17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was less than two miles 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. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
28 And 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.” 29When 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?”
John MacArthur has a beautiful sermon about this passage. And just like Miriam said yesterday, it's so easy to miss some of these things when we look at the entire story, already knowing how it ends. It's so hard to read it as though we're reading it for the first time.
MacArthur shows us that Jesus coming to raise Lazarus from the dead is a bit of an allegory about Him coming to earth to deal with death for our sakes.
Jesus comes, humbly. He didn't have to come to Mary and Martha - He was busy and had things to do. He didn't have to come to earth either. But we needed Him to come, to deal with death. And so He comes.
And when He comes, He reveals the truth. He is the resurrection and the life. Now. Not just later, at the end of time. Now. Do we trust Him now? With both our big problems and little problems? We believe He's coming back, but do we believe He's watching over us now? We can because He is.
And the choice we have to make is whether or not to believe Him. Faith is up to us. Jesus gave us the invitation - Do you believe this?
Belief doesn't mean there will be no doubt. Martha believed, but she also doubted (she thought Jesus' power was only good while Lazarus was just sick, not dead, and she thought Jesus' resurrection power was good at the end of time, not now). We are still human, and Satan is still at work. But we can bring our doubts to Jesus and He will reveal His truth to us when we are genuinely seeking Him with honest motives. And then we need to trust in the One we say we believe.
And all of this - the reason He comes, the reason He humbled himself, the reason He extends the invitation to believe - is because of love.
He demonstrates His human love by weeping for Lazarus. Even though He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, and that soon all those tears would turn to rejoicing, still He weeps. Why? Why bother allowing Himself to feel that pain?
Because He wanted to feel every pain you've ever felt. He wanted to know that pain that you knew when you stood beside the grave of that one you loved more than any other person in the world, or that one that you loved with a love that couldn't be expressed, and you watched that casket and you felt that pain and you felt that emptiness in your soul. And Jesus could say, "I know, I know." He wanted to feel everything you've ever felt....
It wasn't a professional cry and it wasn't a sentimental cry, it was the...it was tears that were spontaneously the expression of love that couldn't be held back. He just burst into silent tears. Not mourner's tears, but tears of love that couldn't be held back even by the Son of God. And, friends, those tears have been for all ages a testimony to the humanity of Jesus, haven't they? Cried two other times, once over Jerusalem, once in the garden. They weren't sentimental tears, they were the silent trickle of tears that course down cheeks that are flushed with love and drop to a chest that is heaving with sighs of sorrow. And it shocks me; it just shocks me to see Him weeping like that because I know He knows He's going to raise Lazarus.
But you know something? He is caught in human suffering. You see it? He is trapped by sorrow. He was a man of sorrows and what? Acquainted with grief. He was absolutely trapped in the sorrow of the moment. And because He was so human, He couldn't relinquish that. I'll tell you, that thrills my heart because I know He understands grief.
He knows, dear friend, He knows. He allowed Himself to experience the depth of grief that you and I will feel in this sin-infested world, because He loves us. He loves us.
But there is hope. Because He is resurrection. He is life. And He extends the invitation to you - do you believe this?
Tomorrow's scripture focus: John 11:38-44
1 comment:
Everyone knows "Jesus wept," as the shortest verse in the Bible, but when you take the time to think about it as John MacArthur says in that excerpt, it suddenly becomes so much more meaningful. Great post.
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