"Good Grief" - Part III - John 11:1-44

It’s no secret that I have lots of questions.  It’s not uncommon for me to start with a question and I usually have more as we go along.  Then Sunday nights I have lots of questions usually about the morning message.  I like to ask questions on Wednesday nights and when I see you through the week it’s usually more questions, right?  Well, I would like to ask some more questions this morning.  Most of these you may want to think about before answering.  I’ve said before that all of us are kind of weird and these are some of the questions that pop into my mind.  Questions like:

If our knees bent the other way, what would chairs look like?  What's the difference between normal ketchup and fancy ketchup?  When does it stop being partly cloudy and start being partly sunny?  Why does the Easter bunny carry eggs? Rabbits don't lay eggs.  Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?  What do people in China call their good plates?

Like I say you may want to think about some of those before you answer and that’s fine.  It’s just some of the questions I have so be glad I don’t keep going.  Some people have other kinds of questions.  Some people are deep thinkers and while I ponder fancy ketchup, they are asking questions like “How can we have free will and yet God be sovereign?”  Or “What do we have to do to find a cure for cancer?”

Other people ask questions out of regret.  These questions often accompany grief or loss of some sort.  They ask questions such as, “What if I had done better, could I have kept my job?”  It may be a question that is not necessarily a desperate question like, “Now what did I do with my keys?” or “Which of you 3 dogs chewed up the remote?”  But feelings of desperate regret often lead to questions such as, “What if he had not died?”  or even, “If I had done something else, would she still be alive?”

Experts would tell us that questions like that need to be asked, answered as well as you can and then moved on from.  You don’t want to act like those questions aren’t there and yet you also don’t want to dwell on them for months on end.  They are normal and natural and even a good part of grief to go through but can be destructive if left to focus on endlessly.

Then some people have questions of regret for God that they assume will never be answered.  They ask things like, “What if God had just healed them?” or “Why did God do this to me?” or “Where was God when all this happened?”

As we conclude our sermon series on grief, I would like to help you try to answer some of those questions.  We will never be able to explain every bad thing that happens to us but the Bible does help us to know some of the reasons.  We have the same exact outline for today as we have the other 2 Sundays but I again hope to see something completely different in this message as we look at the book of John.

The book of John is a powerful resource for a lot of issues we have today.  John is a little bit different than the other Gospels.  It talks a lot about faith and trust and has some of the most memorable stories and verses in the Bible.  Today I would like to look at a fascinating story in which we will again see our response to grief and also God’s response to our grief but with the twist being that God shows His grief in the body of the man Jesus and I want to focus more on that this time as well.

Turn to John 11 and we will read verses 1-44.  It’s quite a few verses but you need to get the context of what is going on to better understand it.

 

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) ³ So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”⁴ When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, ⁷ and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”⁸ “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. ¹⁰ It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”¹¹ After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” ¹² His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” ¹³ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. ¹⁴ So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵ and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶ Then Thomas (also known as Didymus^[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was less than two miles^[b] from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. ²¹ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” ²⁸ After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. ³² When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. ³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” ³⁸ Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹ “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” ⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “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.” ⁴³ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

When Martin Luther’s daughter Magdalena was 14 years old she got sick and died.  As they laid her to rest Luther said, “Oh my dear Magdalena, I know you will rise and shine like the stars in the sky.  How strange to be so sorrowful and yet to know that all is at peace, that all is well.”

Grief has a way of bringing out all of your emotions, sometimes all at once.  In the course of just minutes you may feel sorrow and happiness, anxiety and relief or even anger and joy.  In looking at our response to our grief I want you to see first the response of Martha and Mary.  In verse 21 Martha tells Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  With the written word we miss out on the inflection and we don’t know exactly how Martha said this but can’t you just hear the mixed emotions in her voice?

There is faith in her voice.  She knows Jesus could have saved him.  And yet at the same time there is a hint of blame in there as well.  There is some part of her that puts some of the blame for the death on Him.  And I guarantee you she didn’t want to feel that way.  She loved Jesus.  Jesus spent lots of time with Martha, Mary and Lazarus and had eaten lots of meals and spent lots of time with them and was a good friend.  I’m sure there had been lots of laughs and good times spent sitting around a table or walking down the road together.  They had a relationship much like we can have a relationship with Jesus even today.

But because she knows He could have healed Lazarus, there is a part of her, as she goes through the grief process that is put out with Jesus because He didn’t show up in time and heal him.

Then look at verse 32.  What does Mary say?  She uses the exact same words.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  In fact, the same sentiment is expressed by the Jews in verse 37.  “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

You know what that tells me?  That tells me they were talking.  Mary and Martha and the others were sitting around consoling themselves and they had all been talking about how, if Jesus had just been here He could have saved Lazarus.  Now some of these people referred to just as “Jews” may have been professional mourners but I’m sure some of them were friends of the family as well.  They were there to help.  They truly wanted to help Martha and Mary through their journey through grief and so they sat with them and talked and as they talked they all came to the conclusion that Jesus could have saved him.

There was probably even some anger mixed with the regret as they talked about it.  And I would like to assure this morning that to feel some anger toward God is natural.  It’s one thing for an elderly person to die who has been sick for a long time.  You can understand that is the natural order of things and everybody is going to die unless Jesus returns for us beforehand.  It is another thing to lose a loved one in their prime or to lose a child or what about a divorce or the loss of a job or the loss of some relationship?

When you go to God in fervent prayer as David did in last week’s message and you fast and pray and cry and beg and plead and yet the relationship still ends or the child dies it is natural to feel some bit of anger to God.  I didn’t say it was right, I said it was natural because He tells us to have faith and He tells us to bring it to Him and that is how Martha and Mary felt right now.  They knew He could…but He didn’t.

My aunt and uncle had 2 kids and named the youngest one Graham.  When Graham was 6 years old he died from Leukemia.  I called my aunt this week and asked her about it.  I was wondering if she had gone through any anger issues with God.  That was 36 years ago but I know she thinks about Graham often and so I was anxious to hear how she got through it and how she got over being mad at God.  Her response surprised me some.

She said that she had not had any anger issues because she knew that whatever reason God had in allowing Graham to die so soon that she knew it was for the glory of God.  She said that it was, of course, extremely painful; just knowing that God had a reason didn’t make it any less real; but she was able to get through it without anger because she knew God had a way of bringing glory to Himself through it.

That, my friends, does not come from a baby Christian.  The ability to accept that peace and comfort comes from someone who has more than just some head-knowledge of Jesus.  That comes from someone who has given their life and their thoughts and their wishes over to God.  This is someone who is not leaning on their own understanding but is in all her ways acknowledging Him and having her paths directed by Him.

She said she didn’t know what the reason was but she did know that through this situation my cousin Bill accepted Jesus into his life and she knows it has been used as an illustration in several sermons.  She didn’t know when I talked to her that it was going to be used in one more but I have an idea that while she said she didn’t know why God allowed it that she had just told me at least part of the reason right there.  It was for God’s glory.

And that leads me to the second part of the outline as we look at how God responds to our grief.  Look back at verse 4.  Jesus has just gotten the word that Lazarus is sick and He tells his disciples that this sickness will not end in death but it will be so that Jesus gets glory from it.  I propose to you this morning that every instance of grief is an opportunity for God to get glory.

 

 Just knowing that God has a reason doesn’t mean that you should pretend like it doesn’t hurt.  Just because God is getting glory from it doesn’t mean that you are going to have to make some major adjustments as you learn to live with whatever loss you may now have. You are still going to have to say goodbye to that relationship.  But it does mean that you can have peace to help you through the grief.

I want you to see in verses 33 and 35 that Jesus Himself was filled with grief and that fascinates me.  He knows that He is about to call the name of Lazarus and Lazarus is about to walk out of that grave feeling better than he has in years and everything will be ok.  And yet Jesus still weeps.  He still is deeply moved and troubled.  That fascinates me.  It fascinates me even more to see that that phrase in the original has the connotation of anger with it.  It means that Jesus Himself was grieving and sad and may even have had some indignation in Him.

He hated to see His friends sad.  He hated that they had gone through all that they had gone through.  He hated that because He loved them; because He was friends with them.  He hated it because He knew that while He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead that one day Lazarus would die again and there would be more grief.  He hated the thought that it was sin that was the ultimate cause of death; that it was not the Father’s original plan and that it was the cause of so much grief and pain.

It is the same way as we grieve today.  God loves you so much that He grieves with you as you grieve.  As your friend, Jesus takes no joy in your loved one not being there for you but He knows that it is an opportunity for you to fall off the deep end and go crazy or to accept His peace with the knowledge that somehow, some way God will get the glory.