First Presbyterian Church Rev. Michael J. Imperiale
Salt Lake City, Utah October 16, 2016
“I AM the Resurrection”
II Timothy 3:14-4:5; John 11:1-25 (selected verses)
1Now a man named Lazarus was sick.
He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.2(This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.)
3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4When he heard this, Jesus said,“This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
6So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days,
7and then he said to his disciples,“Let us go back to Judea.”
17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
18Now Bethany was less than two milesfrom Jerusalem,
19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.
20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
23Jesus said to her,“Your brother will rise again.”
24Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25Jesus said to her,“I am the resurrection and the life.
The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;
26and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”28After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside.
32When 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.”
33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping,
he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.34“Where have you laid him?”he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35Jesus wept.
38Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
39“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 there four days.”
40Then Jesus said,“Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said,“Father, I thank you that you have heard me... that they may believe that you sent me.”
43When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice,“Lazarus, come out!”
44The 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.”
45Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did,
believed in him.
Introduction
The death of a loved one is one of the most troubling experiences in life. Our nearest and dearest can die at any age (a child, a teen, a young adult, middle age, or later years). Death can come suddenly or over a long stretch of time. How grief is experienced is also different for different people at different stages of life. My grandfather died in his 80s when I was 22; my father in his 60s when I was 33. As a pastor, I have lost close friends over these past 30 years. I’m sure that you also know the grief of losing someone close.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was the 20th century Swiss-American psychiatrist who pioneered studies of death and dying. She introduced her theory of the five stages of grief. The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with loss. They can help us identify what we may be feeling. But they do not draw a linear timeline in grief. Not everyone goes through all of them or in a prescribed order. The hope is that the knowledge of grief’s terrain, we can be better equipped to cope with life and loss. Your grief is unique as you are, as is mine.
Here are a few things Kubler-Ross said as she worked many years with death and dying. “There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.” And, “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.” And, “The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.” We heard Jesus say, “This is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
I think that Mary and Martha came to understand these things as they grieved over the death of their brother along with the Lord Jesus.
I. The News (vs. 1-7)
It says, “The sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’When he heard this, Jesus said,‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.’Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”
Way back in the 300s A.D., Chrysostom, an early church leader, asked, “Why this preliminary story at all? Why not just tell the miracle? His answer? “That we ought not to complain if those who are friends of God become sick.” It says that Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters. Might we rightly ask that a special friend of Jesus would receive special care.
Many times, our expectations of what God should or should not do are way different from the Lord’s. Notice that Mary and Martha didn’t ask Jesus for anything. They just let him know the problem. Maybe this is the best way to approach Jesus – simply to share our deepest problem with him. Don’t presume, don’t overreach, don’t underreach. Just tell the Lord about what you’re going through.
Faith in Jesus is trusting that God knows what he’s doing. A song by Michael Card sings it:
“To hear with my heart/To see with my soul/To be guided by a hand I cannot hold/To trust in a way that I cannot see/That's what faith must be.”
II. If Only (vs. 17-22, 28-33)
“On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.”
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” YetMartha shows a marvelous faith here. “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
And then 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... I mean, you waited days before you came!” Mary with a less impressive faith here.
We think, ask and say similar things when facing hurtful loss. “Why, Lord.” “If you had been here.” These are very normal, human thoughts and expressions. “Does God really care? Or am I being punished for something?”
Friends, resist this natural tendency. Remember how Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, the brokenhearted, for they shall be comforted” (Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5). And in Luke 6, we hear him say, “Blessed are you who are weeping now, for you will laugh.” The apostle Paul reminds us, “Brothers and sisters, we don’t want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you don’t grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.For we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (I Thessalonians 4:13).
III. The Greatest Hope (vs. 23-27, 38-44)
Jesus said to her,“Your brother will rise again.”Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”She answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”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 is to come into the world.”
Now we come to the last and most dramatic sign given by Jesus. The One who is Life confronts death and overcomes. It says that Jesus was once more deeply moved and came to the tomb. Like his own tomb soon to come, 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’s been there four days.”A very important detail, Jewish tradition held that a person’s soul would hover around the body for three days and then leave for good. There was no doubt that Lazarus had died. Even with her bold faith, Martha hardly expected to see her brother alive again.
Then Jesus said,“Didn’t I 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... 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, unbind him and let him go.”
For 32 years now, I’ve been a pastor for three congregations. I’m always amazing and deeply joyful when I hear Jesus call men and women out of spiritual death into the new life. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come” (II Corinthians 5:17). The great I AM again says to you and me, “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Whoever believes in Jesus will, even when you physically die, then you will live, will take part in Jesus’ Resurrection. And, whoever has eternal life and believes in Jesus will never spiritually, definitively die in your sins. By faith in Jesus, you and I are unbound and let go, set free.
Conclusion
George Orwell’s novelNineteen Eighty Fourwas written in the aftermath of World War II. Hitler had been defeated and the Soviet Union was on the rise. Orwell imagines what the world would be like under the control of authoritarian regimes. In this world “Big Brother” controls everything – where people live, what they do, where they work, what they say, even how they think. “Thought crime” (it was called),
to think thoughts that are against the ideology of the Party, is a punishable wrong. (Yikes! Just think how people are educated into “politically correct speech!” And one dare not step out of bounds).
The central character in Orwell’s book, Winston, works at the Ministry of Truth. His job is to rewrite history to fit with Big Brother’s view of the world. But he despises what he does. He hates the regime that makes him do it. Winston begins rebelling against the “Big Brother”, small but deliberate acts of defiance. He finds an alcove in his house where the cameras of Big Brother can’t observe him. As each small act of rebellion occurs the likelihood Winston will be caught increases.
The tension rises until Winston’s resistance is exposed. He’s sent to prison to be “rehabilitated”.
This means breaking him emotionally and physically and then turning him once more into a party drone. His interrogator is a man named O’Brien. He wants to convince Winston that resistance is futile,
that the party will never be defeated. At one point O’Brien says to Winston: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” What a depressing image.
To this the gospel screams a loud “NO WAY!” The Lord and God of all declares that death, disease and distress will not be the last word. The risen Lord Jesus Christ is the hope of life and life eternal. Martha said, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” Do you?
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