Now and Not Yet Faith
Notes
Transcript
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him,
Scripture: John 11:1-6, 17-45
Sermon Title: Now and Not Yet Faith
Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a heavy passage, to use a word I remember from Pastor Marv while I was here, we might say this passage has gravitas: it is serious and solemn. Of the 45 verses in this account, which we only read 35 of, we don’t get to hear anything all that hopeful until the very end. Sickness and death, a friend seems to leave a loved one when he could have intervened, and now to add insult to injury, he wants to display the stench and sight of a decomposing body to the dead man’s family and friends. But then it comes against Martha’s protests that Jesus asks, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So the stone is removed, a prayer is said, and a dead man comes back to life, walking out of the tomb to live the rest of his days. In the midst of mourning and grieving, which Jesus is also a participant in, we are brought with this group to the sight of a resurrection! This predecessor to the Easter resurrection brings some to faith, some see it as a confusing spectacle, as well as those who still think this guy is a blasphemer. My hope this morning is that we can journey alongside the sisters with the crowd experiencing what Jesus’ ministry has all been about for John, especially listening to what he teaches about belief and glory, and as we move from grief to resurrection we would come to know Jesus’ purpose in all that happened and be challenged for what we see and proclaim about how God works both in the now and not yet.
We begin by joining the group accompanying this pair of grieving sisters. A pair who knows Jesus; as Luke tells us in his gospel that they had become acquainted with Jesus when he and his disciples were traveling through their town of Bethany. At that earlier time, Martha was the one who invited him into their home, and then is the one who takes care of all the hospitality arrangements. Martha is the busy worker personality. Her sister, Mary, sits at the feet of their visitor, listening and taking in this unique experience; she is the immediate recipient of having Jesus over. For this family, Jesus’ ministry established that he was the one sent by God to save his people; they believed in him and they he could perform great miracles of healing.
Now in the passage we have read, these sisters find themselves in a much different and difficult situation; they are sending for Jesus because they have a brother who is sick, and probably on his death bed. Jesus also knew this brother of theirs, Lazarus, and we are told Jesus loved him like he loved his sisters. They might expect as we might too that Jesus the Miracle Worker will come quickly to their aid, but he receives this news and waits… He does not rush like a doctor who hears a code called down the hospital hallway to the room of his patient or even hurry like the on-call doctor might drive quickly when she receives news of a fading patient that has been under her care.
He waits around with his disciples; he knows not just that he is sick, but that he has died, and then he decided to go. He arrives, and it has been four days already since Lazarus was put in the tomb; the sisters have been waiting for a response or for him for at least 5 days. Martha hears that Jesus is coming, and as she had been the one to go out to get Jesus before, so she leaves the house first now. She is able to approach him by herself, which seems to tell us that she had been out of the home already, doing normal things. She has a talk with Jesus and when she returns, she sends her sister to him, and now everyone goes with, thinking that she is going to the tomb. However, she goes and leads them to Jesus, and falls at his feet—the experience playing out similarly to how it had when they had met Jesus on better terms. This time the sisters unite in their grieving with painful honesty to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Why would Jesus allow this? As we read in verse 5, having heard about the sick friend, Jesus says, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Jesus prophesies from the beginning that death is not the end for what Lazarus is presently going through, even though they will indeed encounter him in a tomb. But also notice that herein is the motive for all that is going on: God’s glory and the Son being gloried through it. Maybe as you have been studying through John the past few weeks or in your own personal study, you have noticed the theme of glory goes all the way back to chapter 1, where Jesus is proclaimed as the one who came from the Father as the Word become flesh and dwelling among us; he is and has glory and is full of grace and truth. John further recognizes this glory in the first of Jesus’ recorded miraculous signs in this book, the turning of water to wine: chapter 2 verse 11 we find, “[Jesus] thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.”
The glory that Jesus evidences in his life and work is the glory of the Father. This glory is such that it is intended to spark and nurture faith in humanity, and that is the purpose we see for Jesus waiting in our text today. It is in line with the Father’s will that Jesus knows and will perform a resurrection of Lazarus in the presence of others, a miracle so great that it might not even be considered possible by them. Jesus had preached about resurrection before this, as we see Martha allude to, but it had only been understood as a resurrection that will take place in the distant future. In John 5 verses 28 and 29, we find this teaching, “A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” Martha has that conviction, “Surely he will rise again at the last day,” and Jesus’ responds, “I am the resurrection 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?” Martha does affirm that, “Yes, Lord, you’re the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.”
This interaction between Martha and Jesus, built on the foundation of her encountering Jesus, hearing his message, and seeing his ministry, shows us where her heart and mind are at when it comes to faith, and it resonates with me and I would guess many of us gathered here... Having been brought up in homes or places where we have heard about God or coming in later in life to the invitation of being saved by God’s amazing grace, we are good with the distant view—we confess God and his work throughout history, but what occupies our mentality is what is next, what is ahead. “Jesus, had you been here while he was alive, you could have healed him.” The underlying thought is that the past is the past; the status of things right now is moving forward not reversing what has already happened. Martha had those feelings, and so did some in the crowd, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
The hope that we might get stuck in that I want us to consider is that which has a nice projection of ultimate things, what God will finally do. We hear Jesus say, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and joining Martha’s comprehension maybe we stick to what we profess in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” we close with a belief in “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” If I could put words in Martha’s mouth all the way through when the stone is rolled away from the tomb, her confession might be the neat expression “I believe in the not yet.”
Brothers and sisters, Jesus offers a belief that also includes the now. Jesus offers Martha, Mary, the crowd of consolers from Jerusalem, his own disciples who are accompanying him, and all who might hear about this happening including ourselves today…Jesus offers a display of his glory that is so unbelievable by our expectations that he has to be who he says he is and able to do what he says he can do.
This expression of God’s glory in Jesus is this final recorded sign in John’s gospel, the bringing back to life of Lazarus, a brother and friend. For any who doubt or are unsettled by Jesus’ inaction while this man was still alive, Jesus puts their thoughts to death. For those gathered around to see God’s glory, an action involving both the Son and the Father, “the dead man came out,” walking still wrapped in his grave clothes, and Jesus tells the onlookers, “Take them off and let him go.”
Jesus does not perform surgery to make this happen, he does not even touch him, but rather he calls into the tomb that is Lazarus’ grave and he calls him to life. Doesn’t that sound like chapter 5, “those in the grave will hear his voice and come out,” or like chapter 10 when Jesus is teaching the Jewish crowds and he tells them that his sheep, of his own flock and not of his flock must be brought, and they will be brought by listening to his voice. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I [Jesus] have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus calls through the power of death, and he brings back to his flock one who has been taken.
Had Jesus healed Lazarus it might be seen as renewing, but to restore life and watching him walk out when all organs have long since stopped and the body begins to break down is so extraordinary, so compelling. The expression of “dead man walking” typically given to those going to death takes on new meaning here. In the resurrection, Jesus uses the assistance of the people around to roll away the stone. The kind of faith that comes out of this miraculous event is faith that includes trusting that God can and will do what we do not understand or expect. The kind of faith that comes out of this is that which sees Jesus who is the Son of God as the one who came into this world to break the barrier of divine and broken. This is the faith that God can do things in the present; to have heightened expectations of what God can do right in our lives and in this world as it is. Now and not yet faith looks with hopefulness to that day when Christ will come again and establish his kingdom in a world that has been renewed, but also gives hope that his Spirit that dwells in us is active and continuing to reveal the glory of God.
Brothers and sisters, the resurrection of Jesus that will take the center stage for our celebration in a couple of weeks gave us new life. The resurrection of Lazarus was Jesus with the Father intending to plant faith and give believers a greater hope. Together God is offering all who notice lenses for our broken eyes to see what was once dead coming to life right here and now. It takes faith to hear the command repeated to us, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” It is only by faith that what has appeared dead to us can be made alive by God, that who or what we once deemed in our limited thought to be hopeless to receive a great measure of new life.
When a son, daughter, parent, friend, or co-worker who has been far off in the faith or following a different faith gives a glimpse of renewal, even while showing signs of death, are we listening for Christ’s command to help release and let the light shine? When a neighborhood or community trapped by gangs or poverty or abuse shows a small sign of change for healing, will we do what we can to help shift the power? When systems that have long been recognized as corrupt and driven by racism or greed begin to show a small hope for the poor and held down, not knowing what it means or what to do, will we lend a hand? Resurrection takes place not simply to be a spectacle, but is hard work and filled with emotion and energy. What makes things happen and comes about is the glory of God renewing his creation and producing faith that leads to new life. Amen.