Video Clip: Princess Bride, “Mostly Dead”
Connect: Today, in American society, we are obsessed with avoiding death.
In the last 10 or fifteen years we have seen unthinkable advances in science and medicine – all of which are designed to makes our lives easier, to make us healthier, to correct diseases that we may have been born predisposed to, and to keep us living longer.
Everything from cloning human embryo’s, to locating and mapping cancer genes, new body imaging technology which can screen out unwanted conditions…
New drugs for the treatment of killer diseases e.g. HIV, growing nerve cells in a lab to heal spinal cord injuries…
Quicker access to special machines for heart attack victims greatly increasing survival rates, and oh yeah, the human genome was mapped 5 years ahead of schedule. By the time my kids are in their 60’s, scientists will be growing new organs for them in petry dishes. Why? All this to make our lives a bit easier, help is live healthier and longer.
Relate: And beyond the stats, it seems like we’re living longer. I mean my mother and my In-laws (my kids Grand parents) are living well into their 60’s and with good diet, exercise and modern medicine may live into their 80’s and 90’s. I just heard of a guy in Spokane who celebrated his 109th B-day. In contrast, My Grand parents – well…not so much! They all died in their 40’s & 50’s. You know why? Because they all worked in the coal mines and ate bacon sandwiches 3 times a day, that’s why!
Who wouldn’t want to prolong their life – experience just a bit more time with loved ones: children, grand children great grand children? I’d give anything for another day with my dad or my sister lost in a car accident.
It’s natural to want to prolong your life, and people are living longer today than ever.
Transition: Now let’s leave the world of 21st century medicine, and go back to the 1st century world where the life expectancy of the average male was in his 20’s to late 30’s, due to the infant mortality rate. Many men did live into their 40’s, and if you were lucky you may live into your 50’s or 60’s, and rarely would someone live beyond that.
Diseases were rampant, clean water wasn’t particularly easy to come by.
Sanitation conditions were not high.
Today we are looking at a story about a man, a friend of Jesus, who wasn’t mostly dead, and he didn’t need a faith healer, he was completely dead for four days and needed the Messiah, the savior to raise him to life.
John includes the story of Lazarus because there’s something about Jesus that he wants to tell us. In fact, John’s Gospel account up until this point has told us much about Jesus.
(If you don’t have a Bible, raise your hands and our ushers will be happy to bring you one. If you don’t own a Bible, please keep this one as our gift to you. – and turn to John Ch. 11)
Explain: The first thing John wants us to know about Jesus is…
1. Their past was fulfilled in the person of Jesus: Jesus himself is the fulfillment of the promises of the OT. Look how John lays this out for us…
• The temple – Jesus fulfilled that and now as his body we are the living temples, and collectively are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
• Ch. 5-6: Jesus feeds the multitude, and declares himself the fulfillment of that OT story – he is the Bread of Life.
• Ch. 7-8: Jesus attends the feast of tabernacles, characterized by a water pouring ritual, and he says that he is the water of life – the living water! Also, the 4 massive torches lit during this feast lit up the whole city of Jerusalem for days. Jesus stands among the symbols and says “I am the light of the world!” They were commemorating when God provided water from the rock in the Exodus, they were memorializing the pillar of fire by night with these gigantic torches that lit up the city.
• Ch’s 9-10 Jesus heals a man born blind, and then tells them that he is the fulfillment of Ez. 34, in which God said he would fire his inept shepherds, and he himself would shepherd his people, through his servant David. Jesus tells them that he is that Good shepherd who has come to let these false shepherds go. Jesus is almost stoned for saying that he and the father are one.
• Lastly, Jesus claims to be equal with God when he states that he has come to fulfill Abraham’s hope and expectation – the Jews say, “you are not yet an old man, and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus’ reply is “I tell you the truth – before Abraham was born – I AM” the phrase ego eimi is the Greek equivalent of what is called the “tetragrammaton” or the word “Yahweh” which means “I AM” the one who is, as opposed to the ones who are not. This causes a riot among these pious Jews who cannot accept a man, no matter how great the signs and miracles done, to be God.
Stats: Did you know, that population experts tell us that the three thousand years of human history prior to Jesus’ death only account for 2% of the world’s population?
That means that the population of the last 2,000 years since Jesus’ death represents 98% of the people who have ever lived on the earth (in recorded history).
It just so happens that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and his fulfillment of every OT prophecy stands at the fulcrum of time, just before the explosive increase of people groups across the face of the earth.
Why did God put Jesus’ death, and resurrection right at what is statistically, the dawn of humanity? Because Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises.
That means that Jesus was not just a nice religious sage who dispensed his fortune cookie wisdom in flat, prosaic tones, and just wanted everyone to "get along."
He’s not a proto-hippie, and he’s not your little buddy.
No matter what contemporary ideas we may contrive about him, Jesus stands at the pivot point, at the hinges of human history, fulfilling symbol and sacred structure in the cult of Judaism.
Jesus is the promise of the ages, the personal fulfillment of these things – according to John. As Martha says, “you are the one who was to come.”
And that’s the first thing John wants you to know, that you are dealing a man who has personally fulfilled the past. Secondly…
2. Their future hope has become a present reality. Their future anticipation of resurrection at the Last Day, has come suddenly and abruptly into their present in the person of Jesus in a dramatic and startling way.
Let’s look at the story of Lazarus…
Story: So Jesus has strategically retreated to a town just about a day’s walk from Bethany. His good friends - Mary and Martha, along with their Brother, Lazarus live in Bethany.
- Lazarus gets very sick. We’re not told what his exact pathology is, but it is serious enough for Mary, his sister to send word to Jesus, that his good friend Lazarus has fallen ill.
- Jesus sends word back that his sickness will not result in death, and that God will be glorified through it. - He stays there 2 more days, finally he goes back to visit Lazarus, but it’s too late.
Let’s pick the story up in vv. 17-43 (read the text here)
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb...
Apply: Let’s look at some application points from the story…
First, God’s delays are not God’s denials: don’t automatically assume that just because God has delayed his answer to you, that he is denying the request altogether.
Let me give you some relevant background to help you understand the story…
• The Jews at this time held a superstitious belief that the soul hovered above the body for three days before it departed. Jesus does not affirm this belief, but he does accommodate it, so that there is no room for accusation of resuscitation.
• Ancient mourning tradition usually gave 7 days to mourn completely. But the most intense period of mourning began after day 3. The assumption was that there was no hope for resuscitation (certain “miracle workers” were said to be able to call the spirit back into the body but always before the fourth day).
This is the reason why Jesus’ delayed so long. Sometimes an intentional delay is an opportunity for God’s glory to be revealed in a greater way.
Can you trust God’s timing in your own deal? Can you believe him, until he answers you?
His delays are not always denials.
Second, sometimes God guides where God doesn’t provide.
Lazarus’ raising is called a sign for a reason. This stuff doesn’t happen everyday.
What do we do when a miracle of resurrection isn’t forthcoming, or Jesus doesn’t heal our disease, or there is no quick fix for the financial devastation we’re suffering?
Can you accept God’s sovereignty? We have marginalized and forgotten this important doctrine.
Read Hebrews 11, some of the greatest heroes of the faith never saw what was promised, this side of eternity, in fact the writer of Hebrews specifically says that.
The truth is, that there are times when we choose to believe in spite of the evidence not in light of it. It looks as though heaven is silent, and the pain we are feeling has gone super-nova and wrecked us to the core.
And there doesn’t appear to be an explanation for it. It’s in those times that we choose to take comfort in the psalms, we read about Jesus’ suffering and are comforted by it. Because he’s the God who suffers with us.
But God doesn’t necessarily provide us with a spectacular miracle to alleviate our pain.
Sometimes God guides us into a situation that he doesn’t provide a miracle or a quick fix.
Third, Jesus isn’t just for the past, he isn’t just a Jesus for the future, he’s a Jesus for today.
Martha said “if you’d been here” and then she expresses her faith for the future… “I know he will rise” Jesus is the fulfillment of all past prophecy, he is the future judge of the earth who will call his people out of their graves and raise them back to life forever.
So while Martha is fixated on what Jesus could’ve done in the past, and what he will do in the future – Jesus tells her that his resurrection life is available NOW, in the present, in more ways than she realizes.
Yes, I can accept the fact that sometimes God delays my requests, and I can even accept the idea that he denies some of my requests this side of eternity…
But I gotta think that there are a few more “Yes’s” out there. I’ve got to believe that Jesus can heal my body, and restore my finances and provide for my family – we walk by faith not by sight. Jesus isn’t just a Jesus for yesterday, who could’ve done something, he isn’t just the future judge of the earth who will call his people out of the tombs, he is the resurrection and the life – today.
Fourth, Jesus is the God who grieves and the God who suffers. This passage shows the overlap of Jesus’ humanity and his deity.
He knows what only God can know…
He does what only God can do, but he does something much more…
In the passage Jesus has compassion on the family. He shows up at the tomb, and the NIV text incorrectly says that he was “deeply moved” or deeply concerned. The word it uses there is the word embrimaomai, and it is only used in extra-biblical contexts where it means to snort with anger like a horse – to experience a deep annoyance or irritation for something
This means that Jesus is fired up Ya’ll!
Then the text says that Jesus wept. The phrase is different than the weeping of the mourners which is obligatory, or mandatory weeping of professional mourners. Jesus’ weeping is qualitatively different. It means to weep convulsively.
What is he so angry about?
What triggers this explosive weeping?
Illus. When my father passed away, I remember going to church that morning. Our family had only been attending that church for a few weeks, and my dad was on his way to work that morning to put in some overtime, and he was going to meet us at the late service.
The pastor later told us that it was the most difficult sermon of his life. Seeing us, our little family sitting there, waiting for a father that he knew we’d never see again – in this life. I remember as an unbelieving teenager, being called into that pastors office and the moment after he told us was like the splitting of an atom – the room shook with grief.
At the time, I remember grieving without hope. I didn’t understand that 2 weeks earlier my father believed in Jesus and he was saved by grace. And from that day until the day I put my faith in Jesus, I grieved without hope, and it was miserable. But the moment I put my hand in Jesus’ and put my faith in him, I grieved with hope – resurrection hope.
And when I struggle and I miss my family members, and I reflect on the profound losses of my own life, my mind wanders to this story…
Where God is grieving, standing by an open, roughly hewn tomb in the side of the earth, and expressing a volcanic grief over the ravages of sin…
Over the fact of death and suffering…
and the unbelief of the people who ought to have believed better than they did.
He is calling a man back to life, and he is telling his sister that life doesn’t end at the grave… he is the God who grieves with me, and the God who suffers more than I can imagine suffering in this life.
That’s the God I think is worth believing in…
That’s the God I think I can commend to you today…
Illus. A little boy had attended his first funeral. He heard the preacher reading from Gen 3:19 which said from the dust you have come, and so to dust you shall return. Later as he was playing under his bed, he found a pile of dust under his bed and exclaimed, “mom! Come quick! Someone’s either coming or going, and I don’t know which.”
We had Tyler the same year we lost Kerri’s grandpa, the family Patriarch to Cancer at age 80. I couldn’t help but reflect on the brand new life that had just come into the world, and the old life lived well that had just gone out of it.
You know, someone’s always coming or going, aren’t they? This life isn’t the only one you get. Your turn is coming, my turn is coming. But do you believe? John said that he had written these things that they might believe.
Will your response be the same as Martha’s? Will you say with her “Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you are the one who was to come into the world.”
You’re the fulfillment of the past, and have brought the future into the present.
Because when you do believe this, you experience the promise of future resurrection life right now in your dead soul and you will never die NEVER! do you believe that?
The Worship Team is going to come back up…
(Take offering)
As they do, I want to ask the question, "What if I’m wrong?"
I guess it won’t matter much will it? Because I will not have the opportunity to reflect on the fact that I’m wrong. I’ll just be gone.
What if I’m right?
What if there is a hope beyond this life? If I’m right we stand everything to gain and nothing to lose.
It means that the losses of Eden will be restored with interest. Complete healing of the broken soul, complete forgiveness – and we don’t need a partial restoration, because we’re not “mostly dead” – we are DEAD – lost in our trespasses – needing the new life of Resurrection power in Jesus.
Challenge/Invitation:
“I’m going to pray a simple prayer in a moment. If what I’m saying is what’s in your heart and is your desire today, then just own it…make it personal…”
If you’re here today, and you’ve decided to believe in the God who grieves, the God who suffered more on the cross than we can imagine, for us…
Pray this prayer me, or something like it.
“Father, I admit my need for you today…I have sinned and have failed you and others…please forgive me. Today, I choose to begin my life as a Christ-follower…today, I begin my journey of faith in and with You…thank you for accepting me and doing for me what I could never do for myself…I love you…thank you for loving me!” There are no “magical” or required words! But words are meaningful, and they are an important part of the process.
Sing and worship – take offering
Now, listen if you prayed that prayer, and confessed your sin to Jesus…
1) tell someone (suggest that maybe they even come up and see you);
2) ask them (as a next step), to pick up a New Believers packet (which has a Bible and some “next step” information in it).
The prayer team is down in front – come and let us pray with you today. Let us introduce you to the grieving God, who calls dead men back to life forever…
