning and an end.

[1] The Rev. Jon Roberts
[2] William Cullen Bryant, “Mutation” poem, 1824
[3] John 11:35
[4] 1982 Hymnal #455