Sermon Tone Analysis

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

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

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.