Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
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Openness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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Grieving with Vin
Jesus meets us in our grief.
Jesus models for us how to meet others in theirs.
This is love.
I heard the news that Pastor Rod Henry had passed this Wednesday morning, and I rejoiced.
My friend is home at last, finally whole, breathing deeply in the presence of the God He loved so tenderly and served so faithfully.
Twenty minutes later, one of those waves of grief and loss.
The world has changed, and I felt that!
I had one of those moment, one of many, of weeping sorrow.
I wept.
As I wept, my dog pressed in by my side and, tenderly, vomited on the carpet.
I laughed... and I thought even as it happened: Pastor Rod would love this story!
I laughed... and this honors him... and then I went about cleaning up the mess.
All the Feels
That was a whirlwind of emotion!
Joy and sorrow and laughter all in a breath!
And this week, it wasn’t one or the other at distinct times: it was all the feels… and different ones would rise to the surface for its own moment.
Thank you for all the things.
You know I love you.
I'll go about serving and loving our peoples however I can in the mess, in the tears, and in the laughter.
Two Encounters
Two Encounters
We see two people who encounter Jesus in the midst of their pain.
And Jesus responds to each of them.
And I think, because he is Jesus, he responds to each of them in precisely the perfect way.
There is this amazing miracle coming (more about this next week).
There is profound revelation of who Jesus is and a foreshadowing of the triumphant Resurrection to come.
But John takes the time, in the midst of it, to talk about Jesus’ motivations, to dwell upon the pain of the women grieving, and to show us Jesus’ beautiful response to those who are hurting.
Martha
John 11:20-21
Now it is hard to read tone, but even as I hear that as a statement of faith, I also hear it as a cry of pain, and a bit of an accusation at Jesus.
IF YOU HAD BEEN HERE… My brother would not have died!
A whole subtext.
Why weren’t you here?
We sent a messenger as fast as we could.
You know things, you see things, you love us… and if you had been here, my brother would be alive right now.
With us right now.
Martha being Martha, she follows that up.
And what she follows up with is another statement of faith.
22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
It is easy to conclude from that statement that Martha is expecting or anticipating an ongoing miracle here… but we see from later in the story, Martha doesn’t see the resurrection coming.
She dissuades Jesus from opening the tomb with the great King James line: “he stinketh!”
It is easy to conclude from that statement that Martha is expecting or anticipating an ongoing miracle here… but we see from later in the story, Martha doesn’t see the resurrection coming.
She dissuades Jesus from opening the tomb with the great King James line: “he stinketh!”
I think, and it becomes more clear as the conversation develops, that Martha is following up her honest statement of pain and anger at Jesus with a kind of intellectual retreat.
Martha retreats into theological platitudes.
But Jesus I still kind of believe, I still do believe… like in a general way, I recognize that.
Now I am not condemning that, in fact I completely identify with Martha.
I sanitize my prayers this way, as if I am afraid just to leave it in raw emotion, I baptize it at the end with “But you know, God, I know that you are God and your ways are higher, etc…”
Meanwhile, Jesus is offering her hope now
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
She sanitizes it again.
Jesus’ statement is ambiguous and Martha doesn’t allow herself to hope for a moment.
Without hesitation, it is all about the future resurrection, the someday distant.
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this?”
Profound revelation of Jesus here.
Number 5 of the Great I AM statements in John.
This is a huge reveal on who Jesus is and what is coming… but we are not really going to dive that today.
Jesus gives profound answers in response to her question.
Meanwhile, Jesus is again speaking to Martha about hope NOW, life NOW, resurrection NOW.
And she theologizes it.
He asks her Do you believe that no one who believes in me shall die… and do you believe this?
And she answers in faith.
But again, it is abstracted, theologized.
27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
Yes, Jesus, I believe in you.
And it is a profound confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.
Martha gets it in a deep way.
She has been listening, she is smart, she has been paying attention.
Yes, Jesus, I believe in you.
And it is a profound confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.
Martha gets it in a deep way.
She has been listening, she is smart, she has been paying attention.
But Jesus said “do you believe in this…” speaking of the undying of believers, the resurrection about to occur, the miracle about to happen.
And Martha says, I believe in you.
Generally.
Theologically.
Because her brother just died and he believed in Jesus so how could “everyone who lives and believes in Jesus never die???”
Jesus doesn’t rebuke her.
He doesn’t require that she understand the hope and miracle about to occur.
He is just going to show her.
Mary
Now here comes Mary.
Everyone sees Mary leave and follows her, so what follows is not a private conversation like Martha got but a bit of a public display.
That may well shape what Jesus doesn’t and doesn’t say… but I don’t think it shapes Jesus’ reaction.
Jesus responds to Mary’s pain in a perfect way just as he did to Martha’s.
To Martha, he gave revelation and truth.
To Martha he gave answers.
To Mary he gives something else.
32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
The very same words.
The very same pain.
But Mary is even more emotional.
She is weeping, wailing.
And the Jews who came with her were also weeping.
In that culture, and still today, they hire professional mourners who could powerfully express with weeping and wailing the pain in the family’s own heart where maybe they had trouble showing the emotion of it.
So Mary is weeping and wailing before Jesus and the crowd is looking on and they are weeping and wailing.
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