Untitled Sermon (8)

Intro

We’re on our fifth week in our sermon series on the I AM statements. In every message so far, I’ve said that Jesus is making himself present in our lives right now, and he is emphasizing in every statement that what every single one of us needs is him. Last week we looked at how Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. And one of the things we mentioned is that Jesus being the shepherd means that he knows us. He knows us intimately and he knows us better than we know ourselves. And because he knows us, because he’s our shepherd, he’s always with us, and because he’s always with us, we’re never alone. In every circumstance, in every trial, in every bit of suffering and despair we face, we worship a risen savior who is always with us, and through the holy spirit, we can pray to him. We can ask him for peace, for comfort, for guidance. Our shepherd, Jesus, doesn’t leave us and in him we find belonging, freedom, and life.

And this morning, we see again how Jesus is leading us into true life. The passage this morning is familiar, but I don’t us to miss what it has to offer us. So, if you’ve been listening over the last few weeks, and you’re thinking, “Okay, this is all great, but I’m not really convinced Jesus is what I need. I’m not convinced that following Jesus is going to make my life better. I think I can keep doing what I’m doing and that will lead me to a life of satisfaction.” If that’s you, and even if it’s not you, Jesus makes it clear with the words we read this morning that there is no other life apart from him. So, turn in your bibles to .

Context within Gospel of John

John 11:17–27 ESV

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

This is the word of the Lord

Prayer

Context within Gospel of John

We’re jumping into the middle of the story here, and the story’s pretty long, so to read all of it would have taken way too much time, so let me catch us up to what w’ere about to read. If you’re familiar with the gospel of John, you’re likely familiar with the family of the sisters Mary and Martha, and their brother, Lazarus. Now, this was a family that Jesus really loved and cared for. John makes it clear in the beginning of this chapter that Jesus loved this family. And now, remember last week, we read that Jesus called himself the good shepherd, and his comments were extremely offensive to the religious leaders, and so they tried to stone him. Jesus slipped away, went to a different town, and while doing work there, he gets a message from Mary and Martha saying that Lazarus is sick. The message from Mary and Martha reads “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” They send this message hoping that Jesus will come soon so that Lazarus doesn’t die. Jesus reads the message and he says “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And so, what does Jesus do? Let’s pretend we’ve never heard this story before. I read this and I’m thinking, okay, Jesus is about to go and heal this dude. Or, maybe he’ll just heal him from here, I mean, he’s totally capable of that, right? This isn’t that big of a deal for Jesus. But nope, John writes, “So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

And so, I’m thinking, okay Jesus, this guy who you say you love is sick and is literally dying, you say he isn’t going to die, but you’re just chilling in a different town, and it looks like he’s about to die. What are you doing? You’re stying two days longer? Like Jesus is not in a rush to heal this dude. But, somehow his love for them is connected to him staying these two extra days. After those two days, Jesus tells his disciples they need to go back to Judea (this is where Lazarus is). Hi disciples are like, wait Jesus, they just tried to kill you there, do you really want to go back there again? And so Jesus responds saying Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m going to wake him up.” And the disciples are confused, and they’re like “okay, if he’s asleep he’ll recover, there’s no reason we need to go back there and risk our lives.” And I imagine Jesus just looks at them like “You guys are really slow.” And so he says “Lazarus has died.” And the he says “for your sake I’m glad that I wasn’t there so that you may believe.” And so now it makes sense why Jesus waited so long to go. In reality, given the distance traveled by the messenger, it’s likely that Lazarus was dead by the time Jesus found out that he was sick. And so Jesus wait 2 more days, then travels for about a day to make sure that Lazarus is really dead, that way the miracle that is about to happen will be that more amazing, and then the faith of his disciples and of Mary, Martha, Lazarus and some of the Jews will be strengthened.

And so, that catches us up to today’s verses. So, starting in verse 17

Scripture

John 11:17–27 ESV

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

This is the word of the Lord

Prayer

Okay, so Jesus has arrived in Bethany where this family is, and at this point, Lazarus has been dead for four days. Now, Lazarus would have been buried on the day he died, and the rest of the week would be spent morning with the family (the mourning period typically lasted six days). So, Jesus show up in the midst of them mourning a death that they believe he could have prevented. And a lot of people came to console them, so this house is probably pretty crowded. But Jesus shows up, and Martha goes to meet him while Mary stays behind. Martha approaches Jesus and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In other words, she’s saying “Lord, where were you?” Lord, we called for you, we sent you a letter, why didn’t you show up? Why were you away from us? We needed you, in the most desperate moment of our lives, you weren’t here.” Martha and Mary probably did everything they could to keep Lazarus alive until Jesus got there, and he didn’t show up. You can here the hurt and sadness in Martha’s voice. But then she says in verse 22 “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Now she could be saying two things here: In some ways this is Martha sort of passively asking Jesus to raise her brother from the dead. But, what I think this is, and I heard another pastor say this, I think what Martha is doing is what all of us do when something bad happens in our lives. She’s saying what she knows she’s supposed to say. She goes from saying “Jesus where were you?” to “But I know you can do anything.” And she’s right, Jesus can do anything, but she doesn’t believe it. And often, neither do we. We say, Jesus, I know you can heal sickness, I know you’ve come to give life, I know you love me, and we say it with so much doubt and so much uncertainty that it stinks of unbelief. We don’t believe it. And Jesus knows this. He doesn’t count it against us. And Jesus’ response to Martha is “Your brother will rise again.” And what does Martha do? She jumps waaaay into the future saying “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” SHe’s saying, I know Jesus. I know he’ll rise again, that’s great, but that’s so far off from now, and I want my brother back now, this future promise, while comforting, doesn’t really help me now. And so, the only hope she seemingly has is a future hope. But Jesus responds with “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? And Jesus response, while it affects Martha’s future, has profound implications for the present. And we’ll see how this affects the present in a moment, So hold that thought for a minute, because the story kind of jumps to a different section.

Jesus has this conversation with Martha, and the Martha leaves and tells Mary that the teacher is here and is calling for her. So Mary gets up and rushes to meet Jesus. And she reaches him, falls down to her feet, and says almost identically to what Martha said “Lod, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And Jesus sees her weeping, and the text says he was deeply moved and greatly troubled. And those words, deeply moved, are better translated as outraged. Jesus is outraged, not at Mary but at the death of Lazarus. And he says, where have laid him? And then Jesus is lead to the tomb, and he gets to the tomb and in it says Jesus wept. Jesus sees the tomb, and he weeps. I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s always puzzled me why Jesus weeps. We’ll look at the rest of the chapter in a moment, but Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. So why does Jesus weep? And I think his weeping is connected to his outrage. And so to understand why Jesus weeps we have to understand why Lazarus died. Yes, Lazarus got sick, Lazarus didn’t get sick because he did anything wrong or because he didn’t have enough faith, Lazarus got sick because Lazarus, lived in a sinful, broken world. And because of sin, people get sick, and because of sin, all of us will die at some point. Our lives here will end, but there is the promise of the resurrection. But, Jesus is angry, and he weeps with both anger and compassion, because Jesus knows this isn’t how things should be. Jesus sees the pain and the brokenness caused by sin, and it pisses him off, but it saddens him too. Jesus is angry, but he’s grieved because of how we suffer in this life. He’s grieved because we have to experience the death of loved ones and our own death. And so he weeps out of compassion for us, but also out of empathy, because Jesus himself will soon suffer and die, and he knows what it’s like to be us. He weeps as a Savior who is present within our suffering and within our loss and within our grief. He weeps because death still has a hold over us, but not for long.

Jesus gets to the tomb where Lazarus has been for four days and he commands them to remove the stone. Martha objects saying that it going to stink because Lazarus has been dead for four days. Remember, Martha had a little bit of confidence earlier, but now she has almost no faith that Jesus can do anything. And Jesus says to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” And so, the remove the stone, Jesus prays to God the Father, saying “I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” And then Jesus cries out in a loud voice, LAZARUS, COME OUT.” And Lazarus, still wrapped up in cloth with his hands and feed bound together, comes out of the tomb.

Application

So, there’s a lot in this story, and we could honestly spend a few weeks digging into it. But, I think most of us can see ourselves in two ways here.

Mary and Martha

Some of us are like Mary and Martha. We’ve lost something. Something you used to have is now dead and seemingly gone forever. Maybe it’s a friendship you used to have, but you got into an argument or a fight, and now there’s nothing but bitterness between you two, and that person is dead to you. They’re in a symbolic tomb, and you find yourself missing how things used to be with that person, but you’re too afraid to allow Jesus to redeem and restore that relationship. Maybe there’s a lot of distance between you and a family member. There’s a lot of hurt and pain that comes with some of your family relationships, so it’s easier just to ignore them. To pretend like they don’t exist. To pretend they’re dead. And this is hard. It takes a lot of vulnerability and a lot of trust, but Jesus want to resurrect those relationships. The Jesus who says he is the resurrection and the life wants to resurrect past relationships and restore those relationships. Now, don’t get confused, if you were in a really abusive and painful relationship, I’m not talking about that. You need to use discernment, and I think you can feel in your gut what relationships I’m talking about, and if you’re not sure, come talk to me and we can walk through that. But, Jesus is a God of reconciliation. He redeems and restores all of our brokenness, our of our relational and family pains and struggles, and he brings them to new and better life. But we have to be willing to open the tomb. We have to be willing to deal with the smell, with the pain, with the vulnerability and the awkwardness that comes with it, and we have to allow Jesus to heal it and bring it back to life.

Lazarus

We’ll close with this, but a lot of us are like Lazarus. We’re in the tomb. We’re dead. And we’ve been dead. There’s something that has us tied up in a tomb. What are the things that keep us in the tomb? For some of us, it’s our own refusal to realize that we’re sinful. We’re convinced that we’re good people, so everything is going to work out in the end for us. That’s not true. All of us are broken by sin, all of us have sinned and will continue to sin, and the only way that our sins are forgiven and the only way that we’re freed from the grave is by believing that Jesus Christ is the son of God who came to redeem the world, and by confessing our sinfulness to Jesus, who’s sacrifice then covers us. Then he brings us from death into life. From darkness into light. But, for those of us who have already done this, I think a lot of us are still in the tomb, or we find ourselves back in the tomb. If a lot of took just a moment and really reflected on where we are in life and in our relationship with the Lord, I think we would see that we aren’t the person God has called us to be. We’re stuck in the tomb. We’re living as dead people. We let our fears keep us in the tomb. Our fear of what the future is going to look like. Our fear of what college we’ll get into. Our fear of the uncertainty that is our futures keeps us from really following after Jesus and so were stuck in the tomb. The stone has been rolled away, we can walk out, but we’re too afraid. Maybe your tomb is what I mentioned earlier, your inability to be reconciled with someone. It’s not so much something you’ve lost, but because of your lack of forgiveness towards a friend or family member, you’re stuck in a tomb of bitterness and anger, and what’s happened now is it’s become home for you. It’s now a place where you’re comfortable. Most of the time the tomb or grave we find ourselves in ends up being like a home for us. Maybe your tomb is your anger towards God. You have family who’s sick, life isn’t going how you want it to go, you didn’t do well on your SAT, and so you’re angry at God. And that anger and frustration you have towards God has become a grave that keeps you from experiencing the fullness that life has to offer. The graves that we find ourselves in prevent us from living in the fullness and abundance of life that following Jesus offers us. And so whatever grave you’re lying in right now, Jesus says the same thing to all of us. Get up and get out. Be like Lazarus. Get out of the grave. Because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, because he died and rose again and bought each of us with the price of his blood, we can run out of the grave, out of the darkness, out of death, and into his arms, into the full abundant life that he offers us. So, that’s my prayer this morning for myself and for all of us. If you haven’t given your life to Jesus, he’s calling you out of the grave and into eternal life, if you’ve already given your life to Jesus but find yourself still stuck in some kind of grave, he’s calling you out and back into the abundance of his grace, love, and fullness of life.