(Message © by Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, April 10, 2011)
“Seven Who Encountered Jesus: (5) Lazarus, Mary, Martha and the Jews”
John 11:1-45 and Romans 8:6-11
“So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘this illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’” (John 11 4, 5)
Is there any among us who hasn’t had the experience of hearing our text for today and wishing we had been the one standing next to Jesus that day, hearing Jesus calling our loved one by name, commanding him or her to “come out,” and have our loved one come back to life? Oh, we might say we wouldn’t want our loved one back if he or she couldn’t be totally well, but if he or she could be full of health, what a joy that would be for us!
I have wished for the power of the Lord to say to my loved ones and, as your pastor, to your loved ones, “In the name of Jesus, come out!” But all of our experiences thus far give indication of the finality of our physical death. So far, there hasn’t been a “Lazarus” among our loved ones.
Church Swindoll quoted Joseph Bayly from the book The Last Thing We Talk About,
There are two fixed points in our lives: birth and death. Death is especially unbendable. One astute writer used these words to describe what we have all felt.
This frustrates us, especially in a time of scientific breakthrough and exploding knowledge, that we should be able to break out of earth’s environment and yet be stopped cold by death’s unyielding mystery.
An electroencephalogram may replace a mirror held before the mouth, autopsies may become more sophisticated, cosmetic embalming may take the place of pennies on the eyelids and canvas shrouds, but death continues to confront us with its bleak wall. Everything changes; death is changeless.
We may postpone it, we may tame its violence, but death is still there waiting for us. Death always waits. The door of the hearse is never closed.
Dairy farmers and sales executive live in death’s shadow, with Nobel Prize winners and prostitute, mother, infant, teen, and old man. The hearse stands waiting for the surgeon who transplants heart as well as the hopeful recipient, for the funeral director as well as the corpse he manipulates. Death spares no one.
This is very somber, and we know this. Somber and sobering, we know these things. This is all there is to life as we know it: Death – all there is, that is, unless Jesus stands among us. But, if Jesus stands among us, we may have more of a child-like view of death:
Alan, age 7, “God doesn’t tell you when you are going to die because he wants it to be a big surprise.”
Aaron, age 8, “The hospital is the place where people go on their way to heaven.”
Stephanie, age 9, “Doctors help you so you won’t die until you pay all their bills.”
Marsha, age 9, “When you die, you don’t have to do homework in heaven unless your teacher is there, too.”
Kevin, age 10, “I’m not afraid to die because I am a Boy Scout, and Boy Scouts are brave.”
Ralph, age 8, “When birds are ready to die, they just fly to heaven.”
What about adults? What do they say about death? What do some of our spiritual writers say?
St. Ambrose: “The foolish fear death as the greatest of evils, the wise desire it as a rest after labors and the end of ills.”
William Barclay: “When I die, I should like to slip out of the room without a fuss – for what matters is not what I am leaving, but where I am going.”
Dietrich Bonheoffer: “Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.”
John Bunyan: “Death is but a passage out of a prison into a palace.”
Dwight L. Moody: “This is my coronation day; I have been looking forward to it for years.”
James Dobson: “The final heartbeat for the Christian is not the mysterious conclusion to a meaningless existence. It is rather, the grand beginning to a life that will never end.”
St. Francis of Assisi: “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
Abbe Henri de Trouville: “Death is the following of life, the consummation of union with God.”
George Whitefield: “Take care of your life and the Lord will take care of your death.”
Arthur Sherrington Wood: “My happiest moment will be when God puts his hand on my heart and stops it beating.”
It is interesting, isn’t it, that none of these great figures in the Christian faith said, “I wish Jesus would stand in front of my tomb after I die and tell me to ‘come out!’ No, each of these great figures in the Christian faith is ready for Jesus to stand in front of them and say, “Come home!” They are ready to hear and believe the words of the spiritual song,
Come home, come home,
you who are weary, come home.
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling “O sinner, come home!”
This is what our text is all about: Jesus calling us home, not our hoping with the power and love of Jesus Christ that we or our loved one will be called back to this life from the grave! It is about believing in the One and only Person, Jesus Christ, who did die, but how was brought forth from the grave to live forever!
The salient question before all of us now is as it was asked of Martha, “Do you believe this?” “Do you believe, Martha, that I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Do we believe this, my friends?
This passage from John 11:25-26 is one of the main, usual passages that we read at a funeral, but as I re-looked at my funeral liturgy book, I discovered that it was the third passage listed to read. What were the first two that, if they are listed in order of chronology or importance, are they foundations to our faith? Here they are; what do we think about these texts and their order?
First comes Psalm 124:8, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.”
Second comes Romans 6:3-5, “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
Third, then comes John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
But there are two more after these that are words of assurance and invitation, also.
First, the assurance from Revelation 21 and John 14:19, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Because I live, you also will live.”
Then the invitation from Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give your rest,” invites Jesus the Christ, Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus our Savior.
But, going back to our text for today, did you notice? Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life…” He didn’t say, “I will be” or “As soon as I die, I am going to be…” No, Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
In John’s Gospel, “Eternal Life” is now. Into the world of sin and death, a Savior has come. John writes at the very beginning of his Gospel, “The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Heaven has come down to earth. In the midst of death, there is life, because Jesus is the Lord of life. Even though, in this part of the Gospel, Jesus is on his way to the cross, he won’t let the forces of evil and death determine his direction or his life. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ death is spoken of as his “hour of glory.” One has commented, “Jesus’ strange, upside-down way of looking at things, death and glory are linked. As he told Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ illness and this whole thing, in fact his whole earthly ministry that led to his cross, is “for God’s glory, “so that Jesus might be thereby “glorified through it.”
You know, when we or someone we love are on the way to “Glory Land,” if we will, God is usually glorified through us because of our faith in Jesus. First of all, “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died…so we may not grieve as those who have no hope.”
When we pray here in the Sanctuary or at our table at home or at the bedside of our loved one, we pray in Jesus’ name as people with hope that God will heal as God has healed before. But then we can faithfully say at the end of the prayer what Jesus said in the midst of his, “Nevertheless, Lord, not my will but Thine be done.”
We all know in our hearts that there is very often healing for what ails us in this life. But we also know in our hearts that sometimes there is the perfect healing, the healing unto eternal life with the Lord.
Have we ever noticed that Jesus so rarely prayed for sick people? If we look at the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, we will find Jesus praying for forgiveness, for daily bread, for the coming kingdom, but he doesn’t mention sickness, nor does he mention death, either.
Sickness, sudden accidents, even “living,” all of the things that result in death are the great challenges in life. But Jesus says, “Come with me, come on towards the death you are avoiding, lay your life into the hands of the living and loving God, let God give you the life that you cannot earn for yourself. In facing your death with me, in walking the way to the cross that I walk, you shall have eternal life, life, and that abundantly, but first, we have to go out to the cemetery.
As I wrote this, I was reminded of my own illnesses about a year and a half ago; my pneumonia where I was septic and my blood clot which filled my right leg. Turns out I should have stopped at the nearest hospital somewhere between Challis, Idaho, and here. Doc said that I only had about 24 more hours to get help for my sepsis, and then it might have been too late to help me.
Doc also said, when I presented him with my blood clot, that he had to put me in the hospital, because if the clot broke loose, no one could get to me fast enough.
What is interesting to me are my reactions to both. Yes, I could have stopped at a hospital in several good-sized towns along the way home from Idaho, but what if I had had to stay there? I would have been there alone; I really wanted to be near loved ones, so I drove on home.
But when I was in the hospital here with my clot, I was very much at peace, so much so that my Martha got upset and made me think. She said, “You absolutely don’t understand the seriousness of your situation. You very much could die, and you are acting as if nothing is happening!”
I have thought about these things and have decided that I didn’t want to be alone between here and Idaho, but I did have the comfort of loving, caring people around me here. I really did believe and know that whether I lived or died, I belonged to the Lord. What more does a person need this side of heaven and that side of earth: People who love, first of all, and then a God who loves us so much that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life; Our only true comfort in life and in death. Amen.
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