Reading is from John 11, beginning with verse 17, on his
arrival. Jesus found Lazarus had already
been in the Tomb for four days. Now, Bethany was, less than two
miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them and the loss of their brother.
When Martha had heard that Jesus was coming.
She went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
Lord Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died. I'd but I know that even now God
will give you whatever you ask. Jesus said to her.
Your brother will rise. Again, Martha answered.
I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last
day. Jesus said to her, I am the
resurrection and the life, the one who believes in me will live
even though they die and whoever lives.
By believing in me will never die.
Do you believe this? Yes, Lord, she replied.
I believe that. You are the Messiah, the Son of
God, who is come into the world? This is the word of the Lord.
Find a seat. My wife and I were having a
conversation the other day about names.
One of the things that she does on the side, is she names
products? So, if you run a big company and
you need to name a new sandwich or a new beer, she works for the
company that helps you to name things and we were going around
our neighborhood, considering the names that we saw all around
us and you can sort of tell when things were named, if they were
named in the 90s, and they might have had Huns and them.
So, there is a cafe. Called.
I think it's called right in the nick of time.
But it's th why Emmy? It's a cafe Bakery.
We don't name things like that anymore.
Instead. We name things kind of
straightforward. So there's that place in the
seaport. Drink.
What do you think they do there? There is a pizza place called
do. There's a bakery called bread.
And so we named our church. Resurrection.
Because if you want a straightforward one word
summation of the heart of the church and the Heart of what
God's doing in the world. It is resurrection Central to
the gospel. Resurrection.
The word is filled with possibility and promise.
Maybe that which I lost isn't lost forever.
Maybe that, which is broken can be repaired.
Maybe that wound, that is so deep and festering.
Maybe that could be healed. Maybe there is hope beyond the
darkness and the grief in my past.
Now resurrections also an odd concept, right?
Because dead things don't come back to life, sort of a rule
that we have something that we've observed in the world.
That dead things don't live again, but Resurrection as an
idea or as a concept, it's largely hopeful, that's the note
that's being struck. But lurking just beneath the
shadow of Resurrection bright beneath.
The surface is the shadow side, which is that death always,
precedes Resurrection death, always precedes Resurrection.
We're intimately familiar with death, want to talk a little bit
about death this morning. I love that.
We were singing that song where we were asking Jesus to rescue
us and have mercy on us now and at the hour of our death and you
might have thought. Wow, that's out of place.
On a Sunday morning. But right along with its message
of Resurrection, the church has historically held up a big sign
that says death is on its way. It's a real thing that you have
to confront. It's lurking, somewhere around
the corner. It's somewhere in the future.
It's coming towards you at its own pace and its own time with
its own methods. Violent death is around us.
It's in our streets. There is accidental death, on
our roads. Incurable death fills our
hospitals, surprising death hits our homes.
It's shocks and it horrifies it unsettles.
It haunts us. There will be various times in
your life. When you feel that more than
others. If things are going well in your
life. Then this message seems a little
out of place. If you're in a difficult spot or
death has come close to your family.
Then you might be feeling this pretty heavily.
Because try as we might your organic diet, which I need to be
on your perfect gym routine, which I need to be on your
Innovative Medical Treatments. You can't stop this thing.
It's our archenemy as human beings.
Novelist Neil. Gaiman said everybody's going to
be dead. Just give them time.
So today, I've chosen this passage that takes place in the
middle of a funeral. Because if if if the news you're
putting your hope in isn't good, news at a funeral than you
ought, not to be placing your hope in it.
Okay. So let's try it out here in this
funereal setting. So Jesus is on his way to the
Grave side of his friend, Lazarus.
Yes, even Jesus, friends died. We're told in verse 17 that by
the time Jesus got there. Lazarus had already been in the
Tomb for four days. And so at that point, the
families already, deep into the mourning process, and we find in
verse 19, that many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to
console them concerning their brother.
And so, this gives us a context to that.
They're in the middle of a seven-day mourning period.
That was common in the culture of the day.
That if someone died in your family, they had to be buried
very quickly because they didn't have the same kind of science
stuff to Serve the body over a number of days.
So they bury them on the first day and then the community would
surround them for seven days to mourn.
So people would stream into the home and offer consolation and
sorrow because death ripples through families, right?
When we know this, that's why all cultures developed different
ways of dealing with death. I think that if you, if we had
this way of dealing with death, where our neighbors surrounded
us, where our Community of Faith came close, we would be in
pretty good shape. What death is tough for us,
partly? Because of the way we've treated
it, which is that we have quarantined it to the edges of
our society. We've put death, it has to stay
in the hospital. It has to stay out of sight
until we have been able to make it up to Make it look like it's
life again. And then it, we don't have death
in our homes. We have funeral homes.
That's where the funerals live and we only go there
occasionally as if to forget, the death is a reality.
Look at the seaport. Look at all the hip new
neighborhoods in our city. Where are the cemeteries?
No one is planning to die. Out of sight out of mind because
death cast a shadow on everything and that's what's
happening in our text. Martha is walking through the
valley of the shadow of death. And she's saying if only Jesus
had been here, maybe this could have been different.
Look at verse 21. Lord, if you had been here, my
brother would not have died. Martha had followed Jesus.
She had seen his miracles. She had watched him.
He'll leprosy. Give sight to the blind.
He delivered oppressed people from the evil one.
She knew that he was powerful. She also knew that he had kind
of a direct line to God when he prayed, God seemed to respond.
So if nothing else, Martha knows that Jesus is like a prophet
healer and so she says in verse 22, even now I know that
whatever you ask Ask from God, God will give you.
Now, we often miss make a mistake here.
We think that Martha is expressing Resurrection, faith,
and she's saying, like I know that you could raise my brother.
That's really not what she's saying.
What she's likely saying is something like I know that even
now if you ask God to comfort us that he would provide
Supernatural Comfort. I know even now that if you put
in a good word for my brother in the afterlife than maybe he'll
get decent treatment. I know even now that if you
wanted to turn those Five Loaves into a bunch of food for all the
people that Been in my house, for the last six days.
You could probably do that. You could still help us Jesus,
but what she's probably not saying is that I believe you
could beat the arch enemy. Because if only Jesus had been
here, but he wasn't here. And so now all hope is lost.
Right. We have to deal with this new
scenario because dead people don't come back to life.
And when someone loses a loved one, the last thing that they
want to hear our platitudes, wow, at least, he's in a better
place. At least.
Her pain has come to an end and Christians have their own
version of these platitudes. We call them theological
platitudes and someone's morning.
You might hear someone else say well God works in mysterious
ways, or he works all things together for those who love him
or God is in control. Now, here's the thing, those
three things. I just said, they're all true.
They're just out of place at that moment.
His true is they may be true statements.
And the wrong spot can do more harm than good, which is what
makes the next statement of Jesus?
Really weird? Because it seems like he is
speaking of theological platitude.
He says, in verse 23, your brother will rise again.
Now, it's important to know the context of Martha's belief.
So she is a first-century Jew and the majority of first
century Jews. Have a understanding that at the
very end of time. God is going to raise his
faithful people up from the dead.
Right? So Jesus says, your brother will
rise again and she goes, yeah. I know, I have that Future Hope
and that's what all the people in my house.
Have been saying for the last couple days, and I'm kind of
sick of hearing this. So it's a theological platitude
from an angle. At least, you know that you're
going to see him again someday. Jesus repeats it, your brother
will rise again. So Martha responds in verse 24.
I know that he will rise again, in the Resurrection on the last
day. Yeah, I know in the last day.
I know the pie in the sky stuff. Jesus.
But it doesn't do me, what much good right now because Lazarus
is dead. Death is final, especially if
you've been dead for four days, which is how long the text says,
Lazarus has been out. I can understand why some people
have trouble with the idea of Faith or a religion because it
seems to defer hope always to the the end, right?
It's like the period on the sentence that I call life.
That's where the hope is at the very end.
What good does it do in the present?
On what basis would I decide that it makes sense to put my
hope in that way out there. Future promise.
Now if something like the resurrection of the Dead were
true. Like Martha believes and like
Christians have historically believed then that would be
utterly world-altering. I hope we can agree on that.
If everyone if we knew that we would all be raised again at the
end, that would change some things.
But in order for me to know that that was true.
I would need like someone to come from the future to tell me
that that's true. Right.
Like a Time trap. I love time travel.
I really do. I love books about time travel
movies about time travel. I love it.
When the person comes from the future and they have, they're
coming. Usually because they have some
information right there. Like oh man, I got to get back
there because if they knew this, then we could avoid that, right?
So they go back into the past and they are trying to get
everyone's attention. They're always dressed in future
clothes and they're speaking of the future accent and they're
out of place and they say something like you have Abandon
this practice. You have to disavow this leader.
If you follow them, you're following them to your own Doom.
You have to start using this medicinal cure.
And minds are blown in the majority of people always
disbelieve them. But then, there's that one
person who takes them. Seriously.
I love it. But in order to believe news
from the future, you can watch in these stories.
People's minds. Have to stretch their paradigms
have to expand to accept what they're hearing.
And if they can that information from the future changes, the
present and I want to suggest that we have something of a time
travel situation on our hands in this text.
Martha says, in verse 24. I know that he will rise again,
in the Resurrection on the last day in the future.
And Jesus says, in verse 25. I am the resurrection and the
life. Jesus is the resurrection and
the life and this is the shocking point in our text.
When Jesus said your brother will rise again.
It was not a theological platitude.
He was being serious. He was saying, you know that
Endtime future resurrection that period at the end of the
sentence that you sort of place your hope in.
Yeah, that I am that and I am bringing that into your present.
I am from the future and I'm here to prove that death does
not ultimately win. In fact, I'm not just bringing
the secret that the resurrection is going to happen in the
future. I'm telling you that I am the
resurrection and the life. I am the source of all life.
Anything that exists has sprung from my Lively creativity in the
past, anything that will be raised.
Again will be raised because it is connected to my life.
I am the resurrection and the life life itself.
Embodied. For Martha.
The death of Lazarus was the biggest blow of her, her life.
You never experienced anything like this.
Not only did she lose her. Brother, her intimate friend her
companion. She lost a lot.
More Joanne, Brandt is a new testament scholar, and she
points out that the death of an adult brother who was head of
household is a Calamity for unmarried sisters.
So, as they're grieving that week during that seven-day
stretch, their there is not like, they're in this great
socio-economic position. They're they're set up, they can
kind of take a couple months off to process the loss.
No, it's the loss of their brother and all of the sudden
Martha and Mary are marginalized minorities, their economic
Drifters. They don't have time for Pie in
the Sky. What they need is God on the
ground. They need someone with the
power, over life and death. That someone to break into the
present and demonstrate that fear and anxiety, and grief and
sorrow and pain are not going to go on for eternity, and they're
not going to have the final word.
They need someone like Jesus to step in and say, I am the
resurrection and the life. Martha.
You said, if only you had been here, I'm saying I am here.
This is the good news that reality Church proclaims in
Boston. The Resurrection Church
proclaims in Boston. Jesus, who is life himself, the
source of all life, the hope of all life.
This one has broken into history.
He has overcome the grave to make it known to you that
abundant overflowing vibrant. Deathproof life is available to
you now and in the future. When you connect your life to
Jesus the life, then death is not final and all of deaths,
Friends start to be taken in a different light because when
your faith is in Jesus, the resurrection and the life, you
know. That war is not infinite.
That Injustice is not indefinite.
That poverty is not permanent that racism will not go on
forever, that we will be reconciled.
That fear is not final because in Jesus death has an expiration
date. And like a time traveler trying
to explain a new reality. Jesus expands in verse 25.
He says, I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in
me, though. He die.
Yet shall he live read that last part again?
Whoever believes in me, though, he die, yet, shall he live?
So this is what Jesus means when he says Resurrection, he's
saying even if you die, like, Lazarus has died.
If if One Believes In Me, then death is not the end of your
story. It doesn't death is not the
period. It's not the conclusion.
How do you get access to the promised life that's available
in Jesus? Like what he says, he says,
whoever believes in me. It doesn't say whoever obeys me.
He doesn't say whoever can measure up.
Whoever can win over my favor. He doesn't say.
Whoever makes the cut. He says, whoever believes in me.
This makes Jesus so beautifully different than all of the
systems of, in our world that promise life.
He's the source of Life, the defeater of death, and he
invites you to believe in him in order that his life might be
given to you as a gift. It's what allowed the Apostle
Paul to say in 1st, Corinthians, 15:55.
He looked death in the face and he said, oh, death.
Where is your Victory O Death. Where is your sting?
He has confidence that this Jesus.
Who is the Rex, resurrection? And the life has come into his
own life and it has changed the way that he sees death.
He's encountered life himself in the person of Christ, and Jesus
has sucked the fear out of death.
And he reveals death for what it is, you know, and I love horror
movies. Death is terrifying in horror
movies. The movie.
It follows. Excellent horror film.
If you are looking for one to scare the tar out of you on the
Saturday night. It follows is about it.
Following you and its amorphous, right?
It's not clear what it is, but the whole movie, there's
something and it no matter where you run, no matter where you go.
It is following you and it's going to look different every
time sometimes it looks like a creepy old woman in a hospital
gown. Sometimes it looks like a little
kid. They're like neck bent.
It's fought but it's following you.
Our films are stories imbue death with incredible power.
And Jesus is saying that's an improper view of what death is
death is frail. Death is dying, death is on its
way out. It is only a matter of time.
Life wins. This life is not just something
that comes at the end of the sentence at the end of your
life. You get to experience true life.
No, it's actually something that is he wants to reverse engineer
into your present. Leslie.
New begin says to be bound to Jesus by faith is to share
already. Now the life, which is beyond
death. And this is what Jesus offers
you today and already now experience of the life, which is
beyond death regardless of your qualifications, regardless of
your background, regardless of your track record, your bank
account, your title, your reputation, your past.
He's offering you life from the future now.
He says, I came that they may have life and have it
abundantly. That's why he came that you
might have Abundant Life. And so the question, then the he
puts to us today, is do you believe this?
Do you believe this? He puts the question to Martha?
He's just told her that, he's the resurrection and the life.
And at the tail end of verse 26. He looks at morning Martha and
asks, do you believe this? Do you believe that I am in the
present, the resurrection and the life?
God In the Flesh, who is breaking into history?
To ensure that death doesn't win.
Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus can
break into your present situation to bring hope in the
midst of hopelessness and light in the midst of darkness and
satisfaction to your bottomless desire and healing to your deep
wounds. Jesus says, I am the
resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?
And what happens when you do believe this?
You get a new identity. Now identity in our world, works
like this, you're always building it.
You're always crafting it. Your identity is made up of
everything that you have done or experienced in the past.
And then in the present, you're just sort of like, at the mercy
of whatever has happened in the past and your identity is just
the sum total of who you have been all this time, right?
And that can tell you that, as you go on the tough stuff Stacks
up and it always gets to be a part of your identity.
And you're carrying around the weight of who you have been?
Identity in our world is from the past.
It's from the history. It's it's what lies behind us.
and in Jesus, your identity comes from the future.
Your identity. Your fundamental who you are is
not who you have been but who you will be in Christ who he is,
growing you into. You are gifted a hope-filled
identity where this Jesus speaks to the death in your past,
speaks to the stuff. You're carrying and he looks at
you and he says that is actually I know you define yourself.
That way. I know that your narrative that
runs in your head all day is made up of that stuff back
there, but I'm telling you that I am gifting you a different
story. That you are not the sum total
of what you have done. You are the sum total of what
Jesus has done and is doing by the power of His.
Holy spirit. That's good news.
There's nobody else can give you something from the future like
that. A new identity.
Do you believe this? And then a new purpose.
A new purpose to be one who lives out and offers experiences
of this Resurrection Life. You know what, our churches
ought to be. They ought to be places where
you can get a taste of God's future places where you can get
a glimpse of the goodness that God has planned for his world.
A taste in this community of reconciled relationships, a
taste in this place of forgiveness, a taste in this
place. Of all that God has.
Were mercy and Justice can be experienced.
When you go into Baskin-Robbins or another ice cream store.
You can try out different flavors.
I hope you've had that experience.
It's awesome. So you get a little white spoon
and you take, I want to have the cookies and cream.
I want that pistachio. I want and there's a limit.
Okay, I have found out that there's a limit to how many
things they will let you try. but the church, Is that
Community which is offering to the world, a taste of what God
has in store a taste of God's future.
Experience forgiveness, experience, wholeness
experience, Grace experience, acceptance experience, being
wrapped up in community experience, being accepted for
who you are experience, changing who you are experienced growth
and newness of life, because Jesus has declared your identity
from the future. A new identity and a new
purpose. And so this morning, we're going
to have some time for reflection, some silence, some
Stillness. Oftentimes, we avoid Stillness
because that's where the fear of death Creeps in.
But I think that the beauty of life could could sneak into the
Stillness that Jesus the resurrection and the life might
actually want to meet you presently now.
And so, Jesus asked the question.
Do you believe this? And I think that he asks it to
those who claim to believe it, right?
There's probably plenty of people here because why else
would you be in church on a Sunday morning, who claim to
believe that Jesus is the wrecks, resurrection, and the
life. And he puts the question to you
today. I mean Martha believed in Jesus,
she believed everything that she knew to believe about him.
But he wanted to know, are you presently trusting me in the
most difficult thing that you've ever experienced?
Martha's wounds are raw. Her brother has been dead for
four days. And Jesus wants to know, are you
trusting me there? At Ground, Zero of pain.
And so, when we have still a Miss, if you, if you are one who
believes in Jesus, I want you to bring that to him.
Your anxiety, your deepest fear, your deepest grief, your
despair, your depression, and offer it to Jesus, and ask him
to be present, to ought to bring his resurrection life into the
present. And I don't know what that will
look like. I don't know how he will meet
you. I mean, you might believe like
sure God will make things right at the end.
But what if he wants to do something now, presently?
It's your disappointment or your sorrow your loss.
Martha actually ran out to meet Jesus.
He was on his way to her house and she went out.
She interrupted him on the way. And so this is an opportunity to
go out to meet Jesus and to bring your stuff and say Jesus.
If only you had been there. Do you think that you could be
here now, right? And if you don't follow Jesus,
then the same question is put to you.
Do you believe this? And it's a question that I hope
causes you to ask questions, like What is my hope in the face
of death and violence and sickness and pain?
Am I experiencing the kind of vibrant life that Jesus seems to
offer. Jesus asked.
What do you believe this? It's not an accusatory question.
Sometimes I take his questions that way like I'm on the spot.
Do you believe this? It's a kind, you know, that good
friends can ask you kind, questions that pull out, the
true stuff that you've been having a hard time articulating.
Jesus asked this question to you with kindness in his eyes in
order to pull out some stuff that you may have been having a
hard time articulating. He's inviting you into
conversation and relationship with him.
Death is the enemy. Jesus is the Resurrection Life.
It's more than a teacher, more than a prophet, a messenger, A
Healer, a miracle worker. He's God In the Flesh crucified
for you. Risen again, home from the
future. To rescue you.
Do you believe this? Amen, let's pray.
Oh God, we confess that we live in a world with
a