Healing the Hurts You Don’t Deserve:
The Healing Power
Scripture Text: John 11:35, 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
It had happened suddenly.
Lazarus of Bethany,
the brother of Mary and Martha
and friend of Jesus, fell sick.
His strength ebbed as his fever crept upward.
He took to his bed,
and Martha prepared and brought his meals
while Mary sat at his bedside,
wiping his brow
and whispering loving words to him.
Soon his condition grew worse, and the sisters agreed to send for the Teacher. They dispatched a friend of the family to the region of Perea, to find Jesus and deliver a terse message: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
Then the sisters waited. . . And worried.
Within a few days, their brother died.
Almost immediately the machinery of mourning that was customary among Jews of their day lifted the sisters up and began to carry them on.
Friends and neighbors surrounded them day and night, sitting with them, eating with them, sometimes speaking, usually silent.
Within hours after his death, Mary and Martha’s women friends helped them prepare their brother for burial: hair and nails were trimmed, and his body was washed, anointed, and wrapped in the most expensive linen the two sisters could obtain.
And then began their oneneth, a time of mourning and lamenting prior to the funeral. The sisters sat on the floor in a room with their brother’s body. Martha ate sparingly, shunning meat and wine; when she did eat, it was always in another room. Mary refused all food.
When the funeral began, Lazarus was placed on a bier and his body was carried toward his garden tomb by a group of barefoot neighbors.
A group of professional mourners—
flute-players and sobbing women—
followed the body,
pausing frequently on the path to the grave
to moan and wail for the departed.
Behind the mourners, Mary and Martha were supported by a large crowd of relatives,
friends,
and neighbors
from their own village as well as from Jerusalem, two miles up the road.
After the funeral, the crowds all went home, while a handful of relatives and friends remained.
And then the news came.
“The Teacher is coming,” someone told Martha breathlessly, pointing up the road.
Martha hurriedly wiped her hands, dashed from the house, and met Jesus on the outskirts of the village.
“Lord,” she said, practically falling into his arms, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Then, realizing her words might have sounded reproachful, she added. “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus gently gripped Martha’s shoulders in his large hands. “Your brother will rise again,” he said.
“I know,” Martha answered. “He will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
“I am the resurrection,” Jesus said, still gripping her shoulders in his hands, “and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she answered. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
Then Jesus lifted his gaze and looked beyond Martha, toward her house. “Where is your sister?” he asked.
Martha’s eyes widened. Without another word, she turned and bustled away. She went back and whispered to Mary. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.”
Mary jumped up and left the room so quickly, that the others who had been with Mary in the house followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there, as she had done several times in the past few days.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus waited for her, she threw herself at his feet.
“Lord,” she said through tears, unknowingly echoing her sister’s words, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus looked from Mary’s weeping face to the others who had come along with her, who were also weeping. His own eyes began to cloud.
“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
The mourners offered to show him the tomb, while Mary stood, clinging tearfully to his side. Jesus and Mary looked at each other, then,
and his own tears mirrored hers,
trailing down his cheek,
as he let her see him hurt
for the pain she had been feeling.
Then, after a long moment of sharing her sorrow, he nodded to Mary’s friends to lead the way to the tomb.
“See how he loved him!” whispered one of the mourners to another as they walked.
But another shook her head. “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Moments later, when they arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone laid across the entrance, Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
“But, Lord,” Martha protested, “what about the odor? He has been in the tomb for four days.”
“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Jesus answered. Then, as the men in the group rolled the stone away from the mouth of the cave, Jesus lifted his eyes toward the sky. “Father,” he said, “I thank you that you have heard me. 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.”
Then he lowered his gaze and, in a loud voice, cried, “Lazarus, come out!”
After a few moments, Lazarus appeared in the entrance of the tomb, still tightly bound in the linen burial strips.
Then Jesus, in a calm voice, instructed the onlookers, who still stared at the strange sight. “Take off the grave clothes,” he said, “and let him go.”
That story,
from the eleventh chapter of John’s Gospel,
records one of the many mighty miracles
Jesus Christ performed while he was here on earth.
And I believe we have much to learn from those verses in John 11:1-45.
Good morning. My name is Bob Hostetler, and
this morning at Cobblestone Community Church is the second installment of a four-week series of messages from the Bible, entitled “Healing the Hurts You Don’t Deserve.”
Last week we studied the healing of the man at the Pool of Bethesda in John 5 in a message called “The Healing Choice,” in which we discovered that the crucial first step toward healing is to answer Jesus’ question, “Do you want to get well?” and choose healing over hurt.
This week, I want to discuss another crucial step in the process of healing--
whether your hurt is the result of
ridicule or rejection,
or abuse,
a dysfunctional family,
a toxic church,
or a romance that went sour,
or the betrayal of a friend,
whether it’s recent or ancient,
clear-cut or confusing . . .
So let me ask you to turn in your Bible to the Gospel of John; if you didn’t bring a Bible with you, we’ve provided a couple in the middle of each table for your use. And if you don’t have a Bible of your own, please take one of ours home with you, with our compliments.
I want to point you to John, chapter 11, because
I want you to notice something.
I want you to notice that
before Jesus raised Lazarus,
before he prayed aloud in front of the crowd,
before he told the men in the group to roll away
the stone, he did something else.
You probably know it as the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35. Look at it:
“Jesus wept” (John 11:35).
Now, I want you to take a minute to consider with
me . . .
Why did Jesus weep? What prompted his tears?
After all, he knew what he was about to do, right? He knew that he had the power to raise Lazarus
from the dead.
He knew that he would soon correct the cause of
Mary and Martha’s grief.
He knew, as he told Martha, that Lazarus would
rise again.
He knew that he would soon turn their mourning
into dancing.
He knew the story would have a happy ending.
Why, then, did he cry?
The answer, often overlooked, is found in John’s Gospel account. Look at verse 33:
When Jesus saw her [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled (John 11:33).
It was Mary’s tears—
and the tears of her friends and relatives—
which prompted his tears.
He knew what he was about to do,
but he cried anyway,
because when he saw Mary hurting,
he hurt, too.
When he saw her grieving,
he grieved, too.
When he saw her crying,
he cried, too.
And I want to suggest to you,
that if you’re hurting this morning,
for any reason,
a crucial step to healing will be
for you to experience
what Mary experienced
that day outside her brother’s tomb,
and that is to . . .
I Let God Comfort You
John 11:35 may be just two words long,
but I believe it’s one of the biggest verses
in the Bible.
Why? Because it shows a God who cries.
And not only that . . .
It reveals that your tears bring tears to God’s eyes.
Whatever hurts you’re struggling with right now,
your loving God is hurting with you.
Just as he was by the tomb of Lazarus,
Jesus is “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” by your pain and sorrow.
Just as he cried over Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37), he is even now gazing into your heart and crying over your hurt,
your burden,
your sorrow.
Can you understand,
can you believe,
that the things that are hurting you even now, at this very moment,
bring tears to his eyes?
Don’t just nod your head.
Take a minute to let yourself grasp that truth.
Let God use it to touch your heart with his care.
Let me say it again:
Can you understand,
can you believe,
that the things that are hurting you even now, at this very moment,
bring tears to his eyes?
Whether your pain is the result (like that of Mary at the tomb of Lazarus) of life’s unexplainable losses and disappointments,
or whether you are hurting--as Jesus himself did--as the result of someone else’s sin,
or even if (like the people of Jerusalem) you are suffering because of your own sin,
the same Jesus who cried for Mary,
who mourned over Jerusalem
hurts for you right now.
John’s Gospel reveals to us
that our God is a God who cries,
and he is crying for you,
for the pain you feel,
for the trouble you are enduring.
So please,
if you’re hurting this morning,
if you have any wounds that haven’t healed,
any lingering hurts in your heart,
God is with you right now,
sharing your hurt,
bearing your sorrow
right along with you.
If you can let yourself feel that,
realize it,
begin to thank him for it,
you’ve begun to experience
the healing power of God’s comfort.
But there’s more. Letting God, through his Holy Spirit working in your body, soul, and spirit, has the power to heal the hurts you don’t deserve.
But God has ordained another step in the process, and that is to . . .
II Let Others Comfort You
Would you turn in your Bibles, please,
to 2 Corinthians, chapter one. I want to steer us all to verses 3 through 5 in that chapter. . . .
2 Corinthians 1, and we’ll start at verse three. Look at it with me:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows (2 Corinthians 1:3-5, NIV).
You see, if we truly want to experience healing,
we need to let others extend true comfort to us--
But, you see, most of us don’t really know what comfort is . . . .But once again, we can learn from Jesus’ example:
Remember the things Jesus did not do at the tomb of Lazarus.
• He didn’t dismiss Mary’s pain and tell her she shouldn’t feel so bad.
• He didn’t offer advice.
• He didn’t try to cheer her up.
• He didn’t even spiritualize the situation and quote Scripture to her or ask her if she’d prayed enough.
No, he simply shared her pain:
he hurt with her, and cried with her.
That’s what real comfort looks like and feels like.
And that’s what we need when we’re hurting.
We don’t need to hear, “I know exactly how you feel.”
We don’t need to hear, “You think you’ve got problems? Let me tell you what happened to me.”
We don’t need to hear, “You know what you need? A double-fudge brownie sundae” . . . Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, but
we don’t need advice,
we don’t need guilt,
we don’t need someone to cheer us up.
We need comfort, real comfort.
Real comfort says, “I’m so sorry you’re in such pain.”
Real comfort says, “It hurts me to see you hurt.” Real comfort communicates, in word and deed:
“I’m sad because you’re sad,” and
“It makes me cry to see you cry,” and
“I’m willing to share your hurt, right here,
right now.”
That’s what was happening when “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), and believe it or not, that kind of comfort has a remarkable healing power that comes from God
through another
to your hurting heart.
In fact, I will go so far as to say
that if you haven’t let God and others
extend comfort to you
by crying with you and hurting with you,
then you can do a lot of things with your hurt--
you can swallow it,
you can stuff it down,
you can ignore it,
you can try to forget about it,
you can get revenge,
you can maybe even get some relief from time to time,
but you’ll never be healed.
But if you let God comfort you and cry with you,
and also let a brother or sister comfort you,
you’ll not only feel the healing power of God working in your heart . . .
You’ll find, just like the Bible says,
that comfort will overflow,
and as you experience more and more healing
and freedom from the pain that plagues you,
you’ll “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort [you yourself] have received from God.”
I invite you to do that this morning.
I invite you to call out to God in prayer
and let your heart receive his comfort.
I invite you to reach out to someone close to you,
a friend or a family member,
and pour out your heart--and your hurt--
to that person, and let him or her hurt with you,
cry with you,
comfort you.
I invite you, even as I start praying in a few moments,
or as we sing a final chorus or two,
or even after the service,
to come and meet with one of the counselors
who will be waiting right here
wearing a name tag like this one;
and let one of us pray with you
and hurt with you
and cry with you
and “comfort you in your trouble with the comfort we have received from God.”
Please pray along silently as I pray aloud:
Lord Jesus,
I thank you that you are a God who cries.
I thank you that know what it’s like to hurt,
that you are a man of sorrows,
acquainted with grief.
I thank you that you long to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and care for and comfort us.
I know, Lord, that there are many among us- maybe every one of us--who are hurting this morning, and in need of the healing power of comfort.
Help us, Lord, to experience comfort from you
and from each other,
that we might go on to complete healing
and wholeness,
in your powerful, healing name, I pray, Amen.
