Sermon Transcript
Ever since COVID spread to our area and we began sheltering in place, and people’s emotions ranged from worried and anxious to apathetic to confused to angry, some of us began to wonder— and this is very natural if this was you— we began to wonder, where is God in all of this? You know, if we If we pray, will he show up? We’re, we’re here begging for mercy and for him to end all of this, but does he even care? Does, does he have some sort of plan, or is he just waiting to see what happens next, just like all the rest of us are? Well, ever since all this mess started, an account from Jesus’ life in John chapter 11 keeps coming to the forefront as a helpful response to these questions and can really give us some insight into where God is, how he’s feeling, if he has a plan, and what he’s going to do about all this.
John chapter 11 documents a famous moment in Jesus’ ministry when Jesus raises a man named Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been sick, apparently pretty severely sick, and his 2 sisters were so concerned that they sought out Jesus for help. But tragically, instead of being healed, Lazarus died, and his sisters, of course, grieved. Miraculously, however, the story was not over because Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead. As we look at this account, which documents people in crisis, people experiencing tragedy, and then shows how Jesus responds in those moments, we’ll find some insights into what God might be up to in our own crisis.
And our own tragedy. Here’s how the account begins. You can find it in John chapter 11. We’re gonna start in verse 1. John 11, verse 1: Now a man named Lazarus was sick.
He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, who whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. Okay, so let’s talk about our characters as we get started. There is Lazarus, who is sick, and he has 2 sisters, Mary and Martha, both of whom had previously met Jesus in the past. Uh, okay, verse 3: So the sisters sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is sick.
So with this verse, we learn this isn’t some random guy who is sick. Lazarus is someone who is very close to Jesus. One pastor, when he was talking about these verses, said they didn’t even need to tell Jesus the name of the person who was sick. They only needed to say, Jesus, the one you love is sick. And that was apparently enough information.
Like, oh, it, it must be Lazarus if it’s the one Jesus loves. That’s how close Jesus was with Lazarus. So Lazarus is sick. The one Jesus loves is sick. Let’s find out how Jesus responds.
Verse 4: When he heard this, Jesus said, This sickness will not end in death. Great! No, Jesus says, it is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it. Um, okay. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So Jesus received word that Lazarus is sick and Jesus responds with something very encouraging. This sickness will not end in death. Fantastic! That’s good to know, Jesus. We all have a little bit of hope now.
So people must have thought, oh, Lazarus will get better. But they didn’t quite know how. Like, will Lazarus just get better on his own? Will Jesus run to Lazarus’ side and then heal him? Will Jesus just heal him from a distance like he did with the centurion’s servant in Matthew 8?
They didn’t know. Let’s find out. Verse 6: So when he— that’s Jesus— when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was 2 more days.
What’s the deal, Jesus?
The one you love is sick. What are you gonna do about it?
Nothing. But he’s sick! I know. And you love him! Right.
So what are you gonna do, Jesus?
Nothing. But can’t you heal him from far away like you’ve done before?
Yes. Are you gonna do that?
No. Uh, but this sickness will not end in death? Correct. Okay, Jesus, well, let’s see what happens. Um, continuing on in verse 7 here, and then he said to his disciples, Let’s go back to Judea.
After he had been there 2 days, after that point he said to his disciples, let’s go back to Judea. Okay, why is that, Jesus? Why are we going to go back to Judea? Verse 11 here. After he had said this, he went on to tell them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m going to go there and wake him up.
Oh, so that’s why we’re going back to Judea, to to wake Lazarus up, but then the disciples had a question about that. Verse 12: His disciples logically replied, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better. Like, why do you need to go there to wake him up? If he’s sick, he probably should just rest as much as he can. If he’s asleep, let’s just let him sleep, right?
But Jesus didn’t mean sleep. Verse 13, Jesus had been speaking of his death, of Lazarus’ death, but his disciples, of course, thought Jesus had meant natural sleep. So verse 14, then he told them, Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus is dead. That’s what I meant by sleep. And for your sake, I am glad I was not there.
So that you may believe. But let us go to him. At this point, I imagine the disciples must be very confused. First, Jesus said they were not going to go visit Lazarus, and he said Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death. Now, it’s a complete reversal.
Jesus says— and he says this without anyone coming to give him more information— Jesus just knows somehow Lazarus has died and we are going to go there.
If I were one of the disciples, I think I would have asked, okay, that’s the exact opposite of what you said before, but so I need a little bit of clarity. Number one, Jesus, how do you know Lazarus has died? No one has come to give you any more news. And 2, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought— I’m just trying to be respectful here— but I thought you said this wasn’t going to end in death. So what is happening?
That’s what I would ask if I were one of the disciples. But maybe they didn’t ask those questions because they already knew the answers. Maybe. How did Jesus know what had happened to Lazarus without some kind of messenger coming to tell him? Because he is God.
Because Jesus is God and he knows anything that he wants to know. And how could Lazarus die if Jesus said his sickness wasn’t going to end in death? Well, who said anything about death being the end of the story? Maybe the disciples knew, okay, so death must be part of the story, but it must not be the end of the story because Jesus said it wasn’t going to be the end of the story. Maybe the disciples knew all of that so they didn’t ask, or maybe they were just scared to ask more questions of Jesus.
But at any rate, Jesus and his disciples pack up and head out to Bethany where Lazarus had been sick But then died. And now, by the time they get there, he was buried. So we pick up the story in verse 17. On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for 4 days. When Martha— that’s Lazarus’ sister, remember— when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him.
But Mary stayed home. Lord, Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
So, um, Martha has an expectation that death will not be the end of Lazarus’ story, which means we, we have confirmation the disciples could have had the same expectation. But at the same time, Martha doesn’t believe Lazarus is coming back to life anytime soon. She thinks Lazarus will stay dead until the resurrection at the end of time. And at this point we probably need to take a small break from the storyline and talk about this resurrection Martha expects will happen in the probably distant future. In the 1st century, Jewish people were divided whether or not there would be a resurrection.
But the ones who believed in the resurrection, believed that at the end of time, when God brings all of history to a close, God will remake the world and mend everything that had ever broken. He would right all the wrongs, he would overturn all evil, and that would include reversing death itself. Everyone who had ever died would be resurrected. Some would be resurrected to everlasting life, and some would be resurrected to shame and everlasting contempt. If you want to look up where first-century Jewish people got this idea, check Daniel 12:2.
Okay, history lesson over. So Martha was one of these Jewish people who believed in the resurrection. And she believed Lazarus would be resurrected to everlasting life. Meaning death was not going to be the end of his story, just like Jesus said. But she didn’t think that was going to happen until the very end of time.
Jesus, on the other hand, knows Lazarus’ resurrection will be a little sooner than that. Verse 25 here, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
Do you believe this? Yes, Lord, she replied. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who has come into the world.
Now at this point, after she says this, Martha goes to get her sister Mary. And we aren’t exactly told why she goes to get Mary, but perhaps after Jesus dropped, I am the resurrection, maybe she has a suspicion that Jesus is about to do something big. So she goes to get Mary, and we pick up the story after Mary has come back. To find Jesus. Verse 32: When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
It was the exact same thing Martha said a few moments ago. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him? he asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied.
Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, See how he loved him! That’s one of the most fascinating parts of the story, and we’ll come back to that in a minute. But for now, verse 38: Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
Take away the stone, he said. But Lord, said Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been in there 4 days. Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.
I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out!
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen. And a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, Take off the grave clothes and let him go.
Today, as we talk about this account, we’ll look at 3 observations, each of which really shed light on where God is, how he feels, does he have a plan, Is he going to do anything about it when we face troubles and trials? These observations are— they center around sadness, sovereignty, and salvation. Sadness, sovereignty, and salvation. To be more specific, we’re going to talk about the goodness of sadness, so you can go ahead and fill that in if you’ve printed out a sheet to fill in. We’re going to talk about how sadness doesn’t contradict sovereignty, and then how salvation really brings sadness and sovereignty together.
So first, the goodness of sadness. Jesus arrives at the place where his friend has died and where he sees his other friends mourning, and Jesus emotionally breaks apart. He was deeply moved and troubled, verse 34. He wept, verse 35. Jesus did not have inner peace over the death of his friend.
He’s mad. He’s upset. And he’s sad. The phrase deeply moved is as restless as a person can be. It was an expression in Greek in the 1st century, so we understand expressions aren’t to be taken literally.
Like in our language when we say, mad as a hornet, we don’t mean that you actually are a hornet, but we just mean that you’re, you’re really mad, right? But the expression in the original language reads that Jesus snorted with anger. He’s having a raging emotional reaction, and then he weeps. So listen. For those of us who are really upset about what is happening, for those of us who just break down and cry sometimes because of how hard this is, how much we miss people, how much we miss hugging people, how much we miss singing with people, if we’re filled with despair, if we’re angry, because people have lost their jobs and now they can’t afford to live.
Or we’re angry because we see children more neglected because now the kids are home and nobody’s there to watch them. Or we’re angry because mental health is in a decline. Or we’re angry because we know abusive situations will now not get reported as often because people can’t get away from the abusive situations. If we’re brought to tears because of the nearly 230,000 people worldwide who have died, if we carry that sadness, if that grief cascades over us, that is actually a good thing.
How do we know it’s a good thing? Because that’s how Jesus reacted. Jesus is borderline throwing a tantrum here. He’s not keeping it all together. This is not calm, cool, collected Jesus.
And apparently he’s not concerned if everyone sees him with puffy eyes and snot everywhere. He’s okay if people see him like that. When he sees death, when he’s around others who weep, he weeps and it’s good.
Now some of us listening to this think, of course it’s okay to be sad. Why even mention this? Like, obviously sadness is a good thing when you need to be sad. You know, if you need to cry your eyes out, cry your eyes out. Go for it.
Therapeutic. Well, there are at least 3 groups that could stand to think about the goodness of sadness a little more. First group: some Christians. Let’s be honest. Some Christians need to hear this.
We get verses in our mind like, Rejoice always. I say it again, rejoice! Philippians 4:4. And we think because of that, oh, I can never be sad. You know, if we’re sad, it must mean we aren’t trusting God or something like we should be.
False. That’s absolutely false. Who trusted God more than Jesus? Who never sinned in any way? Jesus.
And what’s he doing here? He’s crying his eyes out. So rejoice, sure. Philippians 4:4. And we can always rejoice over who God is, what he’s done, what he will do in the future, what he’s currently doing in our lives through the grief.
We can always do that. But at the same time, at the same time, we can weep over what is wrong. We can snort with anger when something isn’t the way that it should be. Next week Dave’s going to talk more about this, but, but as Christians we are sorrowful yet always rejoicing. 2 Corinthians 6:10.
Sorrow and joy can happen at the same time. A second group who could hear sadness as a good thing: Buddhists. Buddhists need to hear this. Buddhism teaches suffering is the result of our desires. If we had no desires, we would never suffer.
So our attachment to other people, our desire for a relationship with them, is why we suffer when they die. If we didn’t desire a relationship with them, we would not suffer when we lost them. So the goal in Buddhism is get rid of your desires. Have no desires whatsoever and you will be impervious to all suffering. Jesus says that’s not the way to go.
Attaching to others is a very good thing. You are going to be sad when you lose them. And that sadness is a sign of how good it was to be connected with them in the first place. So some Christians need to hear this. Buddhists need to hear this.
Optimists may need to hear the goodness of sadness. The person who goes around pointing out how others should see the silver lining in their suffering. They need to hear this. The optimist is the type of person who tries to comfort others with phrases like, well, it could be worse. You know, you lost your job and your wife passed away, but at least you have your health.
Oh, you’re losing your mind because we’ve been sheltering in place for 48 days and now we know we have at least another month of this? Well, hey, chin up! At least you can get some home projects done.
When people are suffering, they don’t need to hear that. Listen, when you hear someone complain or weep, they don’t need a silver lining. You know what they need? They need you to weep with them.
Imagine the silver lining Jesus could have given Mary and Martha. He comes in, they’re weeping. He could have said, I know it’s sad, but at least he’s gonna come back to life in 5 minutes. At least you’re gonna get to see a miracle happen that people will still talk about thousands of years from now. Jesus had the best silver lining ever, and he didn’t use it.
He just wept. And snorted. The comfort Jesus offered Mary and Martha was not a silver lining. The comfort he offered them was his grief, his sadness.
Sadness is a great thing.
Okay, sovereignty, and salvation. And these will be much quicker. First, sovereignty. We might be tempted to believe that if God is angry over suffering, then therefore he would do all he could to stop suffering from happening. And since there is such a thing as suffering, that must mean that either God can’t do anything about it, God doesn’t actually exist, or God doesn’t really care after all.
The account of Lazarus blows all that out of the water. Jesus knew it was going to happen, and he let it happen when he was fully capable of stopping it. He even said, verses 14 and 15, Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there. So that you may believe. Or verse 4, he said, it is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.
Um, he gives us the reason why Lazarus was allowed to die. Jesus’ reason for letting Lazarus die was so that people may believe in Jesus when Jesus raises him from the dead. There was a plan. Jesus had a plan for Lazarus’ death before Lazarus ever died. Jesus wasn’t waiting to see what would happen.
Jesus planned that it would happen. And mind you, he said he was glad that it happened. So, so we see 2 emotions happening simultaneously in Jesus during Lazarus’s sickness and death. On the one hand, Jesus is glad for what his plan is going to accomplish. On the other hand, Jesus is grieving because he hates the death of his friend, which is the plan.
Listen, you, you don’t have to choose between believing in a God who hates suffering and death and a God who has a plan, a good plan, for our suffering and death. And death. We think if God hates it, then it must not be his plan. We think suffering and death must somehow be outside of God’s plan. We, we think we have to choose: is it his plan or does he hate it?
We don’t think that it can be both. But it is. This account shows us Jesus hates what happened to Lazarus, and it was his plan for Lazarus.
Those are not in contradiction.
And actually, our 3rd point helps to bring those 2 points even closer together: salvation. Jesus takes what he hates, the death of Lazarus, he defeats it and turns it around to be used for what he loves. So in this account, we see Jesus redeems what happens to Lazarus. Jesus always, or will always, achieve a double victory over evil. Not only does Jesus stop evil— that would be one victory— but he also turns the purpose of evil over on itself and forces evil to accomplish the exact opposite result from what it was trying to accomplish.
Romans 8:37: Through Jesus we are more than conquerors. Conquerors would mean you defeat the enemy. So what does more than conquerors mean? One possible answer is that you force the enemy to accomplish the exact opposite from what the enemy was trying to accomplish. So in this case, the evil of Lazarus’ death intended to end Lazarus’ life, obviously, and probably to make others miserable.
That was evil’s intention: kill Lazarus, make others miserable. But Jesus comes in and overturns Lazarus’ death in such a way that Lazarus ends up with presumably a better life than he ever would have had without his death. And certainly those around Lazarus have a joy they never would have had without death being part of Lazarus’ story. So death didn’t accomplish anything it wanted to do. It wanted to end Lazarus’ life and make others miserable.
And Jesus uses death to give Lazarus life and make others happy. We know from later in John chapter 11 and John chapter 12 that people were traveling far and wide excitedly telling others about what happened to Lazarus. They were elated. They were amazed. They were grateful.
They were praising God. Death didn’t want any of that to happen. Death doesn’t want a celebration. But Jesus forced death to cause a celebration. That’s the double victory.
Evil doesn’t get to do what it wants to do, and on top of that, Jesus forces evil to accomplish good. That’s redemption. That is redeeming evil for good. That’s the promise for all of us who have put our faith in Jesus. Jesus doesn’t prevent bad things from happening from us, even though he could.
He can heal us from far away. Instead of that, he achieves a better victory. In the end, he so dominates evil that it is bent back on itself and used for our good. Romans 8:28. The challenge for us is that for the most part, we, we live on the, on the segment of the timeline after evil has happened.
But before Jesus puts everything back together, something has gone wrong. We are, we are weeping, and it has not yet been fixed, let alone used for our good. We can totally relate to Mary and Martha who weep over Lazarus’ death, and Jesus has not yet risen him from back to life.
That’s when we are on the timeline. We’re in this in-between. We see suffering and tragedy, but for the most part, Jesus has not turned it over on its head and used it for our good. We linger in this moment of weeping.
But friends, The end is coming. The days of evil and suffering and death are numbered. Just as surely as Lazarus came out of that grave, just as surely as Jesus came out of his own grave, every evil that has ever happened in the history of the world will be turned back on itself and used for the good of those who have put placed their trust in Jesus. Imagine the celebration at the end of time when Jesus reverses all the pain that has ever happened, and then he uses that momentum to create a joy that never would have been possible without the pain. And the pain has to look on and see the joy that it is now causing people in its double defeat.
That is the future for those of us who have placed our trust in Jesus. Not only will evil be vanquished, but evil will be forced to work for our joy.
May the promise of that future Work into our current hearts and help us to rejoice in the midst of sorrow.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you that Jesus is not someone who just sat on high and watched us in our suffering and gave us some good coping techniques, but he’s someone who came here and, and wept with us. A man of sorrows who carries our inequities.
Lord, thank you that for the incarnation, that Jesus was fully human and experienced every sorrow that we have ever experienced. Lord, thank you for the empathy of Jesus. Thank you that he is more powerful than all of our sorrows. And that he has promised victory over them. He’s promised such a victory over them that we will be more than conquerors, that we will see all the evil in our lives eventually turned to be used for our good in a way that we will celebrate how we never would have been able to celebrate without it being there in the first place.
Thank you for Thank you for that promise and the hope that it brings us today in the midst of our current crisis and troubles. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, as Dave mentioned earlier in this, uh, service, we are taking communion today here at Bridges. We often take communion on the first Sunday of the month. And this is our first Sunday of the month. Many of you may not have taken communion before. If you’re someone who has found us online and now you’re checking out church for the first time, you’re wondering, what is communion all about?
Communion is a symbol that Jesus gave us to show us what his sacrifice on the cross meant and what it accomplished. On the night Jesus was betrayed, he met with his disciples for the last time, and at the end of the meal, he, he took the bread and he broke it, and he said, this is my body broken for you. And he then, he took the cup and poured out wine, and he said, this is my blood of the new covenant. Anytime that poured out of of the new covenant poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. Anytime that you take of this meal, remember me.
And so when we take of the meal, we remember— it relates to what we are talking about today— we remember what Jesus did for us on the cross. We remember that he died so that we never have to fear death. He took our sin and our death himself in the cross, and then he rose to life again in victory over sin and death. So Lazarus is able to come out of the grave and have a resurrection. We will be able to come out of the grave and have a resurrection at the end of time because Jesus bore all of our sin, he bore our death, he bore our sorrows, he bore our inequities, he bore all the pain of the world caused by our sin, took that with him into death, and then rose to life again in victory over it.
So as we take communion today, and if you haven’t, if you didn’t pause the video at the beginning of this service to go collect your bread and your cup, you can pause this video now. But as we take communion communion today. We’re gonna, we’re gonna play some music for a while, and then that will lead into our final song. You might want to take a minute to just pray and reflect over what Jesus has done for you. That Jesus took your death, that Jesus took your sin, and he rose to life again in victory over it, so that we are free from the burden of both.
