Boy, we live in some tumultuous times, don’t we? Earthquake and tsunami in Japan. A nuclear disaster there as a result. Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya. Our nation involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. And wasn’t it only a few months ago that a huge earthquake devastated parts of New Zealand, and before that Haiti! Man, there’s so much big news and Bad News all over the world that you get the feeling that the News Anchors and Correspondents are breathless, running all over the world trying to keep up with it. And we might ask, what in the World is God doing?
And of course, in our personal lives, we might well wonder that as well. Cancers right here, not just one but several, and there and everywhere. Serious things happening with loved ones, and if you’ve walked with the Lord very long, you know that you just can’t make sense of everything! Sometimes, from our limited perspective, we really begin to wonder what God is doing; why He doesn’t answer our requests immediately, why He lets the things happen that happen and why He doesn’t intervene exactly according to our advice and plans.
I mean, have you ever prayed a prayer in a crisis when you find yourself giving instructions to God about exactly what He ought to do and say to whom and when He ought to say it. Yes, we’ve got just the perfect plan for what the Almighty and All-Wise God should do and say, don’t we? And we know better, don’t we?
Well, I’m quite sure that this is exactly the sort of thing that was going on for Mary and Martha and a few of their believing friends back in about 30 A.D. when their beloved brother Lazarus fell ill. They were, after all, the closest of Jesus’ closest friends, outside the disciples. They had hosted Jesus and His disciples for meals and probably over night on other occasions, had grown to love Him and His disciples and believe in Him for all He claimed to be, and He had grown to love them as well—they were as dear to Him as any people on earth. And so it was very strange when, in their moment of desperate need, in their moment of great anxiety, when their brother was truly at death’s door, that Jesus, their friend, their Lord, and their God, did not drop everything and rush to the rescue their brother, For surely He could have done something. Surely, He could have saved him from near-certain death.
What can we make of these situations? What do we need to learn when we make a request of the Lord, and we know what needs to be done, and yet God is silent, and there is no intervention? What do we do when this help is most desperately needed, and seemingly bad things happen for no good reason? Well, what we’ll learn from this story this morning is this: When life doesn’t make sense, when God doesn’t make sense, keep on following Jesus anyway, knowing His priorities are best. And what are His priorities: For God’s greatest glory and our ultimate spiritual good.
Now as you perhaps remember from last week, when we last saw Jesus He was withdrawing into the countryside after yet another contentious debate with the Jewish leaders. They again, had threatened him with stoning on the spot. And where did He withdraw, but into the region beyond the Jordan where John the Baptist had at first been baptizing and had at first seen & recognized Jesus as the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. Scholars aren’t certain precisely where that place was, though we were told it was at Bethany beyond the Jordan, and that Bethany was likely 50 to 60 miles away from the Bethany of Mary, and Martha and Lazarus. Their Bethany was less than two miles away from Jerusalem, the place that had become so apparently dangerous for Jesus.
And what you’ve got to know is that in those times when a crisis occurred and Jesus friends needed Him, they couldn’t grab their cell phone and call him or text Him. They couldn’t get on their e-mail & connect. No, even if they did know where Jesus had gone, even as they apparently did, they had to send someone with the urgent news, and in this case, the journey had taken at least day a day, probably two, before Jesus got the message. And when the message came, it was simply put, “The one whom you love (Lazarus) is sick” and given the circumstances and the urgency of the messenger, the sisters trusted that Jesus would know exactly what He needed to do.
And yet Jesus, according to John, deliberately delayed His departure for Judea, the province of both Bethany and Jerusalem, for two complete days—time enough for the messenger to have returned to report that Jesus had gotten the message, time enough for these beloved sisters to wonder where Jesus was, and why He hadn’t come as soon as He was able. Now we have no way of telling from this passage whether Jesus even could have gotten back in time before Lazarus had died even if He had tried his best. The point is that it was clear to everyone, the disciples and the sisters, that Jesus had not made their crisis His priority. He could have, but He didn’t. They had no doubt gone to great trouble to make their situation and their implied request obvious to Jesus, and for some unknown and exceedingly perplexing reason, it seemed as though Jesus had not responded appropriately. Indeed, for two days, he had hardly responded at all.
And in this story, we see that perhaps for the first time in his ministry, Jesus’ friends, Jesus-believers and disciples, begin to question from all sides about his choices with regard to this matter. The first question comes, surprisingly, from Jesus’ own disciples once Jesus decides it’s time to return to Judea, and to Bethany and Mary and Martha and the now deceased Lazarus. Surprisingly, they question why Jesus wants to go to Judea at all, in light of the fact that He would be risking his own life to do so, Verse 8: “The disciples said to Him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus, of course, replies with a statement that indicates that He must complete His work in the day, the time-period God has given Him, and thus now, for some strange reason, after Jesus knows for certain Lazarus has died, it is urgent that he go to see Mary and Martha. The disciples, in other words, were asking, what in the world is the Lord doing? Why, now that He knows Lazarus has died, has it become so urgent to visit Martha and Mary? They must have been privately saying to themselves, “This seems utterly crazy!” And of course, to top it all off, there is Thomas, the Eor of the disciples, to encourage them with his dire prediction, “Let us all go so that we may die with Him.” Let me encourage you, to not follow Thomas example in your attempt to explain God’s ways to your fellow believers in situations like these.
And then came those awkward and uncomfortable moments when Jesus would meet Martha and Mary, and it would be evident to them that Jesus had deliberately not rushed to be at their side when they most desperately needed them. The disciples were no fools, they knew the situation and the tension and the questions that the sisters had to have been asking themselves. And so John, if he had a zoom lens, would have zoomed in on this conversation. As it is, he gives us a detailed account of how each of those meetings went, and precisely what was said. And sure enough, the sisters had questions. Oh, they still believed and revered Jesus, but as they speak, you sense their questions just beneath the surface of their expressed confidence in Jesus’ ability to heal anyone and everyone. They had seen Him do so time after time with anyone and everyone, strangers though they be, who had come to Jesus. And so as they approach Bethany, news precedes Jesus that He’s coming, and Martha, the responsible, more active member of the two sisters, gets up and goes out to meet Jesus and expresses both her confidence and her questions about what in the world Jesus was doing with this statement, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (In other words, Lord, where were you when we needed you, when you both could have and would have done something to prevent this terrible outcome from taking place?”)
And then she speaks with remarkable faith, perhaps buoyed by the statement Jesus had made upon hearing the news and which may have been relayed to her by the messenger. The message was that this sickness would be for the glory of God, not unto the death of Lazarus. So she says, with thinly-veiled hope, “Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give you.” In other words, though you don’t raise people from the dead every day, Jesus, even now, I know that you could bring Lazarus back from the dead if you so pleased, but I don’t dare ask you directly for that. And believe it or not, Jesus responds that that’s exactly what He plans to do. Verse 23: Your brother will rise again.”
Martha then responds by valiantly trying to let Jesus off the hook. Verse 24: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” And then we see Jesus makes a statement that would be regarded as absolutely insane if it had been voiced by any other human being in history other than Himself. He stated: “I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in Me will live even if He dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” And then He challenges Martha with the question, “Do you believe this?” And Martha comes through with flying colors with this declaration of her ultimate faith in Jesus, no matter what had just happened—“Yes, Lord, I have believed.” In other words, I am settled permanently in my conclusion and confidence that you are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”
Martha demonstrates for us that she’s one who keeps on believing even when God doesn’t make sense. Even when she can’t understand, she keeps believing.
And when Mary hears Jesus ask for her, she comes with the same statement of confidence in Jesus, but the same implied question, in verse 32. “Jesus, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” You know this is the same statement with the same implied question because it’s the very thing the sisters have voiced to one another day after day for four days while waiting for Jesus’ arrival. And what you see is that despite the questions, despite the painful disappointment and the lack of understanding as to why Jesus didn’t hurry to help, why He didn’t intervene when He could have, they keep believing, for they had been convinced once and for all of who Jesus really was, and what He could do if He would do it.
And that’s our first point this morning. What the example of Mary and Martha provides us is this principle: If you love Jesus, keep on believing even when you don’t understand. Even when what the Lord does or doesn’t do doesn’t make sense. You know He cares, but you don’t know why He doesn’t act according to your specifications. That’s where faith in God’s character must intervene. If you love Jesus, no matter your question, keep on believing. Because at one point or another, Jesus will come through for you, just as we now know Jesus did for these women, and for their brother, in this incredibly painful situation.
Because there was one thing no one doubted about Jesus, at least among those who knew Jesus. John, the writer of this Gospel knew it. And He stated it in verse 5 just in case there was any doubt in any of our minds about how Jesus felt about Mary and Martha and Lazarus. He wrote, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. This is from the disciple who perhaps was closest of all 12 of the disciples to Jesus. He identified Himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved in His own Gospel on a number of occasions. He was the disciple who was at Jesus’ bosom at the Last Supper, who alone had heard who it was who would betray Jesus from Jesus Himself. He was in that inner circle of three disciples who were closest to Jesus and accompanied Him to the Mount of Transfiguration and on that occasion when Jesus had raised yet another person from the dead, Jairus’ daughter. He, of all men, knew from personal experience what it meant to be loved by Jesus, and so when he had seen how Jesus had related to this precious family, He knew that they were loved by Jesus just as he himself had been.
And Jesus would prove that love for Mary and Martha and Lazarus again for anybody who cared to observe. For it was when Mary, the more contemplative and actually one of the most devoted of all of Jesus’ followers came with her statement that we see Jesus moved in a way we never see Him moved again in His ministry—deeply moved within and bursting into tears,
Mary had just thrown herself at Jesus’s feet with her statement of confidence and questions. And verse 33 tells us, “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled.” How did John know? He saw it on His face. There was such a mixture of emotion, an anger evident that His beloved Mary and Martha had to suffer as they were even for a few days because of the death of their brother. Ultimately this was because of the consequences of sin and evil. Nevertheless a grief, a great sadness for them and their struggles, so overcame Jesus that He was moved to action and asked, in verse 34: “Where have you laid him?” And they said, to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Come and see the fullness of this great tragedy, this great loss of ours. And at that, Jesus, filled with emotion and compassion and grief, broke. And we have the shortest verse in all the Bible, but perhaps the most telling in all the Bible: “Jesus wept.” Literally, Jesus broke into tears.
And what you need to know in the times of your questions, in time of your pain and loneliness and anxiety and grief, is that if you love Jesus, Jesus loves and care for you. He cares of you in these moments in ways that words are not adequate to express. He not only cares for you; He feels for you. And though you may yet wonder why He has not done something about your circumstances, because He cares so deeply for you, some day He will.
And it’s at times like these we need to remember verses like I Peter 5:7: Cast all your cares upon the Lord for He cares for you.” And you need to remember verses like Romans 5:8 that tell us that Jesus has already given the ultimate proof of his love for you and yours in that He died for you. “But God demonstrates His own love for you in this, in that while you were still sinners, Christ died for you.” And you need to remember what Jesus would say a few days hence, when He told his disciples at the Last Supper, “No greater love has a man than that He give His life for his friends.” And then He went out the next day and gave His life for them, and for us, and for you.
And then there’s that great passage in Roman 8:32, which reads like this, “He who did not spare His own son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will he not also with Him freely give us all things.” And here’s the truth to be gathered from this: maybe Jesus hasn’t done what you need yet, but He will. He will. And even Martha suggested when this will happen: He will give us what we want and what we need at the Resurrection on the last day.
So what happened next provides us with this assurance: Keep on loving Jesus, knowing that He cares & feels for you with emotions too deep for words.
Even the Jews saw how he loved Mary and Martha and especially Lazarus as they now escorted him to the tomb. In verse 36, they said among themselves, “See how He loved Him! Even these who had opposed Jesus are now impressed by the depth of His love, and they are now about to be blown away by the power of His love and the power of His resurrection.
They, too, are wondering if this man could have opened the eyes of the man born blind, why could He not have saved Lazarus. And they’re right. Surely, He could have. But because He had had a much greater purpose in mind, He had waited until after Lazarus had been dead a full four days. He had waited until four days had passed so that all the friends of Mary and Martha and Lazarus would have had time to hear of his passing, until they had had time to travel from Jerusalem and who knows where to be here for this period of mourning and comforting Mary and Martha, so that a grand stage would be erected before the tomb of Lazarus, and grand audience could have been gathered to see this most dramatic and climactic of all Jesus’ miracles, save His own resurrection, play out before their very own incredulous eyes.
Verse 38, “So Jesus again, being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.” And by this time Martha, the prim and proper one, is there. And Jesus gives the incredible command to take away the stone. And she’s saying to herself, He cannot possibly intend to resurrect my brother. And for fear of the impossibility of what Jesus is now ready to attempt, she objects, stating that now there will be a stench, for it has been a full four days since the body of Lazarus had been buried.
But Jesus will not be deterred. He reminds her of what He had previously said, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God!
And so they removed the stone. Can you imagine the drama and the tension of the moment as people can scarcely believe what their eyes are about to demonstrate to them? And Jesus prays as though He knows the Father has already heard His prayer and granted the answer—for one reason and one reason alone—that all those who see might now come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the one whom the Father has sent. And following the prayer, with all the drama and scary possibilities you could ever imagine, Jesus cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.”
And there, at the door to tomb, verse 44 says, “The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. And before a crowd hushed with absolute utter amazement, Jesus says to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Why the delay? Why the pain? Why the grief? It’s explained fully in verse 45: “Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him.”
And not only that, His disciples believed in Him all the more, and Mary and Martha and Lazarus believed in Him and trusted Him and His wisdom and His timing as they never would have, had their own suggestions for how Jesus might have saved Lazarus had played out. They all came to understand this final and overwhelming truth. If you love Jesus, you keep following Jesus, because you know His priorities are best—He’s all about God’s greatest glory and our greatest spiritual good.
This morning, you’ve had questions about Jesus. You’ve had questioned about why He didn’t show up according to your plan, according to your time-table, according to your preferences. Let those questions forever be banished! For now you know that the Lord cares for you even as He cared for that little precious family. And now you know that the Lord, the Lord Jesus, knows best. And that He knows how God will be most greatly glorified and how you and others will come to believe and believe more completely and fully if He does things his way, rather than having done what you had originally hoped for. You have come to believe that yes, Jesus is the Christ of God, the one who was coming into the world, and who operates according to His Father’s divine timetable, for His greater glory, and your greater good.
Oh, there may be a few who have doubts, and perhaps your doubts are not about Jesus, but about yourself, about whether you know Him, and believe Him and have come to love Him as so many of us here. Well, there remains for you the possibility, even the probability that there is no accident in your presence here this morning, but that it has also been a part of the Father’s, even Jesus’, divine timetable that you might come to see the glory of God, and having seen it believed as Jesus said you needed to believe. That you might also believe that Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be—The Resurrection and the Life, your resurrection and Your life, if only you will live and believe in Him. Though your body dies, your spirit will live on and one day be reunited with the physical, but then immortal body, to live on with Jesus forever in His Kingdom.
Won’t you confess your faith in Jesus this morning? Won’t you come to believe that when He died on cross, He paid for your sins, and not His own? Won’t you come to believe that when He arose from grave, He was promising that He would raise you also on that Great Day when we all rejoice in the Ultimate Glory of God when He raises us all from the grave.
Pray with me this prayer this morning: “Father, thank you that you have shown your glory today. And with Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus and all the disciples I say, ‘Yes, I have come to believe and trust that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, who gave His life for my sins on the cross, and was raised from the dead that I might be raised on that final day.’ Thank you for forgiving my sins; thank you for making me a child of yours and for guaranteeing me the eternal life that only Jesus and His death and resurrection could so provide. Make me what you want me to be, like Jesus! Thank you, Lord, Amen!”
