August 18, 2024
We’ve been talking about how life can be overwhelming. Our souls can get tired. Today we’re talking about when things get really rough, when we’re broken and don’t know how to put life back together.
Today we sang a beautiful song, “It is well with my soul.” Horatio Spafford wrote it. In 1873, his wife and four daughters were on a ship to Europe. He was supposed to go, they were going on an evangelism crusade with the famous preacher Dwight Moody. But Horatio had to stay behind to work on some business. While his family crossed the ocean, their ship was hit by another ship. 226 people died, including his four daughters. Only his wife survived. Horatio then got on a ship to get to his grieving wife. When he passed the place in the ocean where the accident happened, he wrote the song, “It is well with my soul.” It’s a song of faith and comfort in God’s love.
Tragedies happen, and when they do we look up and ask, God, what in the world? Don’t you care? We wonder. How do we find hope in troubled times. We need a reason to keep going, keep believing, and keep following God. Today we’re going to look at a time when Jesus seemed to act in the most insensitive way. But by the end of the story, we see that God has deep compassion for us in our troubles. God knows what you’re going through and God cares.
In John chapter 11, Jesus’ friend Lazarus, is sick. Very sick. Lazarus’s sisters are Mary and Martha. In another story in the gospel, Martha is the one who wants her sister to help her provide hospitality when Jesus comes to visit. But Mary, just sat at Jesus feet and listened to him. Mary, Martha and Lazarus were good friends.
The sisters think, Jesus heals strangers. We’re friends. He will definitely help heal Lazarus. So, they send a servant to find Jesus and ask him to come heal their brother. The servant finds Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t go. He stays where he is. He waits. John writes that Jesus loved his friends. But in a moment of crisis, Jesus does not go to see Lazarus for two days.
Then Jesus says, “Let’s go.” He tells his disciples in verse 11, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” In vs.12 his disciples say, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Bad things happened the last time they went to Judea, where Lazarus lives. People tried to kill Jesus by stoning. So, the disciples are not eager to return to Judea.
Jesus tells his followers in v. 14, “Lazarus is dead.” Then in vs. 15, Jesus says something so insensitive and uncaring, it doesn’t sound like Jesus! He says, “and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” But you can bet that Jesus said that! Whenever the hero makes himself look bad, that’s proof that those are words they really used! Nobody would write a story that made Jesus look so bad!
Jesus says he’s glad his friend passed. Why? So that you may believe! Believe what? What is so important that Jesus would let a friend die? Jesus thinks it’s good that Lazarus died, in order that his disciples, and everyone who reads this, including you and me, so that all these people will believe that God is good, and God is love and that Jesus has power over life and death!
Jesus is speaking to our situations; to you when you have or had a burden, and you cried out, and God didn’t come through. Jesus shows, he knows the frustration and the grief you feel! God knows what you’re going through, and God cares.
Jesus and his followers go to Lazarus house, and Martha meets him on the way. She’s upset, and she’s thinking, Jesus! After all I have done for you! When I need you, you don’t show! She says in v. 21, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”
Have you ever asked God that: why didn’t you help? Lord, if you had stepped in, this tragedy would not have happened! You didn’t, and my loved one died. Or you did nothing, and now I don’t have a job, or I have cancer, or there’s a divorce, or addiction, a child going down the wrong path, bankruptcy, or some disease out of nowhere. Don’t you care?
Martha puts on a brave face. V. 22 she says, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus tells her, “Your brother will rise again.” I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this? Yes, she says, I believe you’re the Messiah. But she still thinks it’s too late, Jesus can’t save her brother who has already died.
Then Mary, Lazarus’s other sister, meets Jesus. She also reminds Jesus that if he had been here, Lazarus would not have died. She falls at Jesus’ feet, so glad to see him. She is weeping.
And even though Jesus knows he can save Lazarus, he is overcome with emotion too. Vs. 35 is only two words, one of the shortest verses in the Bible, but it says so much, it’s so powerful. It says, “Jesus wept.” Some people watching say, “See how he loved him!” But others say, “He could have kept Lazarus from dying!”
Jesus goes to the tomb where Lazarus body is and he say, “Take away the stone!” Martha tells him that’s crazy, there will be a stench!
But Jesus says, if you believe you will see the glory of God! They roll the stone away.
Then Jesus prays in verses 41-42, “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.”
Jesus says, God, I am doing this for the people in circumstances that are crushing their faith. I am doing this for the people wondering whether you hear their prayers. I am doing this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
God sent Jesus to show us his love. God so loved the world, that he sent his son. Jesus waited for Lazarus to die before he came, so that you will know, God cares, God cries with you, God has power over death, and he loves you! God knows what you’re going through and God cares.
Next Jesus calls loudly, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus walks out of the tomb!
Verse 45 says many of the people who saw this miracle believed in Jesus, because a human being cannot bring a man back to life! They believe Jesus has been sent by God. Because God sent him, what Jesus said can be trusted. And if God has compassion in our darkest moments, there’s hope for you and me. No matter your circumstances, you can bring your pain to God. He cares for you!
I remember a really sad time many years ago in a church I served when a teenage boy died. He went to a different church, but his dad and his family were members where I was a pastor. That’s unimaginable pain when a child dies. I went to the funeral, and I wasn’t leading the service. The boy’s great grandmother had heart issues. Her family didn’t want her to come to the funeral, they thought it would be too hard on her heart. But she came anyway. When I came, they asked me to come sit with her in the pew. I was happy to. We held hands during the service. She didn’t have a heart attack. God is good. Sometimes it’s just a moment at a time you hold on. But it helps to know God is there. God cares. He’ll get us through.
My homework for you is to read Jesus’ words in John 16:33. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Everybody has gone through or will go through something difficult. That’s part of why we come together as a church, to support each other. When God does not change a heartbreaking situation, God is not absent! We don’t know why bad things happen. But Jesus showed: God knows what you and I are going through, and he cares! There’s hope in this world and in the next. In this world you will have troubles. But Take heart: Jesus has overcome the world. Amen.
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