Loving through Pain

John 11:

Love & Pain

Key Text: John 11

⦁ Introduction

⦁ In John Chapter 11 we find the story of Lazarus, a story in which the combination of Jesus’s supernatural power and genuine humanity is more evident than anywhere else in all of the gospels. It’s also a sharp reminder that love and pain are often interconnected.

Does our love depend on what we need or can get from another person /God or Do we love them dispite our personal needs?

⦁ The story, occurring around the mid-point of John’s gospel serves as a clear reminder of Jesus’s ultimate mission of death and resurrection, and also acts as a catalyst—propelling Jesus on a collision course with the forces that will ultimately crucify him.

⦁ Looking at this passage in light of the overall gospel story we find ourselves facing three very challenging questions, namely:

“Can Love Wait Through the Pain? What kind of pain do we endure that would test the very fiber of how strong our love really is.

“How Deep is Your Love?”

“Will You Risk It?” What do we risk? Pain, Hardship, Suffering, Loss. How about happiness completeness Strength, True satisfaction.

Some times pain is the only test that will bring us to where we need to be . When you prune a tree where it’s not growing well the unnesassary is cut off so that the top will strengthen and be able to weather the coming storms.

⦁ Can Love Wait Through the Pain?

New Living Translation Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The Raising of Lazarus

A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. 2 This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3 So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”

4 But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” 5 So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 6 he stayed where he was for the next two days. 7 Finally, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”

⦁ Evident in the Lazarus story is that Jesus has something big in mind. He definitely has a plan. Mary and Martha send word of Lazarus’ grave illness, but Jesus doesn’t hustle. Instead he lingers. For two days, he waits around before making an announcement of his intention to help Lazarus. Surely those with him must have wondered what the heck was going on and why he chose to delay.`

⦁ Even though they know Lazarus is in trouble, the disciples try and talk Jesus out of making the journey. V8. “The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and you are going there again?” Maybe they’re concerned for Jesus’ safety, but more likely they are worried about their own necks, as Thomas reveals in verse 16. (“So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”) For certain, Jesus is marching his followers into a very dangerous, volatile situation by choosing to return to Bethany. Surely the disciples must have wondered what he was doing and why he was risking their safety in going to Lazarus.

⦁ When Jesus does finally arrive and is confronted by Mary and Martha, he remains cagey with them about his plan to raise Lazarus and bring him back. Despite the tears and the wailing and the sorrow, Jesus allows the pain to continue. Why? Even onlookers to this agonizing scene said of him, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” (v37.) It should also be noted – Jesus has chosen to let one of his best friends die to make a point.

⦁ We must recognize that Jesus is choosing to allow fear, sorrow and hurt into this story, knowing that it will pay off greatly in the end. He even says so to the disciples, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.” (v. 14) The same holds true in our lives. But the question we must ask ourselves is can my love wait through the pain?

⦁ How Deep is Your Love?

⦁ It’s fairly clear from Jesus’s emotions in the passage (John 11:35) that this seems to be a more personal miracle than the others Jesus performs in the gospel. Jesus seems more emotional here than he does during his other miracles and his emotions are not the only ones at play. The love that both Mary and Martha have for Jesus is suddenly put to the test because of the love that they had for their brother. This is bound to produce conflict.

⦁ Yet Jesus’s choice to delay leads to Lazarus’ death, and causes the sisters much distress and perhaps they begin to question his love. Do they love Jesus or what Jesus can do for them (heal their brother)? Do they only love Jesus in the good times and not in the painful trials? We must ask ourselves the same questions – can we love Jesus even in the midst of suffering? 1 Peter 4:13 provides a state-of-mind and we endure hardship, “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

⦁ Martha charges at Jesus with accusations and anger, the way that many of us come to God when we are crushed, disappointed, or broken-hearted. She immediately talks about what he could have done. Martha, who was so busy doing when Jesus was at her home in Luke’s gospel, now openly asserts that Jesus could have done more to help her. For Martha, love is inseparable from actions. But Jesus tells Martha “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25). We cannot want the things of Jesus apart from knowing Jesus—we cannot seek either Resurrection or Life without growing deeper in love with this One whom God has sent. It is why, even if in our view he delays in meeting our needs, he is never actually too late because his very appearance is the answer to all of our prayers, desires, and hopes.

⦁ WATCH: A scene from FINDING JESUS “Raising Lazarus “clip 3.

⦁ Mary approaches Jesus with words very similar to Martha’s but with a different posture—Luke’s gospel tells us that when Jesus was visiting Mary and Martha, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. Mary returns to this humble posture and Jesus sees her pain and shares in it. Mary places herself in a posture of obedience to the divine Jesus but, in so doing, she reveals the deep seated human love and compassion of Jesus.

⦁ Will You Risk It?

⦁ The sixteenth verse of the third chapter of John is one of the most famous verses in the Bible. In it, John lays out God’s motivation: love. And John’s gospel begins by telling us that Jesus is the Word of God, the very Life that is the Light of humanity (John 1:4-5). Yet Jesus himself makes it clear that many people will reject him and his love and, by so doing, reject Life itself.

⦁ The disciples know that by returning to Mary and Martha’s house they are entering ever deeper into a world of danger. Will they remain at Jesus’ feet no matter what comes or will they flee when they realize that this Messiah will not bring them the political victory they imagined? Will they cling to love even when pain seems to swallow everything, or will they shrink away into the shadows?

⦁ Mary and Martha are torn apart by the sudden death of their brother, Lazarus. Despite their same words, each confronts Jesus with different emotion. But key is that they both came to Jesus in their sorrow. They were willing to risk more pain for love.

⦁ Jesus was no fool. He knew that by raising Lazarus from the dead in so public a manner that he would set into motion the progression of events that would lead to his own death just a week later. His love for Lazarus would lead him directly into excruciating pain. But he risked it for love – which ultimately broke the power of death forever for those who love him.

⦁ Conclusion

⦁ We see in the story of Jesus’s raising of Lazarus the very human and intimate love that Jesus came to share with all of us. But it also shows that ultimate love often comes with a painful process. Like birth, the joy life overcomes the pangs of pain. Jesus is both the one who weeps with us and the one who breaks the power those things that cause such tears. Jesus comforts us in our times of distress and in seasons of despair. He offers love in a world full of danger and death, but in the end his love also destroys death itself.

⦁ Mary, Martha, Lazarus, the Disciples, you, and I—every one of us is confronted with the risk of pain as the price for love. Each of us is given the opportunity to struggle with it, suffer through it, and, ultimately, to be changed by it. How will you respond?

⦁ Jesus does not enter into the tomb at the raising of Lazarus; he stands outside it and calls in. Yet after spending time with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus at their home, he travelled to Jerusalem and took death upon him, was wrapped up just like Lazarus, and entered into his own tomb. While those of us who seek after him should not expect any differently, stories like Lazarus assure us that in the end pain does not win. Love will always conqueror.