Man's Plans and God's Purposes (John 11:46-53)

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As we read the text before us today, there is a great temptation to see the events which are unfolding here, and those that will unfold in the subsequent pages of John’s Gospel, as a great tragedy that could have, and should have, been prevented. We can begin to view Jesus as a helpless victim to the wickedness of humanity’s worst representatives. While we do not want to minimize the moral culpability of those who determined to put Jesus to death, we must remember that God has a sovereign plan that far surpasses those of human beings. As the wise King Solomon writes in Proverbs 19:21, “Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand.” And that is as true for the events here in this text as it was for Solomon, or for you and me. What we have in this text is an example of men doing their best to plan, to plot, and to predict, but none of them have the power to bring those things to pass. God’s sovereign purpose and plan surpasses and overrides them all. Remember Joseph, in the book of Genesis, whose brothers plotted and schemed to destroy him. Joseph was able to say in retrospect, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen 50:20). So the Lord Jesus, and all who know Him by faith, can view the events that surround Him on these final days of His earthly life and say, “Though others plotted evil against Him, God used all these things for good” – good for Jesus, good for us, good for the world. We can rejoice that the plans that arise in the hearts of men can never thwart the ultimate purpose of our sovereign God.

I. Men address their problems, but the Lord’s purposes prevail. (vv46-48)
The religious leaders of Israel had a big problem: His name was Jesus. He was saying and doing things that threatened their power and prestige in the nation. People were beginning to turn to Him and trust in Him, and to turn away from the empty religion of the Temple and its leaders. After all, no one else had ever demonstrated the kind of divine power and authority that Jesus did. Remember what just happened in the immediately preceding text. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead! And after He had done this, verse 45 says that “many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him.” Many believed, but all did not. Some instead decided to turn state’s evidence against Jesus. They are set in contrast with those in verse 45 who had come to believe in Him. In their hardened unbelief, they “went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done” (v46).

The Pharisees already knew that Jesus was becoming a growing problem for them. On other occasions they had conspired and even attempted to put Him to death. They had tried their best to marginalize and discredit Jesus and to divert people’s attention away from Him. But it wasn’t working! Therefore, there had to be a meeting. Verse 47 says that the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council. The word council in our English Bibles translates a Greek word which, if translated literally, would be Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin was the highest Jewish council in the first century. It consisted of 71 members, mostly from the Sadducees and Pharisees. Now, the Pharisees and Sadducees had very little in common. They had major difference in theology and in politics. But this one thing they had in common: Jesus was a threat to them both. And a common enemy has a way of uniting strange bedfellows, as it does here and elsewhere in the Gospels.

The Sanhedrin operated under the watchful eye of the Roman governor. One false move by the Sanhedrin, and the full force of the Roman government would crush them. That’s why they have convened this particular council meeting. Their prior efforts to divert attention away from Jesus are not working. They say, “What are we doing?” It could be translated as, “What are we accomplishing?” or “What are we going to do?” The problem is that this Jesus, “is performing many signs.” On other occasions, they had tried to explain away the miracles that He had performed, but here they tip their hand. We can see that they really could not write off His divine power that was being displayed through His miracles. Neither could they dismiss the profound effect His works were having on the multitudes. They said, “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him.” It was bad enough that so many, like those in verse 45, already had! How many more would if He continued doing these things?

Herein is their problem: the more people follow Jesus, the fewer of them there will be who hold the religious leaders of Israel in high esteem. And if their power and prestige is challenged by the people, then civil unrest will likely ensue. Passover is coming, and Jerusalem will be filled with a million or more traveling worshipers (v55). Unrest at such an occasion could be devastating. If an uprising ensues, they conclude, “the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (v48).

Strictly speaking, their “place” probably refers to the Temple itself, but indirectly it also refers to their place of prominence in the society. Without the Temple, the people will have no need for the priests or the scribes, and they will have no power, no prestige, no job, and no money. The Romans, who have been content to leave Israel with a large degree of independence and autonomy (as long as they paid their taxes and kept peace), could come in and crush the entire nation. There were plenty of examples around the world to prove that Rome was swift and brutal when it came to squashing insurrections. Jesus was a big problem that they had to address, thus they convened this council meeting of the Sanhedrin. They needed to preserve their place and their nation.

“Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand” (Prov 19:21). These guys can address their problems all they want to, but if it is not in God’s purpose to preserve the Temple, their position, or the nation, then it will not come to pass. And, in the end, in spite of attempt of the Sanhedrin to address their problem, they did not succeed and the purposes of the Lord prevailed. Some thirty-five to forty years after this council meeting, the Romans did come in and destroy the Temple and crush the city of Jerusalem. Some six decades after that (AD 132-135), the Romans came in again to crush a final rebellion, and Jerusalem was completely leveled. It became a capital offense for any Jew to live anywhere near Jerusalem.[1] But even these events occurred under the purpose of God.

With the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, that Temple and priesthood was entirely useless in the spiritual economy of God. That is why, in Mark 11, when Jesus drove the money changers and offering peddlers out of the Temple, He said immediately afterward, “Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him” (Mk 11:23). He wasn’t talking about just any mountain, as if you could dispense with Pilot Mountain or Mount Mitchell. He was talking about this mountain – the Temple mount. The temple had foreshadowed the salvation that God would accomplish in Jesus Christ. Now He had come, and the expiration date of the temple and the priesthood had passed. So, in Mark 13, when the disciples were awestruck by the magnificence of the Temple, Jesus said, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down” (Mk 13:1). It was already determined, in the purposes of God that this place, and the prominence of these priests were destined for destruction. Jesus Christ would be the new High Priest, the new Sacrifice, and the new Temple for God’s people.    

We see it still today. People gather together to address their problems and formulate action plans to deal with their circumstances. The Bible does not tell us to not plan or to not address our problems, but we have to do so with the understanding that we can plan all we want to, and we should plan thoroughly, but ultimately it is God’s purpose and not our plans that will prevail in the end. And there are plenty of people who are addressing the problem of Jesus in our day. The exclusive claims of Christ and the radical demands of His word are inconvenient and troublesome for our fallen world that prizes inclusivism, a perverted notion of tolerance, and moral relativism. Councils are called together to determine what to do to intimidate and silence the Church on issues of morality and spirituality. Laws are passed and policies are instituted, and many Christians and many churches and denominations compromise their convictions and cower to the intimidation. But as we look at the quiet and confident resolve of the Lord Jesus in the face of hostility, we are emboldened to hold the line and know that in the end, the plans of men will fail and the purposes of God will prevail. So, the first lesson we see here in this text is that though men address their problems, it is the Lord’s purpose which ultimately prevails.

II. Men articulate their predictions, but the Lord’s prophecies prevail. (vv49-52)

I was in a very long line at Starbucks one day, waiting to place my wife’s very complicated beverage order – venti two pump solo mocha frappuccino with whip and drizzle. When it is crowded, Starbucks can be a loud place. There are lots of important people there talking about important things, you know. All of a sudden, the lady in front of me in line looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said, “Ugh! So many words! And most of them are just meaningless!” She’s right. There are a lot of people all around us using a lot of words, and saying very little. Even as we speak, on every major television network, there are shows being aired in which politicians, journalists, and pundits are making their predictions about where our nation is heading, what is going to happen on the present trajectory, and what we should do about it. But even though men should prognosticate with all eloquence as they articulate their prophecies and predictions about the future, ultimately the prophecies of God are what prevail. God is the one who says of Himself, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’” (Isa 46:9-10).

Verses 49-52 present us with a man named Caiaphas, who was the high priest. He would hold that office longer than any high priest in the first century. This was undoubtedly a tribute to his character, which has been described as, “a rude and sly manipulator, an opportunist, who did not know the meaning of fairness or justice and who was bent on having his own way ‘by hook or by crook.’”[2] Caiaphas speaks up to the Sanhedrin: “You know nothing at all” (v49)! It is as if he is saying, “You are a bunch of ignorant twits!” And then he says something that is truly remarkable: “It is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish” (v50). John offers us more information behind these words: “Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (vv51-52).

What is going on here? It sounds, at first hearing, as if Caiaphas is preaching the Gospel in a way that far exceeded the apostles at this point! But, the way we understand his words are in no way similar to the way he intended his words when he spoke them. For Caiaphas, the proposal of Jesus’ dying for the nation was not a message of salvation through the atonement for sins. The key phrase is expedient for you. He is speaking entirely from self-interest. Caiaphas’ proposal is that if Jesus is allowed to live, there will be a massive uprising and the nation will be destroyed (as the Pharisees had already stated), and therefore, it was better – better for the priests, better for the Pharisees, better for the nation – for Jesus to die than for the nation to be destroyed. Putting Jesus to death was as a political strategy to keep in Rome’s good graces.

Ironically, what for Caiaphas is just a political ploy is in truth a prophetic promise of God. Caiaphas probably thought that his words were coming from his own mind and heart, and out of his own mouth. However, John is aware (in retrospect) that Caiaphas was speaking better than he knew. These words did not come from his own initiative, but he was unwittingly speaking biblical truth about the purpose and plan of God. Without knowing the fuller sense of his words, he was actually prophesying and proclaiming God’s wondrous truth. When Caiaphas spoke, on this occasion anyway, God Himself was speaking, even if they were using the same words to say different things. Caiaphas had poured one meaning into his words, but God had poured an altogether different meaning into them. With the same words that Caiaphas had intended to bring an end to Jesus, God was declaring His ultimate plan and promise of salvation.

Jesus was indeed to die as a scapegoat, but not to pacify the Romans. He was to die as the sacrificial Lamb of God to take away the sins of His people – those who would believe upon Him, whether they be of this nation (Israel) or scattered abroad (Gentiles). Indeed, it is expedient – it is beneficial – to us all that Jesus die for us than for all of us to perish. Jesus Himself declared that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life (Jn 3:16). He would die so that we would not perish under God’s eternal condemnation for our sins, but that we might be saved through His sacrificial death. He was bearing our sins and receiving their penalty in Himself as our substitute as He died. Through the death of Jesus, God has gathered together into one family and one Kingdom the children of God, Jew and Gentile alike, who are scattered abroad.  

Men will announce their predictions and proclamations, but it is the Lord’s prophecies and promises that prevail. Pilate will mockingly install the placard above the head of the dying Lord Jesus, “This is the King of the Jews,” but it is God’s promise in a more sure and certain way that He is truly the King of all kings. The Pharisees will scoff at the foot of the cross saying, “This man saved others, but he cannot save Himself!” But God’s truth prevails. He could save Himself, but in giving up His life in death, He was in fact saving others in a way that they could not fathom. And still today, people will use many fine sounding words to predict and prognosticate about the present and the future. Most of those words will fall to the ground in vain. But some of them may speak truth in a way that they themselves do not know. In the end, however, it will not be the predictions and proclamations of men that win the day. It will be God’s promises and prophecies that are found to never fail!

III. Men adopt their plots, but the Lord’s plan prevails. (v53)

After all this deliberation among the council members, a conclusion has been reached and a plot has been adopted. It is not a new one. They had already settled their hearts on killing Jesus long before. Here, they were just affirming it: “From that day on they planned together to kill Him” (v53). This is the plot: together, they will bring Jesus to His death. It was thoroughly devised. As it plays out, we will see how they will involve one of Jesus’ own disciples, Judas Iscariot, and pay him to turn Jesus over to them. The choreography of the trial is already settled. They will bounce Him around from court to court in order to secure the verdict, and utilize false witnesses to testify against Him. Then, once they convict Him of a capital offense, they will turn Him over to the Romans to pass the sentence in order to keep the peace in the region. They had dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s in this plot. And it almost worked.

I say it almost worked. You might say, “No, it did work. They succeeded in killing Jesus!” Well, the fact of the matter is that their plot failed horribly, but God’s eternal plan prevailed gloriously. You see, Jesus did not die because of these men’s plot. He died because of His Father’s plan. He was consciously aware of what He had come to do, and He knew that the Father had set a time for it to happen. That is why, in John 7:30, when the crowds tried to seize Him, they could not because, as John writes there, “His hour had not yet come.” Again in John 8:20, they were unable to seize Him because “His hour had not yet come.” And in John 13:1, Jesus gathered His disciples together for a final meal because He knew “that His hour had come that he would depart out of this world to the Father.” These events were not transpiring according to the plot of evil men, but according to the eternal plan of His Father.

Looking back on the death of Jesus, the Christians in Jerusalem said in their prayer to God in Acts 4:27 that “in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” Note that well: Herod, Pilate, Gentiles, and Israelites, had gathered together to do something against Jesus; but they could not do anything apart from what God’s hand and God’s plan had predestined to take place. When Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate asked Him, “Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above” (Jn 19:10-11). Nothing in this wicked plot of evil men would have ever been accomplished if it had not been for the plan of God that brought His Son, the Lord Jesus, to die for us. Isaiah had foretold it, some 700 years earlier, declaring God’s truth that had been revealed to him. He spoke of the Servant of the Lord who was coming, and he said, “The Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief” (Isa 53:10). Get that – it pleased the Lord to crush Jesus in death. Why? Because He was rendering Himself as a guilt offering (53:10). He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. The Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him (Isa 53:5-6). It was not the plot of men to put Jesus on the cross. It was the plan of God, so that our sins might receive the penalty that they deserve – the full outpouring of the just judgment of God – but that we might be saved because our sins were condemned in Christ, our Substitute.

The plot of men failed. They wanted to be rid of Jesus. But they could not be rid of Jesus. They thought they had gotten rid of Him by putting Him to death, but this was the plan of God, not the plot of men, at work. So, in Acts 2:23, the Apostle Peter declared that, “this Man [Jesus], delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” In the resurrection of Jesus, God demonstrated that He had vindicated His Son, He had destroyed sin and death, and He had prevailed in all that He had planned in order to redeem us from sin. That Sunday morning when the tomb was found empty and Jesus was found alive, the evil plot of men and Satan had failed miserably, but the eternal plan of God prevailed mightily.

And so it always does. “Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand.” The Lord Jesus has triumphed over all of the attempts of men to marginalize and silence Him; over all the predictions made about how wonderful life would be without Him; over all the plots of evil men, inspired by Satan, to destroy Him. And His purposes will always prevail. In your life, you may have attempted to neatly compartmentalize things and isolate Jesus over into one little corner so that He doesn’t begin to be too much of a problem for you. That won’t work. He will be Lord over your entire life, and will not relent until you yield to Him. Maybe you’ve tried to ignore Him altogether. That won’t work either. He is entirely unable to be ignored. The day will come when you must deal with Jesus. Maybe you have theorized about your future and what it will be like when all of your plans come together. Have you consulted with the Lord about your plans? Do they correspond to His plan? Are you open to Him invading and radically altering your plans? Know this – it is the Lord’s purpose and plan that will ultimately stand. Do not look upon the cross as a great tragedy that could have been prevented. Do not look at it as an accident of human history or as a result of wicked plans made by evil men. When you look upon the cross, you can glory in it, knowing that God, in His infinite love for you, had eternally planned this event. He turned every plan and plot and prediction of men on its head and His purpose prevailed so that you might be saved. The cross and resurrection of Jesus show Him to be the Victor, not the victim. And He will always be just that – always the Victor, never the victim; always in control, never being controlled. If you have received the Salvation that is offered to you through this eternal plan of God, you can exult and magnify the name of the Lord who endured the cross, despising the shame, so that you might live with Him forever. If you have never come to know this Jesus by faith, you can today, knowing and trusting that He endured all of this, under the eternal plan of God, to save you from sin. Know that evil did not triumph on the day that Christ died, and it never will. On that day, and on this one, and ultimately on the last day, you can rest assured that the purposes of God will always prevail.

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[1] D. A.Carson, Scandalous (Wheaton, Ill.:Crossway, 2010), 138.

[2] WilliamHendriksen, John (New TestamentCommentary; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1953), 2.163.

Jesus: The Lord of Life and Death (John 11:33-45)

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Just a few weeks ago, on March 13, Walter Williams of Lexington, Mississippi, died. Again. On February 26, his family members had watched him breathe what they thought was his final breath. He was zipped up in a body bag and taken to the funeral home for preparations. Several hours later, as funeral home staff prepared to move Mr. Williams body to the embalming table, they began noticing noise and movement inside the body bag. When they opened the bag, Williams opened his eyes. The coroner supposes that his pacemaker had malfunctioned, leaving him with no pulse at the time he was declared dead, and that some hours later, it kicked in again, jump-starting his heart just moments before he was embalmed. A few weeks later, he died AGAIN, this time, for good. Looking back on the first event, the coroner pronounced it a miracle.[1] If I were him, that is probably what I would have said too. It sounds better that way. In reality, it seems that it was more mistake than miracle. What we read about Lazarus was a miracle. It was not a medical malfunction or a coroner error that made him appear to be dead. He was DEAD. And He was raised by Jesus, who is the Lord of Life and Death. That is not just an empty claim. Jesus provided a powerful demonstration of the validity of His claim, and we see it here in the text.

I. Jesus’ love demonstrates that He is Lord of Life and Death (vv33-36)

Last Sunday, we looked at a portion of this text and talked about how Jesus intervenes in our grief. We mentioned that Jesus confronts our grief with sovereign initiative, by coming to us and calling for us in the midst of our grief. That is a great comfort, to know that we are not alone in our grieving, and that the Lord Jesus is there with us and He is reaching out to us. We also mentioned that Jesus responds to our grief with surprising emotions. We looked at the Greek word that underlies that ambiguous English phrase, “deeply moved” in verses 33 and 38, and discovered that it really means something like “anger,” or “outrage.” He is outraged at the cause of our grief. The cause of all of our suffering, sickness, death, and grief is sin. We have inherited corruptible bodies because of Adam, and are subject to sickness and death because sin is at work within us, destroying us from the moment of conception, even as its effects are corrupting the entire earth. As Paul says in Romans 8:22-23, “we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” Death is sin’s final blow on human beings, and the Bible calls it an enemy. Therefore, Jesus is outraged at the cause of our grief, because our suffering and death is the work of sin destroying God’s image bearers on the earth.

We also looked at the other emotions Jesus demonstrated here in this text. We noticed that He was troubled by our response to grief. Mary was grieving as if she had no hope beyond the grave for her brother, and she had begun to succumb to the temptation to question the Lord and His goodness and love. The other mourners were putting on a show of artificial and hypocritical sentimentality. It was troubling for the Lord to see this, even as He is troubled when He finds the same within us. Then we noticed from those two profound words, “Jesus wept,” that Jesus weeps with us in sympathy for our grief, mingling His tears with ours.

Now, as comforting and encouraging as those realities about Jesus’ intervention in our grief may be, if we believe that this is all that Jesus can do for us when sin and suffering destroy us in death and grind us in grief, then we have greatly missed the point. I want you to notice something that is said by the bystanders here as they see the emotions that Jesus is displaying. Look at verse 36: “See how He loved Him!” They have arrived at the right conclusion. Jesus did love Lazarus; it is plainly stated in verses 3 and 5. But they arrived at the right conclusion the wrong way.

Do you remember when you were in Math class in school, and the teacher would require you to show your work? The teacher wanted to know, not just that you could come up with the right answer, but that you could get to it the right way. Well, if these folks have come up with the right answer, how did they get to it? They based it on His emotions. They looked at Jesus’ tears and His countenance and concluded that He must have really loved Lazarus. He did, but His love is not chiefly manifested in His tears. His love for Lazarus, and His love for Mary and Martha, and even His love for you and me, is supremely manifested in that He is there.

When I say “there,” I don’t mean “there,” as in, “there with them while they grieve,” although that is certainly true. I mean “there,” as in, “there in Bethany, just on the outskirts of Jerusalem.” He loves Lazarus, and Mary and Martha, and you and me, so much that He is “there,” just outside of Jerusalem at this moment in history. Why is that significant? Ask His disciples. The last time He was in this part of the country, people tried to put Him to death. In verse 8, they tried to stop Him from going back there. They said, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” You and I might say, “Hmm. That’s too bad about Lazarus, but I just can’t go back there. It isn’t safe.” Jesus didn’t say that. Thanks be to God! JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT! He came, knowing that it would be a one-way trip. This is how we know that He loves us: not because He comes back to stand around the tomb and weep over death, but because He comes back to do business with death.

We are barely half way through John, but the remaining portion of the book takes place in the course of one week: the final week of Jesus’ earthly life. In John 12:12, we start reading about Palm Sunday. The raising of Lazarus is the final event prior to the beginning of “Holy Week,” which leads up to the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus had come on a one-way trip to die. But in His dying, He was loving us. Paul says that God demonstrates His love for us in this: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). In His dying, He was dealing with our sins and their penalty (death) fully and finally. He came to take our place in death, to take our sins upon Himself and die as our substitute, bearing the wrath of God that our sins deserve in Himself. And by His resurrection, He slays death, and sin, and hell forever for those who trust in Him. Death is a defeated foe because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

Oh, these people are so right! “See how He loved him!” Indeed, see how Jesus loved him, and how He loves us! But these people are also very wrong. He does not demonstrate His love because He has come to shed tears. He demonstrates His love most supremely in that He has come to shed blood for us! He has come to lay down His life so that the final enemy, death, can be defeated for us all. By His death and resurrection, Jesus was removing the sting from death for all who trust in Him. He demonstrates that He is Lord of Life and Death by loving us all the way to the cross.

II. Jesus’ glory demonstrates that He is Lord of Life and Death (vv37-44)

There were others standing around the tomb who were saying, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” (v37). It’s a fair question I suppose. They aren’t blaspheming Jesus; they recognize that He had demonstrated great power in the past when He healed the blind man in John 9. It is a question that is similar to the expression that both Mary and Martha present to the Lord in verses 21 and 32: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” These statements are similar, but there is one difference. The bystanders are talking about His power – could He not have prevented Lazarus from dying? Did He have that power? And the answer is, “Yes, of course, He could have prevented Lazarus from dying.” But Mary and Martha’s statement concerns, not His power, but His will. They assume He has the power, but they also make a presumption about His will. “He not only could have, He would have prevented Lazarus from dying if He had been here.”  The difference between His power and His will is important for us to know when we pray. There is no situation that we bring to Him that is beyond His power. If you wonder, “Can Jesus …?”, the answer is always, “Yes He can.” If the question is, “Will Jesus …?”, well, that is a matter of divine mystery in some cases. Just because He can does not mean that He always will. And we simply do not know if He would have prevented Lazarus from dying if He had been there. After all, Jesus is not limited by space; He can heal from afar, even as He did on other occasions. He could have prevented Lazarus from dying without coming to Him, but He didn’t. He doesn’t always do what we ask or expect Him to do, even though it is something He could do. This much we know, He will always do that which most vividly displays His glory and that of His Father. In verse 4, Jesus said concerning Lazarus, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” And that is exactly what He is getting ready to do here, in order to demonstrate powerfully that He is Lord over Life and Death.

Jesus asks, “Where have you laid him?”, and the people answer, wisely, “Lord, come and see” (v34). You and I would be tempted to say, “No, Lord, we can’t go there. It is too painful. You don’t need to see that. Let’s have some closure here and just stay away.” But the people said to Jesus, “Lord, come and see.” And so He came to this tomb of Lazarus, a tomb very much like the one He Himself would be placed in just over a week later. And He says, “Remove the stone.” Now they protest. Martha says, in my paraphrase, “Jesus, are you crazy? There is a rotting corpse in there!” She says, “Lord by this time there will be a stench for He has been dead four days!” Jesus doesn’t mind. What is it that you don’t want Him to see in your life? Do you have some sin, some hardship, some monumental grief in your life that you do not want to see because you think it is so filthy? Say with these mourners, “Lord, come and see.” Listen, as He says to you, “Remove the stone. I am about to show you my glory!” He says in verse 40, “Did I not say to you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”

We know what is going to happen. We just read it a few moments ago. But, they don’t know what is about to happen. We can imagine their sense of shock and horror as that weighty stone is removed. But then Jesus shows His glory. He calls out with a loud voice, “Lazarus come forth!” And the Bible says, rather understatedly, “The man who died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth” (vv43-44). This man who was dead is now alive and well with them, and they have seen the awesome glory of Jesus!

His glory was manifested in His unlimited power. No stone or stench could stand against Him. No time or tomb could hinder Him. He is Lord of Life and Death and He is able to bring the dead to life. His glory was manifested in His unfathomable person. Notice His unique relationship with the Father that is shown in His prayer. He speaks to God as to His own Father, and speaks of the intimacy that He has with Him in prayer: “You have heard Me; I knew that You always hear Me.” Notice His unique revelation of the Father. In His prayer, He knows that He is being heard by people around Him, and He says, “Because of the people standing around, I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” Now, there is a lesson and a warning here for those of us who pray aloud in public. Remember that Jesus warned against praying so as to be heard by men, like the Pharisees did. Our intention in public prayer is never to impress people with ourselves by using flowery language and meaningless repetition. That is not what Jesus says He is doing here. He is praying aloud, in their hearing, in order to reveal something of Himself and His Father. So, when we pray aloud, we must not forget that our words will impact those who hear us. Let us choose our words, therefore, so as to make known the glory of God-in-Christ. Jesus was revealing something to them about Himself and His Father, namely that He had been sent by the Father. He was revealing His glory as He prayed and acted there at the tomb of Lazarus. His glory demonstrates that He is Lord over Life and Death.

Now, you might say, “Well, where was He when my loved one died? He didn’t crash the funeral and upset the outcome. They are gone, and they aren’t coming back!” Would that have been glorious, if He had done for your loved one like He did for Lazarus? You say, “Absolutely! What greater glory could He show than to put funeral homes and cemeteries out of business!” Well, you see, Jesus never promised that He would bring the dead back to life here and now. He promised something better, something more glorious. How could He do something better or more glorious than raising someone from the dead? We have to broaden the lens a bit on the Gospel of John to understand how the raising of Lazarus, or the raising of any dead person, brings a limited glory to Christ, but He is glorified even more greatly in something better that He has done.

Turn over to the next Chapter (John 12:23-24). Jesus will tell His disciples, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Do you see what He is saying? He is saying, after being glorified by raising Lazarus, that He still had not been glorified in the fullest sense. He was going to be glorified by His death. Again, turn to John 13:31-33. After the Last Supper with His disciples, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. Little children, I am with you a little while longer.” He is saying, “I am about to be taken away from you in death, and in that death, I will be glorified.” Once more, turn to John 17, and look at how Jesus begins His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of His death: “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (17:1). He goes on in verse 5, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” Over and over again, Jesus spoke of the greatest demonstration of His glory being found in His own death, and His subsequent resurrection.

The raising of Lazarus was just a foretaste of glory. The greatest glory is demonstrated in Jesus’ own death and resurrection, by which He definitely validates His claim to be Lord over Life and Death. In the dying and raising of Lazarus, sure, a family was temporarily reunited. By the death and resurrection of Jesus, a fallen race of humanity was eternally redeemed. By this is He most greatly glorified. And He says to us, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will SEE the glory of God?” (11:40). Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you have better promises than Lazarus had. Lazarus was brought back from death to earthly life, to once again inhabit a corruptible, sinful body and to live in a fallen world, only to die again. But Jesus conquered death forever, and was raised in an imperishable body, a glorified body that is fit for eternity and fit for the glory of heaven. And that is exactly how He has promised to raise you, and your loved one, and all who die believing in Christ. That’s what He means when He says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life, anyone who believes in Me will live even if He dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (11:25-26). You will inhabit a glorified body and you will see with those glorified eyes the very manifestation of the unmediated glory of God. You have to be glorified to see that. No one can look upon God’s glory in that pure and unmediated way and survive the encounter. You would be incinerated by the very sight of it. That’s why we get new bodies, bodies like Jesus had in His resurrection, so that we can stand before God and see His glory without being destroyed by it. That is a far better promise than a few more days or a few more weeks or years here on earth in a corruptible body. You will see glory. Because God has glorified the Lord Jesus Christ through His suffering and death and resurrection. If you believe, you will see the glory of God. And when you believe that, you know that He is Lord of Life and Death.

III. Jesus’ purpose demonstrates that He is Lord of Life and Death (vv42, 45)

Notice when Jesus prays, He says that He has chosen His words, “so that they may believe that You sent Me.” That word that is translated as sent has the sense of being sent to perform some specific task. So, get this, Jesus doesn’t just want us to believe that He is a man who came from God, who came from heaven, but that He came for a specific purpose. And the death and raising of Lazarus tells us something about that purpose. We come to find out through this amazing thing that Jesus did for Lazarus that Lazarus is not the point! The same is true for every miracle Jesus did! The thing Jesus did, in and of itself, was not the point. The point was always in what Jesus was revealing about Himself through the miracle. His miracles revealed something about His divine nature, His sovereign power, His unique person, or as in this case, He redemptive mission. That’s the point. It’s a picture – not a pencil sketch but a High-Definition, 3-Dimensional picture. So, here’s the three dimensions that Jesus is revealing about His purpose – His redemptive mission – here in this miracle.

First, there is a spiritual dimension. You see, what Jesus did for Lazarus was, in some ways unique. It was not like anything He did for anyone else. There were a few others who were raised from the dead, and in spite of their similarities, there were uniquenesses. In the physical realm, like no one else has or ever will experience, these miracles were unique. But, the physical realm is not the point, the spiritual realm is. You see, in the spiritual realm, what Jesus did for Lazarus is not unique. It is the same thing that He promises to do for every single one of us, and what He indeed has done already for a good many of us. You see, every single one of us comes into this world as dead spiritually as Lazarus was physically. The Bible says that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. There is only one solution for death, and that is resurrection. And this is what the Lord Jesus has come to do – to give new life to people who are dead in their sins. Wrap it up, hide it behind a stone, do whatever you want to about it, but in our natural state, we are rotting, stinking spiritual corpses. But Jesus has come to roll away that stone that seals our hard, dead hearts and call us back to life, and He alone has the power to do it. Many of you heard the Lord Jesus call your name and bid you come forth. Others of you may be hearing Him call to you today. He is saying, “Come to Me and live!” That’s the spiritual dimension of this miracle.

Then there is a Christological dimension. Lazarus foreshadows what will happen to Jesus, but it will happen in a far better way in Jesus. Like Lazarus, He will die. But His is a better death. Lazarus died because he was sick, because sin was at work in him, just like it is at work in each of us. Paul says that “death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12). So, in a sense, when Lazarus dies, and when we all die, we are dying for our own sins. But Jesus never sinned. So why did He die? In Jesus death, He was becoming our substitute in death. He died for our sins. He took our sins upon Himself and bore them under the outpouring of God’s divine justice that we all deserve. He died the death that Lazarus could not die, and that you and I cannot die. By His death, He defeats death, for He triumphs over it through His resurrection. Lazarus was raised, but not like Jesus! Jesus was raised with a transformed and glorified body that would never again see death. Lazarus would die again, Jesus never will. He is alive forevermore. As Peter says in 1 Peter 3:18, “Christ … died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” So, what Jesus is doing for Lazarus here foreshadows that greater death and resurrection for which He came, for which He was sent by the Father in the world. He was sent to die, so that He might be raised, so that we might be saved.

Then there is an eschatological dimension to this picture of Jesus’ purpose. Eschatological – that’s a big word, but don’t let it scare you. It the theological term we use to refer to the end of all things, the last days. What Jesus was doing for Lazarus is what He has promised to do for all who trust in Him, in a far better way. Four times in John Chapter 6, Jesus made this promise:

6:39 – “This is the will of Him who sent me, that of all He has given Me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.”

6:40 – “This is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

6:44 – “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

6:54 – “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

He can do this because He is Lord of Life and Death, and here at the tomb of Lazarus, He proves it. You will not be raised like Lazarus, but like Jesus – in a renewed, transformed, glorified body that will never be subject to death and decay. You will live forever on the other side of death in the presence of God-in-Christ, if you have trusted in Him to save you. When Jesus made this promise of never ending life to Martha in verses 25 and 26, He asked her very directly, “Do you believe this?” When He prayed in verse 42, He prayed that people would believe this about Him. And verse 45 says that “many … believed in Him.” Jesus never fails. What He sets out to do, He does. He intended that others would believe in Him as a result of what they saw at the tomb of Lazarus, and they did. He intended that many more would believe in Him as a result of what He did at His own tomb, defeating death forever. And many have, and many more will. And for those who do, their sickness will not end in death, as Jesus said in John 11:4. It will end with you seeing the glory of God face to face for all eternity.

Because Jesus is Lord of Life and Death, the writer of Hebrews says that He is the “mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.” Jesus doesn’t promise that you or loved ones won’t get sick and die. He doesn’t promise that He will show up at every funeral and give more earthly life to those who have died. He promises something better. For those who believe on Him, this is the promise: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away … Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:3-4). Isn’t that a better promise? It is yours, if you have trusted in Christ.

He is the Lord of Life and Death. He has destroyed death at its root by dealing with sin forever through the blood of His cross. He can be your Lord. He died your death so that you might have His life. Have you come to Him? If so, you can rest in His promise. Death is nothing for you to fear. We don’t celebrate it; it is still an enemy. But it is a defeated enemy because of what He has done for us. It is not the end. There is far more, and far better, life awaiting you on the other side of death if you have come to believe on Him. If you have never have, you can today. He stands on the other side of the stone, calling out for you to arise and come forth. He has removed every obstacle that stands between you and life everlasting. He is Lord of Life and Death. Trust Him to be Lord of your life, yes, and even Lord of your death today.

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[1] Various online news reports. 

Jesus Intervenes in Our Grief (John 11:28-40)

Audio 

When I was in Bible College, we had a Southern Gospel quartet come to sing in Chapel one day. Most of the students were really blessed by their ministry there that day, but they sang one song that just left me a little confused. They sang:

I used to sing a sad song, filled with gray skies and rain
I used to sing of no future, sad days with only pain
Now as I look back upon them, seems to me that I find
There were days in the valley, now I’ve left them all behind

Now it’s sunshine and roses, only a thorn now and then
Cool streams, warm breezes, since Jesus took my hand
Green meadows  and laughter, hope within a crumbling time
It’s sunshine and roses, only a thorn now and then.

Though everyone was tapping and clapping along to this very bouncy tune, singing along with hands raised in jubilation, I was scratching my head. It had been several years since Jesus took my hand, and I had not found that life all of a sudden became “sunshine and roses,” with “only a thorn now and then.” Was I not doing something right? Was something wrong with me? Maybe you have felt that way.

We do not have any promise in Scripture that we will escape sufferings, hardships, illnesses or grief in this world. Instead, we are promised that there will be difficulties of great magnitude as we endure this life in this world. That is why it is so hypocritical to portray yourself as free from problems when you come to church. If we know the Bible, and believe it, we know that life will hurt you deeply. You will grieve, even if you are a Christian. People you love will be taken away from you in death, and you will mourn. But Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 that the difference is how Christians grieve. He says there that we are not to grieve as do the rest. We grieve, but we grieve differently than the rest. Why? Because in our grief, we have hope. Paul’s stated desire is that we not “grieve as do the rest who have no hope.” Unlike those who do not know Jesus, we have a sure and certain hope that is able to sustain us in our grief. That sure and certain hope is Christ Himself, who intervenes in our grief.

In our text today, Jesus has come to the home of His friends: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus had become ill, and now he is dead. The family is grieving, they are hurting, and they are confused. Jesus already had an encounter with Martha in the previous portion of the chapter. And now she has come to get her sister. And it is in this encounter with Mary that we discover how it is that the Lord Jesus intervenes in our grief. So, let’s dive into the text and see how it is that Christ intervenes in our grief.

I. The Lord Jesus confronts our grief with sovereign initiative (vv28-30).

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” But, when we are grieving, we feel as if we do not have the energy to take a single step. C. S. Lewis, in the wakeof his wife’s death, wrote, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. … At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. … And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief. … [A]s a dog-tired man wants an extra blanket on a cold night; he’d rather lie there shivering than get up and find one.”[1] It is a journey of a thousand miles that begins with a single step – a step that we do not feel that we can take. But thank God, that first step is not taken by us, but by the Lord Jesus as He comes to us with sovereign initiative to confront us in our grief.

Notice how He has done that for Mary here in our text. Mary is not out seeking the Lord. She is in the house, grieving in the company of others who are grieving with her. But Martha brings her a message: “The Teacher is here.” He has come to her, and He comes to us when we are grieving. He takes the sovereign initiative. He is not sitting idly by and waiting for us to muster the strength and courage to come to Him. He is moved with compassion to come along side of us, to encompass us with His love.

Notice that, not only does He come to us in our grief, but He calls us to come to Him. “The teacher is here and is calling for you.” He is personally concerned for Mary and is calling to her and inviting her to come to Him, just as she is, even in the brokenness of her grief. And He does the same for us. Friends, Jesus loves you and is concerned for you as an individual. He comes to you and calls to you, and beckons you to come to Him.

You might think, “Oh, I could never go to Jesus in the state I am in.” Maybe that is a state of brokenness or grief, as we find Mary here. If so, you might think you need to pull yourself together before you could ever go to Him. Or maybe your state is one of sinfulness – you’ve been living in a way that you know is displeasing to God – and you think that you should clean yourself up, and then you will consider going to Jesus. But friends, His love for us is unconditional. He calls us to come to Him just as we are. But He loves us too much to let us stay just as we are. He desires to change us. If you are broken and need mending, He will mend you. If you are morally unclean, He will clean you. If you are weak, He will strengthen you. You cannot pull yourself together or clean yourself up apart from Him. So know that He is here, and know that He calls to you, and then do as Mary did. When she heard that He was present and calling for her, she “got up quickly” and came to Him. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and He has taken all of them to come to you – all of them but one, that is. The final step is yours and only you can take it.

This is how He confronts our grief with sovereign initiative. When we are unable and unwilling to draw near to Him, He comes to us, and He calls for us. Now, let’s press forward in the text and observe …

II. The Lord Jesus responds to our grief with surprising emotions (vv31-35).

As you can probably imagine, I go to a lot of funerals. They are emotional occasions, and the emotions cover the whole spectrum at times. I have seen people at funerals who were distantly indifferent to the mourners’ grief; others have been uncontrollably demonstrative in their expressions of sorrow; and at times I have seen what strikes me as an inappropriate lightheartedness and frivolity. I can’t help thinking that any of these extremes are inappropriate in such occasions, especially for a Christian. Is there a right Christian perspective, a right balance of emotions that Christians should have in the face of loss and death? If so, we should be able to find it in Scripture and in the person of the Lord Jesus. He was no stranger to funerals, and in our text here, He attends one of a dear friend and responds to their grief with surprising emotions.

Before we see Jesus’ emotional response to the grief of Lazarus’ death, you will notice in verse 33 that His display of emotion is prompted by that which He finds in Mary and the other mourners present. His emotion is a response to theirs. The Bible tells us that Mary was “weeping, and the Jews who came with her were also weeping.” Who were these people? Verse 19 says that there were many of them, and they had come to console the family. An understanding of ancient Jewish funeral customs, which were far different from ours today, helps us understand what is going on here. First, mourners in that culture were expected to be very demonstrative, grieving with loud cries and wails. The greater the noise, the better, as far as they were concerned. Therefore, there was an expectation that the family would hire professional mourners to keep the noise and tears flowing throughout the seven day period of intense grieving. Even for the poorest of families, D. A. Carson explains, “it was customary … to hire a minimum of two flute players and a professional wailing woman. The flute players would play dirges in minor keys to increase the solemnity and sadness of the occasion, and the professional wailing woman would increase the volume level every time it lowered.”[2] Undoubtedly many of those with Mary were there because they had been hired. Their mourning was artificial and manufactured, performed just for show. Mary’s was real. Her words express the emptiness of her soul: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” There is genuine hopeless anguish in her heart. There is a great noise of manufactured despair surrounding her. This prompts Jesus to reveal His emotions in response to her grief.

The first emotion we find in Jesus is in verse 33: “He was deeply moved.” That’s really not a good translation of the Greek word used here. The phrase “deeply moved” is not only ambiguous (to the extent of losing all meaning), but it is inaccurate. The word that is used in the original Greek text is a word that is used in Greek literature to refer to the snorting of horses. When used of humans, both within the New Testament and elsewhere, it invariably conveys the idea of outrage (as Carson explains).[3] Note this, the funeral of Lazarus has made Jesus, first of all, angry.

That begs the question: Why is Jesus outraged at His friend’s funeral? He is outraged at the cause of this grief. What caused this grief? Death. What causes death? In some cases, like that of Lazarus, it is precipitated by sickness. But what is the cause of all sickness and death in the human race? It is sin. I am not at all saying that if, for instance, someone has cancer or someone has died, that it is punishment for some sin in their life. Rather, I am saying that the Bible makes it clear that when Adam sinned, the entire human race was subjected to suffering and death. Therefore, all manifestations of sickness, suffering, and death are rooted in the lingering effects of the fall of humanity into sin. As Paul states in Romans 5:12, “through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” We inherit a sinful nature and a corruptible body that was not part of God’s design for humanity because of the sin of Adam. But, we are not just sinners by nature; we are also all sinners by choice. In other words, if Adam had not been our representative in sin, we would be no better off, for each of us has willfully chosen rebellion over obedience to God. God’s design for humanity was to live in health and wholeness, and to live forever in His presence. But sin caused there to be a separation and a rending of that design. As a result, we suffer and we die as sin works out its effects in the entire human race. Therefore, outrage is an entirely righteous and God-glorifying reaction to suffering, death and grief. Jesus looks upon this scene, with one dear friend dead and entombed, and another one being torn apart by grief, and He sees beyond the immediate scene to the ultimate and eternal one. This is what sin has done to that creature whom God has fearfully and wonderfully made in His own image.

I wonder if we have rightly responded to grief if we have not reached this emotional state. We go to funerals, and we go to the casket to view the deceased, and someone will say, “She looks good, doesn’t she?” I am always at a loss for words there. What we are seeing in that casket is not pretty. It is the wages of sin – not necessarily a specific sin committed by that person, but the wages of sin being dealt out to the entire human race because of our rebellion against the Lord. The Bible does not depict death as a good or happy thing to celebrate, not even for believers. Redemption from sin through the Lord Jesus Christ is a thing to celebrate, as are the promises of His gospel. But we should not celebrate death. The Bible calls it an enemy. It is destructive. It robs us of our loved ones here on earth, and it will take us as well. So, when we view a corpse, we are seeing the final blow that sin has dealt on humanity. How should we respond? Grief, surely, is appropriate. But when we consider the cause of our grief, the hideous work that sin has done on our race, we should be outraged, even as Jesus was. He is outraged by the cause of our grief.

Then notice that immediately in verse 33, we read that He was troubled. This word carries a different connotation. As I look at the uses of this word in the New Testament, I am inclined to give it the sense of being “puzzled,” but I know that the all-knowing, all-powerful Lord of glory is never puzzled. Perhaps the idea is something like “bewildered.” Our translators have chosen “troubled,” and that will suffice for us here. Why is He troubled? Apparently, He is troubled by the response to grief that He sees here. Look at the troubling elements of what is going on here.

First, in Mary’s grief, she has yielded to the temptation to question the love and goodness of the Lord. When she says in verse 32, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died,” it is hard to miss the obvious disappointment that she feels. The Lord has let her down. It is troubling for the Lord to see this, given their past friendship. This family has loved the Lord and known His love for them. They have served Him, Mary has sat at His feet basking in the glory of His words. And now, she expresses doubt in His concern for her. It is a strong temptation, one which the devil loves to bring our way in times of grief. His original temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden was to cause her to question God’s goodness and trustworthiness. Now, the serpent has hissed in Mary’s ear, even as he has done to so many of us in our most difficult moments. It troubles the Lord when He sees us succumb to this temptation and question His love and goodness, in spite of all that we have experienced in our walk with Him.

Then notice that He is troubled by the hopeless despair and demonstration of grief. He is troubled that there is no hope in her sorrow. He is troubled that she is grieving like the hopeless multitude who do not know the grace and glory of the Lord Jesus. In His bewilderment, it is as if He desires to say, “Mary, shall you not grieve differently than all the others, since you know Me and have believed my promises?” He would say the same to us. When grief blinds us to the promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and pushes us into the deep canyons of hopeless sorrow, it is troubling to the Lord. He is troubled by our response to grief. The most depressing place I know of in the world is at the funeral of an unbeliever with an unbelieving family. They are drowning in grief, without the hope of Christ to secure them, and it is troubling! But, it is equally, if not more, troubling when a professed believer in Christ grieves as if there is no hope beyond the grave. We do not expect an exuberant celebration of joy, but we could hope to see the light of hope glimmering in their eyes. It’s refracted through their tears, but it is there, flickering. When we do see it, it is an amazing testimony to the Lord and to the person’s unshakable faith in Him. But so often, we see people, even those who profess to know Him, being swallowed alive by hopeless despair, and it should trouble us, even as it troubles the Lord Jesus.  

And then notice the third emotion He demonstrates. Verse 35 is the shortest verse in the Bible. It says, simply, Jesus wept. He comes along side of His own in their moments of devastating grief and mingles His tears with our own. He weeps with us in sympathy for our grief. The word “sympathy” means more than feeling sorry for someone. It means “feeling together” with them what they feel. It is to share in their heartache and sadness and hurt with them. Genuine sympathy communicates from our heart to theirs that they are not alone in their sorrow. And that is what Jesus has come to do for Mary. He does it still for us. He weeps with us, His tears joining ours as He comes along side of us in our grief. What grieves you grieves Him. He is “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,” Isaiah foretold (Isa 53:3). He knows the pain and anguish that can afflict us in this life. He weeps alongside of us as we do.

What we see here in the emotions of Jesus ought to have an effect on us. It should comfort and encourage us to know that He is infinitely more outraged by sin and death than we can ever be; He is more deeply troubled than we can ever experience by the fears, the hopelessness, and the seeds of unbelief that begin to take root in grieving hearts. He is more sympathetic and compassionate with those who mourn than we can ever be. But, not only is this a comfort to us, it is also a model for us. How shall we, as Christians, respond to death and grief? As we look to our Master, we find that outrage at the deadliness of sin is fitting, as is the troubling of the spirit that is provoked by scenes of hopeless despair, but there must also be that compassionate sympathy that weeps real tears along side of those who are grieving. There is a delicate balance in these emotions that is quite unnatural for us to strike. As Carson so profoundly observes, “grief and compassion without outrage reduce to mere sentiment, while outrage without grief hardens into self-righteous arrogance.”[4] It is only as we yield our emotions to the Spirit of Christ, who indwells us and who perfectly exemplifies this right balance of emotions, that we can maintain a healthy Christian perspective on grief.

So, here at the funeral of a friend, the Lord Jesus is seen to confront our grief with sovereign initiative, and to respond to our grief with surprising emotion. Now, finally, and most gloriously, we see …

III. The Lord Jesus overcomes our grief with saving power (vv36-40).

(Because of time constraints, this point did not get included in the preaching of this message on April 27, 2014)

It is a wonderful thing to know that Jesus comes to us and calls us. It is amazingly comforting to know that the death that rips our families apart and steals our loved ones away outrages Him; and that He is troubled by our failure to hold onto hope in the midst of our grief; and that He weeps with us. These things are a great comfort to our souls. But, friends, if we leave here today thinking that this is all that Jesus has done to address our grief and suffering, then we have missed the most important point.

Notice what people around Jesus are saying. In verse 36, they notice His tears, and they say, “See how He loved him!” And in verse 37, some of them are saying, “Could not this man, who opened they eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” Two groups of people, two interpretations of the situation, and both of them are right, and both of them are wrong.

Some think Jesus’ tears are an expression of His love for Lazarus. Well, they are right. Jesus loved Lazarus. The Bible says that plainly (vv 3, 5). But Jesus’ love for Lazarus is not chiefly manifested in His tears. His love for Lazarus, and His love for Mary and Martha, and even His love for you and me, is supremely manifested in that He is there. When I say “there,” I don’t mean “there,” as in, “there with them while they grieve,” although that is certainly true. I mean “there,” as in, “there in Bethany, just on the outskirts of Jerusalem.” His disciples understood the significance of this. The last time He was in this part of the country, people tried to put Him to death. In verse 8, they tried to stop Him from coming, and they said, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” You and I might say, “Hmm. That’s too bad about Lazarus, but I just can’t go back there. It isn’t safe.” Jesus didn’t say that. Thanks be to God! JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT! He came, knowing that it would be a one-way trip. You see, Jesus loves Lazarus, and Mary, and Martha, and you, and me, and everyone else who has ever walked this earth so much that He came back. He didn’t just come back to stand around the tomb and weep over death. He came to do business with death. We are barely half way through John, but the remaining portion of the book takes place in the course of one week: the final week of Jesus’ earthly life. In John 12:12, we start reading about Palm Sunday. He had come on a one-way trip to die. The final walk to the cross begins here! But in His dying, He was dealing with sin and death fully and finally. He came to take our place in death, to take our sins upon Himself and die as our substitute, bearing the wrath of God that our sins deserve in Himself. And by His resurrection, He slays death, and sin, and hell forever for those who trust in Him. Death is a defeated foe because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Oh, these people are so wrong. His tears do not just mean that Jesus loved Lazarus. But they are so right! “See how He loved him!” See how He loves you and me! Don’t see it in the tears that He sheds, although it is there. See it most supremely in that He sheds blood for us! He lies down His life so that the final enemy, death, can be defeated for us all. By His death and resurrection, He was removing the sting from death for all who trust in Him. He says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies” (11:25).  

He comes to look death square in the face. He says in verse 34, “Where have you laid Him?” You and I would be tempted to say, “No, Lord, we can’t go there. It is too painful. You don’t need to see that. Let’s have some closure here and just stay away.” But the people said to Jesus, “Lord, come and see.” And so He came to this tomb of Lazarus, a tomb very much like the one He Himself would be placed in just over a week later. And He says, “Remove the stone.” Now they protest. Martha says, in my paraphrase, “Jesus, are you crazy? There is a rotting corpse in there!” She says, “Lord by this time there will be a stench for He has been dead four days!” Jesus doesn’t mind. What is it that you don’t want Him to see in your life? Do you have some sin, some hardship, some monumental grief in your life that you do not want to see because you think it is so filthy? Say with these mourners, “Lord, come and see.” Listen, as He says to you, “Remove the stone. I am about to show you my glory!” He says in verse 40, “Did I not say to you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”

You and I probably know what’s about to happen. He is going to pray, and then He will speak three words, and that dead man is going to come out of the tomb! But they don’t know that yet. Some of them are saying, “Couldn’t He have prevented Lazarus from dying?” They are right. He could have. But they are wrong in thinking that there is nothing that He can do for Him now. He is getting ready to bring that dead man back to life. You might say, “How is that comforting to me? He didn’t do that for my loved one! They are gone, and they aren’t coming back!” But you see, Jesus never promised that He would bring the dead back to life here and now. He promised something better. You see, Lazarus isn’t finished with sin, sickness, or death. We aren’t told the specifics, but we know that he will be touched by sin again, he will get sick again, and he will die again. What a shame for him to have to endure that all over again! Jesus promised to do something better for you. Because He tasted death for you, and conquered it forever, He can say to you, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” Get that – you will SEE the glory of God. You will see it with your own eyes, in all of its fullness. As Job 19:25-26 says, “I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh, I shall see God.” You will see far more glory than those people saw that day. If you trust in Him, you will stand in the very presence of God and see His unmediated glory because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. He says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life; … everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (11:26). Oh, you will close your eyes to life here, but you will open them a life that never ends, lived out for eternity in the presence and the inexpressible glory of God, never again to be touched by sin, or by the nasty fruit it bears in our corruptible bodies that we occupy here and now, never again to be afflicted by grief, by sickness or by death.

This is what we are promised: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away … Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:3-4). The Lord Jesus has overcome our grief with His saving power forever through His own death and resurrection. It doesn’t mean you won’t grieve in this life. But you won’t grieve alone, and you won’t grieve like the rest of men do who have no hope. You will grieve with a true Christ-like perspective on death, He will grieve along side of you, and you will be secured as you rest in the saving promises of the Lord Jesus.  Death is not final for those who trust in Him. You will see the glory of God when this corruptible life in this fallen world has come to an end.

He has come to you. Have you come to Him? You might say, “Oh, I am just a mess. I could never come to Jesus like this. Let me straighten myself up a bit and then I will come to Him.” Friends you will never straighten yourself up apart from Him. He has come to you, and He invites you to come, just as you are, and promises to transform you by His power that conquered sin and death forever for you. Would you come to Him? He has come to you, and is calling you, and saying, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” Arise quickly, and come to Him.

Prayer

Silence

Hymn # 337 Nothing But the Blood

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[1] C. S.Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York:Bantam, 1976, 1-4).

[2] D. A.Carson, Scandalous (Wheaton, Ill.:Crossway, 2010), 130-131.

[3] Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 415.

[4] Ibid., 416.

Depressed Disciples and the Living Lord (Luke 24:13-15, Easter 2014)

Audio

Easter Sunday is a special day for Christians. But in some sense, it is also just another Sunday for us. You see, we do not come together just once a year to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Every Sunday, we gather to commemorate, to celebrate, and to communicate that we serve the death-proof King who has saved us by His grace. Still, there is something uniquely special about this particular Sunday for most Christians. Even for some non-Christians, Easter is a special day for dressing up, gathering with family or friends, and maybe even that annual sojourn to church. But not everyone understands or appreciates Easter Sunday. Some think it is about rabbits that lay chocolate eggs. I am not a biologist or a zoologist, but I know enough to know that if you ever see a rabbit lay a chocolate egg, you do NOT want to eat it! Easter is ultimately about the historical fact that some 2,000 years ago, the tomb of Jesus was empty because He had conquered death through His resurrection. He proclaims victoriously, “I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore” (Rev 1:8). 

There are, of course, many who do not believe that the resurrection of Jesus explains the empty tomb. Since the first century, one of the most often repeated “alternative suggestions” is that the disciples of Jesus stole the body. If we read the New Testament’s honest depiction of the disciples following the crucifixion of Jesus, we find that this was not a clever band of con-artists scheming to find a way to pull off history’s greatest hoax. The resurrection of Jesus, even though He Himself had foretold it numerous times, was the farthest thing from their minds. On Thursday night, most of them completely defected and abandoned the Lord when the mob came to arrest Him. Peter denied even knowing Him to save his own skin. John kept a safe and silent distance. After Jesus died, most of the disciples all seem to have just gone their separate ways. When Jesus did appear to them, most of them didn’t recognize Him, because He was the last person they expected to see. Every single one of them was surprised by their encounter with Him following His resurrection. They were hardly the kind of people that could pull off a very convincing hoax.

Following Friday’s crucifixion, they were dismayed, discouraged, and disillusioned. In a word, they were depressed. That’s how we find the two on the road to Emmaus in our text. Who were they? Well, we know one of them was named Cleopas. The other one was almost certainly his wife, whose name was Mary. The whole family were devout followers of Jesus; one of their sons was the apostle known as James the Less. Mary was with those who watched Jesus die on Friday. And now, on Sunday morning, she and her husband are walking the long road back to their home in Emmaus. And they are depressed.

Can you relate? Have you ever had your hopes dashed on the rocky shore of disillusionment? Have you ever held to something by faith and found in the end that it was all empty and in vain? Has Jesus ever not done something that you fully expected and trusted Him to do? Have you stood with your head in your hands and thought, “I never thought it would turn out like this!” Waves of discouragement are crashing over you, burying you, and you can feel the flame of faith dying slowly in your heart. If you haven’t ever felt that way, you most likely will one day, because it happens to us all. If you find yourself walking along the Emmaus Road depressed and discouraged, there is Someone who wants to come along side of you and change your perspective. That someone is the Risen Lord Jesus. In our text, we find the characteristics of depressed disciples. We will probably find some encouragement as we see those characteristics because we will see that we are not alone, and our situation is not new or unique. But, thanks be to God, we don’t just see the characteristics, we see the cure for depressed disciples as well. We can be changed through a fresh encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus.

I. The Characteristics of Depressed Disciples.

Can you envision Cleopas and Mary as they walk this seven mile journey from Jerusalem to Judea? Maybe they are walking slowly, shuffling their sandaled feet, kicking a pebble every few steps, shoulders shrugged, head down. And the Bible says that they were talking with each other about “all these things” which had taken place. You know how it is, when you have seen an unspeakable tragedy, those images stain your mind for a long time. Maybe Mary is telling Cleopas, “You should have seen it. They tortured our Jesus! I have never seen anything so horrific! They drove nails into His hands and feet. There was so much blood! There was so much agony and anguish. He was crying out as He died. It broke my heart to hear Him say, ‘My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?’ You should have seen His mother. What will she do now? Who will care for her?” Maybe Cleopas is saying, “The fellows are all confused. I didn’t know what to tell them. Peter said he’s going to take up fishing again. I don’t know what we will do now.” And on and on it would go, seven miles, seven hours (so the scholars tell us), all the way back to Emmaus.

You might have walked that road before. Your head hung low, kicking stones along the path, rehashing over and over again the depressing circumstances that engulf you. Let’s observe what the text says about these depressed disciples. Notice that they have surrendered. They have just given up. What direction are they walking? Verse 13 tells us that they are walking away from Jerusalem, away from the center of Christian fellowship. Depression will do that to you. When the thing you need most is to surround yourself with godly encouragers, something within you says, “They don’t know what you are going through. They can’t help you. Just give up and walk away.” And so you do, just like Mary and Cleopas did on that day. You might be sitting here in church today, but your heart is already seven miles down the road. Maybe you’ve been so disappointed by God’s failure to do for you what you expect Him to do that you are already planning to take your first steps along that road. It is a well worn path. We can still see the footprints of many of our friends and family members who have walked that road before us. They were walking with the Lord, then the bottom fell out in their lives, and they gave up and walked away from Christ and the Church. That is essentially what Cleopas and Mary are doing here in the text.

Verse 17 tells that they were looking sad. They were so sad, they could not even perceive the presence of the Risen Lord Jesus as He joined them on the journey. Verses 15-16 says that Jesus Himself approached and began travelling with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. Jesus says to them (v17), “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?” And they stood still, looking sad. Everything in them probably wants to say, “Look Mister! This is an A and B conversation, so ‘C’ your way out of it and mind your own business!” In verse 18, Cleopas speaks up from his sadness and says, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?” Do you see the irony of that question? In point of fact, Jesus is the only One who is fully aware of the things which have taken place! He knows better than they do what has happened in Jerusalem this weekend. But their countenance is so downcast in sadness that they fail to perceive that it is Him. Friends, as you walk this depressing road to Emmaus in your sadness, you need to know that you are not walking alone. Jesus is coming along side of you, and He wants in on the conversation. You might want to tell Him to just butt out and mind His own business, but you see, you are His business. Your hurts, your sorrows, your sadness is very much His business. Would you say to Him, “You wouldn’t even understand. You don’t even know what is going on?” But friends, what we must understand is that Jesus is the only one who truly understands the hurts of our heart. He knows what you’ve been through. He knows where you have been. He knows where you are going. The Bible tells us that He is “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa 53:3). Hebrews 4 promises us that “we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.” Why don’t you talk to Him about the things that have made you sad? He already knows all about it. In fact, He knows more about it than you do.

Not only are they surrendered and sad, but also notice that these depressed disciples are shattered. They began to rehearse to the Stranger on the road all that they had observed over the weekend: how this One called Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet might in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, had been sentenced to death and crucified by the chief priests and rulers (vv19-20). And then notice these heartbreaking words in verse 21: “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.” Have you ever spoken of your hope using past-tense verbs? We were hoping. That means that they aren’t anymore. Their hopes have been shattered. So shattered are they that they have abandoned their hopes in spite of numerous evidences that Jesus is alive. They have been told by two different groups of people that the tomb was empty (v22, 24). They have been told that there was an angel who had proclaimed that Jesus was alive (v23). They didn’t listen. They just kept packing their bags for Emmaus. What’s more than this even, they don’t even recognize that the Living Lord Jesus is walking right beside of them and talking to them. How much more proof do you need that Jesus is alive?

Maybe that is where you are today. You are absorbed in the sadness, the sorrow, the shattered hopes that life has stolen away from you. But Jesus is alive. “Yeah, yeah,” you might say, “I am not so sure about that now.” But, what about the time that He first drew near to you and saved you? What about the time that you were in a desperate circumstance and Jesus came to you and brought you through it? What about the time that you opened the Bible and it came to life on the page as you encountered Him in His Word? What about the countless times you have seen Him radically transform the lives of others? He has proven it to you over and over again: He is alive! But you just ignore that, block it out of your mind, and keep packing. Keep walking. That is what so many are doing.  

These are the characteristics of depressed disciples. They are so surrendered that they walk away from the center of Christian fellowship. They are so saddened that they cannot perceive the presence of Jesus with them in the midst of their suffering. They are so shattered that they are oblivious to the many convincing proofs (Acts 1:3) by which He has proven that He is alive forevermore? We’ve all been there. Or else we all will be one day. Some might be there today. You might ask, “Can a Christian really ever feel that way?” Certainly. No one is immune to these things. Cleopas and Mary were as much disciples of Jesus as any other has ever been. And they were not alone. This sense of despair had affected every follower of Jesus on that weekend. And still today, it can infect entire churches. For any number of reasons, a church can find itself just going through the motions of religiosity without any real hope, any real faith, or any real living passion for the Living Lord Jesus. At times it is pandemic. I think of the words of G. Campbell Morgan who, in his preaching on this very text of Scripture, characterized the condition of churches across England in the early twentieth century as “everywhere an appalling flatness.” He says that there was “a marked cooling of enthusiasm, a lack of passion, an absence of fire.”[1] What of us today? What is there but an appalling flatness when we count the seconds until we can break out of the church doors to fill our bellies on Sunday afternoon? What is there but an appalling flatness when we are not driven by a sense of burning desire to gather with the saints to pray or to come along side them in their suffering? What is there but an appalling flatness when evangelism, mission and ministry are engaged by but a tiny remnant of the congregation? What is there but an appalling flatness when the work of the Lord is put on hold because we have no concern to be involved in discussions related to the church’s business affairs? Have we become like those depressed disciples who are so immersed in our own shattered hopes and frozen faith that we forget that Jesus is alive and walking with us on this road to Emmaus? If we are not already depressed, the very appalling flatness of it all (to use Morgan’s words) is enough to depress us. What do we need? How can it be remedied? Thank God there is an answer here in this Easter text of Scripture!

II. The Cure for Depressed Disciples.

What would it take to rekindle the fire that has gone out in the hearts of depressed disciples? What would it take to return vitality to that appalling flatness that affects so many of Christ’s followers?  Let’s look at two people who found that flame rekindled and see how it took place. It wasn’t a vision, a voice, a ritual or an experience that rekindled the fire of faith and hope within these depressed disciples. It happened as the Lord Jesus, before they ever recognized Him, opened to them the Word of God and began to point them to His truth that it contains. At the root of their woeful condition was a failure to grasp by faith the full truth of the entirety of God’s Word. How do we know that? Look at how the conversation turns in verse 25.

Cleopas and Mary had rehearsed all that had taken place over the weekend. But in verse 25, Jesus says to them, “O foolish men and slow of hear to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” They had read about the coming Messiah, and how He would bring people out of bondage and into a time of peace and prosperity. Like most people in their day, their assumption was that He was going to raise an army and storm Jerusalem to throw off the shackles of Roman oppression and restore Israel to its former glory. But Jesus didn’t do that. He went in and got Himself killed. And their hopes were shattered. They knew the Scriptures, but they had selectively chosen which parts of it to believe. Jesus says that they were foolish for being slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. The prophets had clearly spoken of a Savior who was coming to redeem humanity from the curse of sin through His own suffering. Therefore it was necessary for Jesus to suffer these things and to enter into His glory. Verse 27 says, “Then, beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”

It must have been the greatest Old Testament Bible Study lesson ever taught. Jesus taught them how He fulfilled every single promise God had made from the beginning, from the Seed of Woman in Genesis 3:15 to the suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 and everything between and beyond. It all pointed to Him. Now, this is the interesting part. It was this careful, detailed exposition of Scripture that rekindled the fire of faith in their hearts. Notice in verse 32, after they had realized that it was Jesus who had been with them, and after He had vanished from their midst, they said, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” It was the word of God that lit the fire afresh within them. If it is to happen to us, it will happen the same way. You might think, “What we really need today is a new church program or a weeklong revival service. Let’s sing some new songs! That will excite us again.” You might think, “What we really need is for Jesus to come and make Himself visible to us, or to speak audibly to us. Then we would be on fire for Him.” But is that what it took for Cleopas and Mary? No, before they ever knew it was Him, their hearts were set ablaze by the page-by-page and verse-by-verse exposition of the Word of God. He showed them how the whole biblical metanarrative centered on Him as promised Redeemer who would rescue us from sin and death by His own sacrificial death and His glorious resurrection. And here is the wonderful truth of that – it can happen to us today. Every time we open this marvelous book, the flint is struck, and sparks fly toward our cold hearts to set them ablaze with a white-hot passion for His glory.

The Psalmist said, “The unfolding of Your words gives light” (Psalm 119:130). Look how it happens. Cold hearts are fanned into flame by His truth. Once that fire really burns in you, you will mourn the thought of it ever growing cold. As they arrive at their home in Emmaus, still unaware of the true identity of this stranger, Jesus “acted as though He were going farther.” But, they could not bear the thought of cutting their time with Him short. They invited Him in to stay. And He did! And He will for us too. He will not barge through doors that we have barred and double-bolted against Him. He will walk on to another place, looking for doors that are opened by hot hearts of faith. But if you invite Him in, He will come, and He will pour gas on that fire and stoke into a towering inferno.  

Notice what happens next. Once those hearts are set on fire by His truth, notice how that flame illuminates their darkened eyes to His presence. Cold hearts never open blind eyes. But once the heart is burning, Jesus is seen clearly with the eyes of faith. This Stranger who had walked with them suddenly becomes recognizable to them as they watch Him break and bless the bread around their table. But before the opened eyes, there had to be the hot heart. You say, “Yes, that is what I want. I want to see Him and know that He is here with Me. Why doesn’t He show Himself?” Well, notice what happens. As soon as they recognize that it is Him, He vanishes from their sight (v31). In nearly every appearance that the Risen Lord made to His disciples, He vanishes from sight at some point. Morgan writes, “The chief value in each case was not in the appearing, but in the vanishing.”[2] He was teaching them in His vanishing that we need not see Him with our eyes to know that we have been in His presence, that He is alive, and that He abides with us still. As hearts burn with His truth, eyes of faith are opened to His presence to know that He has not left us nor forsaken us, and we refuse to let our circumstances dictate otherwise.

But there is more. When the Word of God is unfolded and light breaks forth from it, tired feet are set in motion for His mission. Notice in verse 33 that “they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem.” That very hour is important. Go back to verse 29 when they pleaded with the Lord to tarry with them. They said, “Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.” By this point it was late evening. They had walked for seven hours and seven miles that day. Have you ever walked for seven hours or seven miles? I did that on multiple consecutive days while I was hiking on vacation. After one very long hike, Donia said, “Why don’t we walk over to this place,” which was quite a ways away. I said, “Why don’t you go and come back and tell me about it.” Oh, but that is not what these disciples said. Their tired feet are quickly set in motion and they set out to travel seven more miles to return to tell the others what they had seen and experienced with the Risen Lord. Are you tired? Are you weary? Shoulders ache from burdens carried, hands throb from hours serving, bodies are exhausted from much labor. But when our hearts are set ablaze by God’s truth, our feet are set in motion for His mission. If your feet are set in motion for the mission of Christ, you are waiting for the benediction today, not so you can go eat your Easter ham, but so that you can go and report to others that Jesus is alive and tell them what He has done for you!

And that brings us to the final result of the rekindled fire of faith: silent tongues are set loose to proclaim His glory. As soon as they got back to Jerusalem, they gathered together with the other disciples and said, “The Lord has really risen!” and they “began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of bread.” They told them two true stories – they told the objective story of the Risen Lord Jesus. They told how He had really conquered sin and death, how He had really done all that the prophets had foretold, and how He had really secured salvation for His people through His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His glorious resurrection! Then they told their story – they subjective account of their own personal encounter with Him. Al Mohler has recently said, “At the end of the day, the greatest obstacle to evangelism is Christians who don’t share the Gospel.”[3] But you might say, “I don’t know what to say to another person?” You have a great example right here in the text: tell the objective facts of Jesus’ story – His life, death and resurrection; and tell your story of how you came to know Him and walk with Him by faith. When our hearts are set on fire with God’s truth, our tongues will be set loose to proclaim His glory. We won’t be able to not tell it. We will be like the prophet Jeremiah who said, “If I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it” (Jer 20:9).

My primary aim on this Easter Sunday is to address the Church of Jesus Christ – particularly those disciples of Jesus who have given up, who have become sad, whose hopes have been shattered, and who are kicking rocks along the road to Emmaus in a state of appalling spiritual flatness. I want you to know that the living Lord Jesus is walking alongside of you, trying to join the conversation and unfold the truth of His word to you to rekindle the fire of faith set you ablaze for His glory so that you might burn in your hearts, see with your eyes, run with tireless energy and proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Jesus is alive. That ought to make a difference in how you live, how you worship, how you fellowship with other believers, how you pray, and how you serve Him. It seems incongruous for Jesus to be the living Lord over a dying church. Meet Him afresh in the pages of the Word of God and allow Him to bring your smoldering embers back to a burning flame.

Maybe you are here today, and you aren’t a follower of Jesus, you have never personally trusted in Him as Lord and Savior. You surely know that we have not come to church today to celebrate fuzzy bunnies who lay chocolate eggs. We have come because we believe that some 2,000 years ago, God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ and He lived a sinless life of perfect righteousness, yet was condemned to die on the cross. But His death was no accident in the purpose and plan of God. It was the very reason He came, for in His death, God was dealing fully and finally with the sins of the human race. He became your substitute under the just judgment and wrath of the Father. He bore your sin and its penalty, and He conquered it forever through His resurrection. Jesus Christ is alive forevermore, and we come not on this day only, but on every Lord’s day, to celebrate this truth. Because in Him, our sins have been cleansed and forgiven, and we have received by faith His very righteousness so that we might be saved and reconciled to God. I want to ask you today to consider that He might be coming alongside of you along life’s road. You weren’t looking for Him, but He came looking for you.

That was what Malcolm Muggeridge found. He was one of the most well-known cynical agnostics in all of England in the middle of the twentieth century. Muggeridge wrote, “I never wanted a God, or feared a God, or felt under any necessity to invent one. Unfortunately, I am driven to the conclusion that God wants me.”[4] What happened in his life? Muggeridge was dispatched by the BBC to the Holy Land to produce three documentaries on the New Testament. He says that as he toured the various sites from Christian history, he was convinced that it was all a fraud. That is, until he saw “a party of Christian pilgrims at one of these shrines, their faces bright with faith, their voices as they sang so evidently and joyously aware of their Saviour’s near-ness.” Muggeridge says, “I, too, became aware that there really had been a man, Jesus, who was also God. I was conscious of His presence.”[5] Where did it happen? It happened along the road to Emmaus. Muggeridge says,

As my friend and I walked along like Cleopas and his friend, we recalled as they did the events of the Crucifixion and its aftermath in the light of our utterly different and yet similar world. Nor was it a fancy that we too were joined by a third presence. And I tell you that wherever the walk, and whoever the wayfarers, there is always this third presence ready to emerge from the shadows and fall in step along the dusty, stony way.[6]

Muggeridge says, “On every walk, … whether to Emmaus, or Wimbledon, or Timbuktu, there is the same stranger wanting to accompany us along our way, if we want Him.”[7]

I close today by asking you this question: “Do you want Him?” He ever lives to save you and set you free from sin and set you ablaze for His glory in the world. He will not beat down your door. He will walk on farther, because somewhere there is a door that is open to Him. But if you want Him, He will tarry with you as you receive Him by faith as your Living Lord and Savior today.

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[1] G. Campbell Morgan, “The Rekindled Fire,” in Great Sermons on the Resurrection of Christ. Wilbur Smith, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1964), 97, 101.

[2] Ibid.,98.

[3] http://www.ligonier.org/blog/2014-national-conference-day-1.Accessed April 17, 2014.

[4] Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969), 29.

[5] Ibid., xii.

[6] Ibid., 86.

[7] Ibid.,77-78.