Praising God Amidst the Impossible
John 11:1-45
Hospital and Care Home Service – September 25, 2012
There are times in life when things go from bad to worse in the blink of an eye; times when a bad situation suddenly becomes seemingly impossible. Perhaps your “impossible” has to do with the biopsy results that the doctor has called you into his office to tell you about. Perhaps your “impossible” takes the form of one of your children who has turned their back on everything you raised them to believe. Perhaps your “impossible” takes the form of someone close to you dying, or your marriage falling apart. At those times we’re tempted to ask, “Where is God in the midst of all this?”
To find the answer to that question let’s take a look at a passage of Scripture found in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John. “Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 ….. 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” Now Lazarus hasn’t been feeling well. In fact as the days go by his condition is getting worse rather than better. The doctors are sent for – there’s nothing they can do – so they tell his sisters that they should prepare for the worst. Things are falling apart but they’ve not lost all hope. There is still a chance for Lazarus. Jesus is their friend and He’s healed the sick; surely Jesus can heal Lazarus and make him well again! So they send a messenger off to find Jesus and to tell Him what the deal is. But …
4 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.” 5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 Yet when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days. Now what kind of an act of love is that? Do you see what’s happening here? What had gone from bad to worse has suddenly gone from worse to impossible. Jesus isn’t coming. The messenger has the horrible job of returning to the sisters and saying, “I found Jesus, and I told Him what’s going on, but He isn’t coming today.” Imagine the questions and the pain those girls wrestled with when they heard the news. The Bible tells us that Jesus truly loved this family but it also tells us that despite that love – or maybe because of it - “yet” He let this situation go from bad to impossible. Can you think of a “yet” that Jesus has allowed in your life?
7 Then He said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” …
11 After He had said this, He went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought He meant natural sleep.
14 So then He told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Those are harsh words. “Lazarus is dead and I’m glad,” says Jesus. But let’s not lose sight of the reason why Jesus was glad, the reason why things went from bad to impossible. Jesus says it is so that they might believe.” (Verse 17 …)
“17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home. Here’s the situation. Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. There is no doubt that this man is dead and there is no doubt that things have gone from bad to impossible. Mary won’t even go out to meet Jesus. She is hurt, maybe even bitter, that Jesus did not come to them in their time of need, and hasn’t in fact come until it seems to be too late. Martha feels the same way but takes a slightly different approach in venting her frustration. Verse 21 …
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” What is Martha really saying here? It’s what a lot of us have said when our situations have gone from bad to impossible, isn’t it? “Lord, if you really love me then how could you let these things happen to me? Do you hate me God? How could a loving God bring so much hurt and pain into my life?” And maybe you hear the echo of your own voice in Martha’s words. Verse 23 …
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” See, Martha believes. It is not a matter of unbelief. It is not a lack of faith. She has questions, but her faith hasn’t failed. She believes what Jesus has told her, she’s listened to his teachings, and she knows that her brother will rise again at the resurrection at the last day. Intellectually she knows all these things but she doesn’t know them in her heart. And then Jesus looks into her eyes, and with a voice filled with compassion and love, says to her, “Martha, you’re talking about the resurrection as if it was some distant and abstract thing, but …”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she told Him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
28 And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met Him. Instead of going to her home, where she has been hiding from Him and mourning, Jesus asks her to come to Him. Things have gone from bad to impossible, and Jesus hasn’t abandoned those whom He loves, but He does ask them to come to Him. Not for what they can get out of Him, but simply for who He is: The resurrection and the life. You see, we really only have a couple of options when we find ourselves in the midst of the impossible. We can turn to Jesus, or we can turn from Jesus. Where are you going to turn in the midst of your “impossible?” Verse 31 …
31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
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.” There’s that statement again. “Lord, if you really loved me you would have saved me from all this pain and trouble. Lord, if you really loved me, why didn’t you show up when I really needed you?” That’s the question we’re really asking in the midst of our “impossible” situations: “If God really loves me, why did He let this happen and where is He when I hurt so bad?” Verse 33 …
33 When 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.”
35 Jesus wept.”
36 Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”
37 But some of them said, “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Folks, the issue really isn’t “Could He?,” because of course He could. The issue is really, “Why didn’t He?” Friends, Jesus did not heal Lazarus because in His love for them He wanted to give to Martha and Mary something better than a healed brother. (Chip Ingram) Something that they were lacking and that Jesus knew that they needed. Verse 38:
38 Jesus, 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.” Martha still doesn’t get it, does she? She is still seeing things from a human perspective and a human ability, and humanly speaking there is nothing behind that stone that she wants to see, and there is nothing humanly possible that anyone could do for the brother she loved so much. She is still stuck in her circumstances and she can’t see beyond them. And often times we’re just like Martha - we cannot see past the needs of the moment and so we lose sight of God and we began to wonder where He, who has promised to never leave nor forsake us, has gotten to. Verse 40 …
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard Me. 42 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.” This has happened that the people may believe.
43 When He had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 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.”
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in Him. They believed. Sometimes horrible things happen in our lives that we question. We don’t understand them. But perhaps they have come about so that you and others may believe. “But I already believe,” you say, “I don’t need this lesson from God.” Have you ever had to really trust God? It’s easy to say we believe when things are going well and life is good. But when we have to walk by faith through a terribly dark time in our lives then it is that our belief and faith are tested and refined. The testing of our faith is important so that we may know it is genuine and that we may know that we can trust God in any circumstance.
Think for a moment of a suspension bridge swaying in a stiff breeze over a large canyon. I stood at one side and my stomach turned because, while intellectually I believed that it would hold as I crossed it, I didn’t necessarily believe it in my heart – there was an element of fear there. That fear remained as I struggled, step by step, across that bridge, but as I drew closer to the far side it became easier and easier to believe that I would make it across. And after I reached the other side I believed that the bridge would hold me in a way that I wasn’t able to believe before, because now I believed through my own experience. And so it is with our “impossibles.” They come that we might believe. And this depth of belief is the better gift that Jesus wanted to give to Martha and to Mary, and that He wants to give to us through our “impossibles” as well.
Because when our situation goes from bad to impossible it is an opportunity for us to believe, and experience, the depth of God’s love for us. And when our situation goes from bad to impossible it is also an opportunity for us to believe, and experience, the depth of God’s power available to us. God can do infinitely more than we can ever ask or imagine, yet in our darkest moments we often lose hope, because we see no way out. Jesus let Lazarus die so that the power and glory of God could be proclaimed loud and clear to all who saw it when He was raised from the dead.
“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.” The whole purpose of this incident was so that Jesus Christ might be glorified. Why? Because when Christ is glorified, people believe on Him. And believing in Christ is of the utmost importance for it is necessary for salvation. Hebrews 9:27 states that, “man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment.” We are judged on our response to Christ. For in John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Only through Christ are our sins forgiven and is eternal life possible. That comes about by faith, which results in belief, and that belief, a belief which can withstand any trial or assault in your life, is the better gift that God wants to give you.
Friends, whenever a person is confronted with the living Lord they face a choice of how they are going to respond. That’s what happened when Mary and Martha met Jesus outside the village. They had to make a choice. That’s what happened when those who had gathered to mourn witnessed the power of God as Lazarus was raised from the dead. They had to make a choice. That’s how it was in Jesus’ day. And we who are here today, are faced with the very same choice: what will we do with the one called Jesus? Will you believe that He is Lord and Savior? Will you believe that He is God’s chosen one who died in your place, for your sins, when He was crucified? Will you see Him as the “life” He claims to be and is? Or will you turn your back on Him and the hope He alone can offer you: Forgiveness of sins and eternal life – the choice is yours alone – no one can make it for you.
Let’s pray.
