The Resurrection and Life

The news reported this week that a merchant vessel found a capsized boat in the ocean off the coast of Florida.

There was one person still hanging onto the boat, while the other 39 people onboard appeared to have perished.

He was drifting on a boat that had been overloaded and overturned in the wind and the waves, hanging on for dear life while those around him lost their lives. [1]

It is thought that the boat may have contained people trying to come into the country, likely looking for a better life than the one they left behind. Instead, their lives ended in tragedy.

Have you ever felt like that one lone survivor?

Despite your best efforts, the winds and waves of life wreck your plans, your dreams, and your future. In the aftermath of frustration and pain, you find yourself feeling like you drifting around in the waves.

When debt looms large or our marriage is strained or our dreams fade, we wish we just had something firm to hold on to.

Perhaps few situations make us feel hopeless and drifting as much as the death of someone we love.

That pain is made even worse if we know there was something that could have been done to prevent their death.

The account we are going to look at this morning finds two people in the middle of that very situation.

There was a family—Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus—who were friends of Jesus’s.

As we look at John 11 this morning, we find Martha and Mary reeling from the death of their brother.

Through Jesus’s response to their pain, I want to challenge us all to do something: When we feel like we are drifting, we need to anchor ourselves in the glory of God.

We have defined God’s glory with the term “majestic presence.” It is a big term that has a lot of different nuances, but today we are going to look at two of them.

If you will, these two nuances form two anchors that we drop from the bow and the stern of our boat: When we feel like we are drifting, we need to anchor our minds in the truth and our hearts in God’s grace.

All of these ideas—glory, grace, and truth—are themes John has developed throughout his gospel.

Think back to this verse:

John 1:14 CSB

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

That’s what we are going to see this morning: Jesus displaying God’s glory, his grace, and truth.

Let’s look at the text. Start with me in John 11:1-3...

As John jumps in to talk about Mary and Martha, he is already looking ahead to what we will see about them in the next chapter.

However, Luke gives us some background information on Martha and Mary in his gospel:

Luke 10:38–42 CSB

While they were traveling, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.” The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.”

From this, we see already pick up some of their personalities—Martha is more driven and direct, Mary is more reflective and emotional.

We are going to see this play out again in the remainder of the account.

Pick back up in verse 4-6, 11-13...

Jesus intentionally waited for Lazarus to die. That seems so cruel, but as we will see, it created an amazing opportunity to show exactly who he was.

This is getting to the part we really want to focus in on.

As he approaches Bethany, he is going to encounter each of the sisters individually.

Although some of the things they say are the same, there are differences in the way Jesus responds to them.

As the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep, like we mentioned last week. Jesus responds to each of their personalities and helps them process their pain in ways that are unique to them.

His response to Martha teaches us that, when we are drifting, we need to...

1) Anchor your mind in the truth.

Before we read this, let me remind you who he meets first: Martha, the one who seems to be more active and more analytical.

Although some of us would naturally be more like Martha, we all need to drop this anchor in times where we drift.

Read verses 17-27 with me...

Martha comes out to meet Jesus, and her words are very direct.

The reflect a faith that is strong, but perhaps guarded. Look again at verse 21-22.

Jesus responds with a true statement: Lazarus would one day rise again.

Martha again responds in faith in verse 24 - “I know he will rise at the last day.”

That is another strong statement, especially because there was debate in those days about whether or not there would be a resurrection from the dead at all.

The resurrection is present in passages like Isaiah 26:19, but the details are sparse.

Jesus blows up their understanding with his next statement.

Not only will there be a resurrection, he himself is the means of both resurrection and life!

In one of the beautiful paradoxes of following Jesus, we find that for those who believe in Jesus, not even death can kill us!

Although we will die physically, Jesus gives us eternal spiritual life that can never be taken away!

Eventually, we will even have a physical life again as he resurrects our bodies. This time, though, those bodies won’t get sick or die! They will be perfect and without pain.

Now, with all this in mind, what is Jesus doing?

He is anchoring Martha’s analytical mind in the truth.

When we are drifting, it is easy to lose sight of what is actually true.

Everything gets foggy, and things we were always certain of seem less sure.

In those moments, we need to hold tight to what is true.

The prophet Jeremiah did this. If you have read the books of the Bible he wrote, you may understand why he has been given the title “The Weeping Prophet.”

It was his job to give the final warnings to God’s people that if they didn’t repent, God would send nations to destroy them and carry them off to captivity.

The people didn’t listen, and God kept his word.

In the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah writes about all the city of Jerusalem endured during its destruction.

He makes it personal in chapter 3 and talks about all the ways he feels God has wronged him.

Yet, in the middle of his disorientation, he says this:

Lamentations 3:20–24 CSB

I continually remember them and have become depressed. Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.”

After that, he goes back to talking about all the pain and suffering again.

What did Jeremiah do? He anchored his mind in what was true.

It wasn’t about what he could see; it wasn’t about how he felt.

Instead, Jeremiah goes back to God’s nature, God’s character, and drops that anchor into the deep.

As it takes hold in the glory of God, he recalls the truth of who God is.

That’s the same thing Jesus did with Martha—”You are mourning the loss of your brother and it seems unfair, but remember that I am the resurrection and the life.”

When life gets disorienting and you start drifting, drop your anchor in what you know of God.

That means that you need to study the Bible, read about him, and learn as much as you can about who God is during the lighter days so you have those truths to anchor you in the drifting days.

If you are already in the drift, sit down and write out all the things you know to be true of God, whether it feels like your situation lines up with it or not.

If you do nothing else, look at Jesus on the cross and coming out of the tomb. He cares so much for you that he would die, and he is so powerful that he can overcome even death itself, just like he is saying here.

Do what Martha does here in verse 27 - declare what you know to be true of God to anchor your mind and thoughts.

What do we do, though, if we aren’t super analytical people?

What if we are more emotional? Does God just tell us to suck it up and get over it?

Well, there are times when we do need to tell our feelings how to think, but with that, let’s see the second anchor we throw into the depths to stop the drift:

2) Anchor your heart in God’s grace.

Martha may have been more analytical, but Mary sure seems to be a person who feels things deeply.

Look at how Jesus responds to her. Start in verse 28-37...

Mary’s response isn’t guided by logic; it is much more raw.

She falls at Jesus’s feet, which is where we find her in all three accounts we have of her.

She only gets out one line in verse 32 before it seems emotion takes over.

Look slowly at these next few verses...

Do you see how the “One and only, come down from the Father, full of grace and truth” responds to the pain that death brings? He is “deeply moved,” “troubled,” and weeps.

The terms John uses here are interesting. The idea of “deeply moved” implies a deep emotion that could be a lot of strong negative emotions all rolled into one.

We want to be careful that we don’t assume to know what is going on in Jesus’s heart (like the folks did in verse 37), but the term itself implies some mixture of sadness and even anger.

He sees his friend in pain, and he weeps with her over the tragedy of death. There may even be hints of anger over the pain that sin has brought into the world as he looks around and sees all these people mourning, and he looks at his feet and sees Mary there weeping.

Can you stop for a moment and see this?

Jesus, looking down at his friend and around at the others, with hot tears streaming down his cheeks.

John uses a term for crying here that is never used elsewhere in the New Testament. His tears are different than the others, but at the same time, the God of the universe has entered into the pain of humanity and is feeling it down to his depths.

He doesn’t respond to Mary with a discussion about truth, although she needed to hear it as well.

No; he simply weeps with her and goes to see where they laid Lazarus.

The God who calls the stars by name, who created everything from nothing by simply speaking the universe into existence, shows grace by standing with a friend in pain and weeping alongside her.

Do you feel like you are drifting this morning?

God is not just sitting in heaven, distracted or even enjoying your pain.

Instead, he is the God who has come alongside us and knows exactly what it feels like to go through what you and I are facing.

Hebrews 4:15 CSB

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Let your heart rest in the fact that we serve a God who has experienced every aspect of human pain and weakness, and as he looked at the grave of a friend and the pain sin and death wrought, he was moved to deep emotion and tears.

You may not feel it right now, just like a child doesn’t feel like you love them when you are having to cause pain to take out a splinter.

However, look at the tear-stained cheeks of our Savior and see that he is, as Isaiah describes him, “a Man of Sorrows, and well acquainted with grief.”

He didn’t rebuke Mary for her sorrow. Instead, he stayed with her and wept with her.

You may feel like God is distant and cold, but can I tell you, based off what we see in this passage and other places, he is right there with you.

Let your heart rest in his grace—grace that shows the majesty of a God who is far greater than you and I could ever make up on our own.

Now, here’s a question for us: What if this is where the story ended? What if Jesus didn’t do what he does in verses 38-44.

Would that be enough?

I suggest today that it should be for us.

God doesn’t promise to take care of every issue miraculously like he did here.

His truth for our minds and grace for our heart still show us his glory.

For us, we can rest in those alone because we know he can do what he says.

Since he was changing everything about their understanding, though, God wanted to do something different.

It was time to prove that Jesus truly is the resurrection and the life, and he did it in a spectacular way.

Start in verse 38 with me...

He waited until Lazarus had been dead for 4 days because there was a superstition that said the spirit stayed with a person’s body for a few days. By day 4, there was no question that he was not just mostly dead; he would have even smelled like death.

Yet, in a clear demonstration of God’s glory, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

He demonstrated his grace powerfully, he confirmed the truth he had proclaimed, and showed what happens when God reveals his majestic presence.

God may not come through in a miraculous way to stop the situation you are drifting in, but you and I can still rest in truth and his grace because we know he has done it before.

Not just here with Lazarus, but in an even greater way as he laid his life down for us, was buried, and was raised from the dead.

A God who would do that is worth anchoring our minds in, and anchoring our hearts in.

Which anchor is harder for you to trust? Why not ask God to help you put down your anchors in faith and rest secure in him?

Endnotes:

[1] https://wng.org/sift/dozens-missing-from-capsized-boat-in-florida-1643234704