Pastor
Steve Geiger Fifth Sunday in Lent
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John 11:17-27,38-45
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.”
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
believed, you would 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.”
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary,
and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.
Jesus
Is Never Late John
11:17-27,38-45
1.
He has an eternal schedule
2.
He shows himself worthy of trust
The
plane was only on the other side of the state.
And it’s a narrow state, Florida.
The aircraft, in Fort Lauderdale, along the Atlantic coast. I, in Tampa, along the Gulf of Mexico.
The
plane wasn’t supposed to be in Fort Lauderdale anymore.
Perhaps
you’ve heard those announcements over the intercom. In an airport, an apologetic voice: our plane has not yet taken
off from its previous location; we expect it to arrive in about thirty minutes,
and we will board you just as soon as possible.
Late. Now I was going to be late. I got on the pay phone with my phone calling
card. My brother’s home phone, his work
phone, his cell phone. Trying to let
him know that our plane was behind. I
wouldn’t be in Raleigh when I first said I would.
Late,
and it had an effect on others.
Jesus
arrived late . . . well, later than some may have liked, and from the
perspective of some, Jesus’ late arrival had an effect.
Mary
and Martha had sent word to Jesus that their brother Lazarus was sick. Jesus stayed put. Two days. When he finally
arrived at the hometown of the Mary, Martha and Lazarus family, Lazarus had
already been in the tomb four days.
Martha
says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have
died. But I know that even now God will
give you whatever you ask.”
If
you had been here, my brother would not have died.
Have
you ever wondered why Jesus didn’t show up at a moment when you wished he would
have?
You
see, there are moments when we realize so clearly that we need Jesus.
There
are other moments when we forget. Are
there times in your life where you’re not thinking about how nice it would be
to see Jesus, because you are feeling rather confident in your own ability to
handle life? There are certain times in
life when we think we’re doing just fine.
Perhaps you think that you have the ability to make it to work and earn
a paycheck. Maybe you feel you can
memorize for a test. When sick, you can
find a good doctor and get better. You
feel you can cook, eat, win the heart of a boy or girl, make a decision about finances. Perhaps you feel that you can give yourself
sleep when you want it, stay awake when you need to, relax when necessary and
find something to do when bored.
How
many moments are there when we’re thinking nothing at all about how nice it
would be if Jesus visited? We think
that we’re handling life just fine. We
forget about Jesus.
There
are other moments when that deception disappears, another trick taking its
place. Moments when we see so clearly
that we do need Jesus, but we’re afraid because it doesn’t seem he’s coming to
visit. Moments when we realize that we
nor any doctors can for sure make us better.
We see a loved one whose attitude we want changed, but we’ve tried and
come to see that real change is beyond our power. We want a new job, but every effort crashes and burns. We wanted a friend but no one seems to want
us. We face temptation and tire of the
struggle. We lose a loved one to death
but can’t make him return. We near our
own death and don’t know how to escape.
How
we wish Jesus would appear.
How
Martha must have wished that Jesus would have been there at the moment of great
pain. But he wasn’t. Jesus wasn’t there to keep Lazarus from
dying. Was he late? Was he four days late?
Don’t
we sometimes accuse Jesus of just that?
At a tough moment in life, don’t we sometimes question and wonder why
God hasn’t arrived to make things better?
If he really loved me, he would have done something by now.
Interesting. Sad.
Our finger of blame points so quickly to the innocent, completely
missing the real lesson of hurt and pain and death.
The
lesson is that we aren’t as strong as we sometimes feel we are—those times when
we are so confident in our own ability to handle life. “I can make sure I have a paycheck. I can pass this class. If I find the right doctor, I’ll get
better. If I find the right friend,
I’ll make myself happy.” We actually
think that those things are in our power.
We actually can forget that having Jesus near is essential. We actually can have little desire at
moments to be close to him. That’s
pride. That’s forgetting that only in
God can we live and move and have our being.
Do we need things bad to happen to remind us of how weak we really
are? Only to miss that lesson and
instead turn on our Lord, implying the problem is that he’s late with his help.
Forgetting
about God, then accusing him . . . to insult God in two directions is to give
God no reason to love us ever again.
This we deserve. This he
threatens.
How
easily we are tempted to turn on God in trouble.
Martha
may at times have faced the same temptation.
In our reading for today we witness wonderful trust: “Lord, if you had
been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will
give you whatever you ask.”
“Your
brother will rise again.”
But
that wasn’t what Martha asked. She
didn’t ask Jesus, “Will my brother rise again on the last day?” She expressed her confidence that something
could change now. And it could
have. She was right. Jesus could ask for immediate resurrection
and it would have happened.
But
Jesus directs her to eternity. My
friends, Jesus has an eternal schedule.
When we are tempted to give up on God . . . when the devil tries to
persuade us that because Jesus isn’t acting as we wish at the moment, therefore
Jesus is not to be trusted . . . notice that Jesus points Martha to his eternal
schedule.
Of
course, there should be no happy eternal schedule for us. But when Jesus came to seek and to save the
lost, he came to give us the gift of an eternal home. To take to himself the shame of not trusting God and to lose the
love of God as our replacement. On the
wood of the cross he saved. He forgave
all our sins, that we might have a future.
To give us an eternal, most exciting schedule.
In
trouble Jesus directs us to this long view.
You can be calm in every situation, even in the face of your own death,
because of resurrection. Jesus: “I am
the resurrection and the life. He who
believes in me will live, even though he dies.” He who believes in Jesus.
The world can believe in Jesus.
He made the sins of all his own.
Trust him, your Savior. Even if
you die, you will live.
Which
means it wasn’t a problem for Jesus to let Lazarus die. Not a problem in the least. It’s not a problem when you experience
challenge in your life. Not a problem
in the least, not even if you end up dying.
Because
Jesus works on an eternal schedule.
And
he is worthy of our trust.
There
was a specific reason that he allowed four days to pass before arriving at the
tomb of Lazarus. Earlier in John 11
Jesus says, “This [sickness of Lazarus] is for God’s glory so that God’s Son
may be glorified through it.”
God
permitted tears to come to the eyes of Mary and Martha, two most precious
friends, to bless them. To give them
the chance to see Jesus’ glory, to see just who it was who was their friend.
In
trouble God shows you the best part of himself. You can rejoice in your suffering, because suffering produces
perseverance (stick-to-it-iveness), perseverance character (discovering the
trust God gave you to be the realm thing), and character hope (certain
expectation, looking forward to heaven) (Romans 5).
“But
I don’t see it yet.” In trouble do you
ever say, “Let me see that perseverance . . . in the rear view mirror! Let me see that hope, heaven.” Once again, we think that Jesus is
late. That his time schedule is somehow
off.
Jesus
told Martha that she would see the glory of God, but not at that moment. Even for her, a few more moments had to
pass.
Jesus
still had some talking to do. “Father,
I thank you that you have heard me.”
Kind of strange. Jesus already knew what he was going to do, and his will
and the Father’s were one, and the Father had already heard any prayer Jesus
prayed. So why talk to him again, in
the hearing of so many and simply to say thanks, when there were tears to dry
and sorrow to drive away?
He
talked because he loved the people in the audience. You see, everything Jesus does is for the benefit of those of us
in the audience watching God at work.
What
was most important, far more important than whether the body of Lazarus was in
the ground or not . . . what was most important was whether you and the friends
of Lazarus’ family . . . what was most important was whether we understood who
Jesus was. Jesus was the one sent from
God. Why did God send someone to this
universe? God so loved the world that
he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but
have eternal life.
Jesus
wanted you to know that he did not come simply to take away the temporary pains
of life on this earth. No. Jesus came that by trusting in the simple
fact that your sin is all gone because Jesus is your Savior . . . Jesus came
that you might live forever.
Now,
once he got all the important lessons taught . . . showing that he’s never late
but works on an eternal schedule; showing that he’s never late but works great
things through suffering; showing that he’s never late but does everything for
the benefit of you and me . . . once he got all the important lessons taught,
he now shows . . . shows . . . that he is worthy of your trust.
He
gets the audience to lift up the stone.
Did they catch a whiff of the smell?
Jesus shouts at the top of his voice, “Lazarus, come out.” Was there anyone who didn’t hear?
And
when he walked out, Jesus told the audience to unwrap. Could they have been any closer? Any closer, to see that God’s word works
wonders. God does the impossible.
You
can trust him. You can trust him one
hundred percent. Even if it seems that
he’s late.
My
plane was late. But on the “up” side, my brother got his car washed during the
extra time he had because of my delay.
Jesus
came four days later than some may have liked.
But on the “up” side, well, there couldn’t have been a better time for
Jesus to arrive. For in his perfect
timing he taught us that he works on an eternal schedule. In his perfect timing he taught us that he
is worthy of our trust.
Jesus is never late. Amen.