9/23/07 Jesus Wept

Our study of the Gospel of John

has brought us to the eleventh chapter.

And here again we come to another one of those chronological gaps in John’s writing,

a gap this time of several months.

Following his departure from Jerusalem at the end of chapter ten

Jesus returned to the North

and put into motion the final strategic steps in His movement toward that one event

that has forever been the pivotal point of the entire human race - God in human form dying for the sins of His creation.

When I was putting words into Peter’s mouth in The Fisherman,

as I had him speak of these few final months,

I had him say this.

I have heard the throbbing cadence of the taskmaster’s drum pounding out the rhythm for those chained to the oars on the Roman galleys as they glide past on the Great Sea. There was such a cadence to our final months with the Master. Though in truth it had always been there, it was far beyond my range of hearing until the morning I called him “Messiah.” And even then I could not yet hear it with my mind. But I believe my spirit sensed it—a distant, steady, relentless rhythm being drummed by an Almighty Hand upon the foundation of the world with two massive rough-hewn timbers formed in the shape of a cross.

The rhythm marked our pace and our destination—a hill just outside Jerusalem, a hill called Golgotha. Each step the Master took coincided perfectly with the cadence. With each step the volume increased a decibel or two. And each step brought him closer to the fulfillment of the purpose for which he came. I can hear it now, looking back with the mind of the Spirit. At the time I refused to accept the reality of its existence until I stood before that cross and felt the earth shake under my feet, saw the sun driven from the sky, and heard the hammered blows driving nails through the flesh of the Son of God.

This is the time period into which we move

as we begin chapter 11 of John’s Gospel.

There is a period of less than 4 months

between the Feast of Dedication which we have in John 10

and the Passover Feast at which Jesus was crucified.

It was a time of intense final preparations for the Lord

as He moved into place all of the remaining pieces necessary for the greatest event in all of history.

With the help of the first three Gospels

we can pick up some of the missing pieces from John’s Gospel

and at the same time see the intensity of these final days.

This final phase began when Jesus took His disciples aside

and asked them the question for which He had been preparing them for the three years.

MAT 16:15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

By then they had the information they needed

in order to get the answer right.

And Peter put it into words for the group.

MAT 16:16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

And it’s fascinating to see how Jesus responded to this affirmation of the truth.

Immediately following their recognition of this truth

Matthew tells us,

MAT 16:21 From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.

Though He made some veiled references to what was coming

continually throughout His public ministry,

from this point on He brought it right out into the open

and told them what was to come.

They didn’t receive it, of course.

But still He wanted them to know that what was coming

was no mistake,

no failure,

no unexpected tragedy.

Then, immediately after this,

Jesus took Peter, James, and John with Him up onto the mountain

and allowed them to witness an exchange between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah,

followed by the voice of God the Father affirming to them,

MAT 17:5 ... "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!"

For a number of days following this

He stayed out of the public eye,

kept His disciples with Him,

and repeatedly reinforced in them,

LUK 18:32-33 "For (I) will be handed over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged (Me), they will kill (Me); and the third day (I) will rise again."

He spoke the truth to them, but they could not yet hear it.

LUK 18:34 But the disciples understood none of these things, and the meaning of this statement was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.

It was also during this time

that He began to communicate to them

a number of the crucial principles upon which He would build His church.

Through His payment of the Temple Tax

He taught them about submission to human authorities.

He taught them about the crucial qualities of both humility and forgiveness.

He warned them about their responsibility to one another,

their responsibility to never act toward another person

in a way that would cause them to stumble,

and about removing from their own lives

those things that cause them to stumble themselves.

He talked with them about never despising the lowly ones,

about a Shepherd who would risk His own life in search for one lost lamb,

about how to restore a relationship with a brother who has sinned against you,

and then about how many times we should forgive a person who has sinned against us.

MAT 18:21-22 Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

He was introducing them to a whole new way of thinking,

a new way of relating both to morality and to the people around them.

They had been taught that “morality”

was the careful observance of an arbitrary list of rules.

What things made a person “clean” or “unclean”?

What distance could a person travel on the Sabbath Day without it being considered “work”?

It was all about the form,

the externals,

the rules.

But th Master began talking with them

not about rules, but about relationships,

and carefully, skillfully He began to redefine for them

the true nature of morality.

Morality had little to do with any external list,

it had everything to do with how a person chose to relate to another person.

It was a concept that would become the central pillar

of His Church, His Body on this earth.

JOH 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

It was a time of intense, private teaching,

a time of His laying the foundation for what was to come.

Then, in preparation for His final public presentation of Himself to the nation,

He sent out 70 disciples in teams of two

to announce His coming and to call the nation to Himself one more time.

Following their return

He began His last great tour throughout Israel with these words,

MAT 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Then He once again placed Himself on center stage before the Jews,

offering Himself to them as their promised Messiah.

He told them that He did not come to bring peace but division.

He told them that those who chose allegiance to Him

would find that He would in turn choose allegiance to them.

MAT 10:32-33 "Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”

By the time He finished that final teaching tour

everything was in place for His entrance into Jerusalem

for that final Passover Feast.

And the event we have recorded for us in John chapter 11

is an event that took place at some point during these last few months,

perhaps as the culminating event of that final tour.

And what a culmination it was - the public resurrection of a man

who had been dead four days.

And with that background we’ll return to our study of John.

But first let me just make one additional observation

that will help keep the purpose of John’s writing in focus for us.

There are a total of 21 chapters in the Gospel of John.

The public ministry of Jesus probably covered a time span of about four years.

John takes ten chapters to cover the events in the first three years and eleven plus months,

and then he uses the last eleven chapters

to offer us his account of Jesus’ final few days on this earth.

This was never intended to be a biography of the life of Jesus in the traditional sense.

It was intended to be a powerful presentation of that one central event of history,

the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,

preceded by the information we would need

in order to place that event into its correct context.

We are less than half way through this Gospel,

and yet everything that takes place from here on

takes place literally in the final few days of the Master’s life on this planet.

To say that John places an emphasis on those final few days doesn’t even come close to the truth.

The truth is that those final few days are the reason he wrote,

and everything else is simply supporting material

that keeps those final days in their correct context.

The historical account of Jesus Christ

is not the account of the life of a great prophet.

The historical account of Jesus Christ

is the account of our Creator God

allowing Himself to be put to death as payment for the sins of His own creation.

And with that as our preparation

let’s move into this 11^th chapter.

Given how concentrated John’s Gospel is,

it’s interesting to see how much space he gives

to the account of this event we have recorded for us in this 11^th chapter.

John devotes nearly the entire chapter, 53 verses,

to a detailed account of what happened and what resulted from it.

And when we look at what happened

we shouldn’t be surprised

because what takes place here

is remarkable to the extreme.

Jesus restores life to a man who has died,

been elaborately prepared for burial,

been placed into a sealed tomb,

and then remained there for four days.

This is not the account of a man who was nearly dead being restored to life,

or a man who had just died being revived.

This isn’t even remotely like the drowned swimmer

being given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

This is Jesus demonstrating His absolute power over death,

a power that literally extends beyond the grave.

But lets walk our way through what happens in John’s account.

The account begins,

JOH 11:1-3 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."

Bethany was a village about two miles outside of Jerusalem.

I suppose today we’d call it a suburb of the capital city.

This family, these two sisters and their brother,

show up several times in the Gospel accounts.

They were a family apparently of some considerable wealth.

We know this because of the type of burial they gave Lazarus,

and because their home was clearly large enough to serve as a central meeting place for Jesus,

and because of the extremely expensive ointment with which Mary anointed Jesus’ feet.

We also know that all three of them were absolutely loyal to the Master,

and that they all shared a close personal friendship with Him.

We are not told when they met the Lord,

but it’s reasonable to assume that it must have been on one of His earliest visits to Jerusalem,

and it’s also reasonable to assume that their home was verily likely His home base on His visits to the city.

John’s account of this event begins with Lazarus being very sick,

and the sisters sending word to Jesus,

clearly asking for His help.

Then John continues,

JOH 11:4-6 But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it." Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

And I can’t let that pass

without asking if those last two sentences trouble you.

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

He loved them,

and because He loved them He waited two more days before coming.

Sounds like a strange way to show His love, huh,

and especially when we discover that His two day delay

meant that Mary and Martha would have to go through the agony of their brother’s death,

and the pain and emptiness and hopelessness of the funeral and burial.

And it meant that they would also have to deal with their anger and disappointment with Jesus -

Jesus who didn’t care enough to come,

Jesus who had time to heal hundreds of others,

but who didn’t have the time to heal this man who had shown Him such kindness, such faithfulness.

Of course now, looking back, we know why He waited.

We know why He let Lazarus die,

so it’s no big deal to us.

But it was to them.

Because they got it wrong

in the same way we so often get it wrong.

We think it’s all about God fixing what’s broken in our lives.

We think what we need the most

is to have God do what needs to be done.

We think it’s mostly about what we can get from Him,

what He can give us.

And certainly that’s big.

He’s the one who chose to go into such detail

telling us the things He longs to give us.

He’s the one who has invited us

to share our lives with Him,

giving us the freedom to ask Him for anything we think we need.

But the danger here,

and the thing we can so easily forget

is that what we need the most

is not what God can give us

but rather the growing discovery of who He really is.

Has He ever ... stayed two days longer...,

or two weeks longer,

or two months or two years longer

when you’ve reached out to Him for help?

Have you ever felt as though He doesn’t care?

If so then what we see happening in this chapter will help.

You see, there were some things God wanted to do in these people’s lives,

things He wanted them to know about Himself,

things that, once they understood them, would change their lives forever.

But they were things that they could not know

without first going through pain.

And I do love the way in which this account gives us permission to be honest with our God.

John writes,

JOH 11:17, 20-21 So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. Martha then said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

Now why didn’t Mary come?

She didn’t come because she was mad at Jesus.

He’d failed her.

He had the power to save her brother and He failed her,

and now she didn’t want to see Him.

He understood, of course.

He understood her anger,

He understood her decision to stay in the house.

But then He did what He always seeks to do with us as well.

He called her to Himself - He sent Martha to get her, and she came.

But her opening words to Him

were the same ones Martha had spoken.

JOH 11:32 ..."Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."

And even though she most certainly spoke them with tones of respect,

they were words of judgement,

words of condemnation,

words that pointed out to God His failure,

His inadequacy,

and her deep disappointment in her God.

And of course we never do that, do we.

We never point out to God His failures.

We never tell Him what He did wrong.

To do so would be ridiculous.

But do you know what we do?

We complain about our circumstances,

we grumble about those things in life that have been thrust upon us,

the things that we hate,

the things that we are just certain that, if we could get rid of them,

our lives would be so much better.

What is it?

Our health?

Our appearance?

Our marriage partner?

Our boss?

Our children?

Our parents?

Our age?

The weather?

What is it in our lives

that we honestly believe is responsible for our lives not being as good as they should be?

Now, let’s back it up one step.

Who controls our circumstances?

Or Who could control them,

change them,

reshape them if He chose to?

We don’t say, “If God would only have given me a better body...”,

but we do say, “If I only had a better body...”

We don’t say, “If God would have changed the weather...”,

but we do say, “If it just didn’t rain so much...”

We don’t say, “If God wouldn’t have taken him or her...”,

but we do think to ourselves, “If only they wouldn’t have died...”.

You see, we’re just like Mary and Martha, really.

“Lord, if only you had been here...if only You’d have done it differently...if only you’d been a better God...”

Now, we’re not going to get much farther in this passage today,

but I can’t just leave it here, either.

So to help us find a point of rest until we come back to the passage next week

let me point out to you two fascinating aspects of the Lord’s response

to Mary and Martha’s words of accusation and condemnation.

They aren’t what we would expect, you know.

They aren’t words of judgement and condemnation in return.

They aren’t the words of a righteous Almighty Judge

pointing out the arrogance and stupidity of His creation.

Instead what He speaks are words of kindness, and understanding, and compassion.

JOH 11:33-34 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see."

And then comes the two words no one could ever have anticipated.

JOH 11:35 Jesus wept.

In the next verse we are told that those who saw the tears streaming down His face

assumed it was because He was grieved over the loss of His friend,

because He missed Lazarus,

and He wished He could have been their earlier to prevent this tragic loss.

But we know that isn’t the case.

We know this because He knew that in another 60 seconds

His friend would once again be standing by His side, healthy, restored to life.

And here is the amazing thing -

His tears, Jesus’ tears - Jesus’ sorrow and deep emotional pain

was caused because He hurt for us, with us.

He felt the pain that we feel as we fight our way one painful step at a time

through our doubts,

and our confusion,

and our fears.

He felt what we feel whenever we are faced with death - either our own approaching death or the death of someone we love,

and He hated it.

This is a strange time of life for me.

I turn 60 years old this year,

and for a number of months now

I’ve found myself in a sense grieving my way through the shortness of life.

I don’t feel 60 at all.

This is nothing like what I thought 60 would be like,

and this whole ageing thing is so stupid.

As far as I know I’m still healthy

and I have a very reasonable expectation of a number of years ahead of me.

But the problem is that I have reached a point in life

when most of the people I love are younger than me...

sometimes much younger.

And I know that in the normal course of things

I will see only a small portion of their lives before my own departure.

And that realization has made me sad, and angry, and frustrated all at the same time.

I hate death,

not because I fear it,

but because it is absolutely inconsistent with who we are.

I know why Jesus wept when He stood before that tomb,

and I know a little of what He felt in the face of the death of someone He loved.

Jesus wept because He hated what sin has done to those He loves,

and He knew that for a little while longer the pain of death must remain.

Well, there are times in all of our lives

when our God does delay two days longer,

when He does not intervene because there is an even greater work He wants to do on our behalf,

one that may even require us facing death.

But even then He goes through that pain with us.

And next week we’ll complete the picture.