Easter 2020
Sermon Notes
Redemption
It’s what I love about Lindi’s story.
Definitions:
The technical definition is: “The action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt.”
A more observational definition, one gleaned from my own study of the Bible and my own life experience is that God takes something that has been broken and puts it back together in a way that is completely new that incorporates the brokenness into the design.
Kintsugi
Mosaics at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (4th century)
The thing is, it takes a special eye to see the potential in brokenness, a unique perspective tuned toward redemption.
Many just sit in the brokenness and cut ourselves and one another with it.
Jesus sees it differently. Jesus starts arranging.
I want to see things more like Jesus does.
How Jesus sees things.
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles[b] from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Jesus is sad.
I think it’s important to start here because it shows that God is not aloof, that we are not pieces on board. That He dispassionately moves where He pleases knowing that He will win the game.
The point of incarnation is that God stands in solidarity with the suffering of His people. That He came and experienced it Himself. And, here in John 11, we see one of the most poignant examples of that: Jesus weeping in front of the tomb of His friend.
He is sad because someone He loved has died.
He is sad because people He loves are hurting.
He is sad because He loves, and you cannot love without opening yourself up to profound sadness.
And, in being sad, Jesus shows us something really important: it’s possible to be sad and still trust God, to weep on Friday even knowing that Sunday’s coming.
Seeing potential in the brokenness doesn’t downplay or demean the fact that something has been broken, something lost.
I am completely confident that God will do something good with even this coronavirus situation, that He will redeem it.
But, I am still profoundly sad because we have lost and are losing much.
Jesus is too. Because He loves us.
Jesus is angry
Twice, this story says that Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” which we tend to read as just another way of saying “sad.”
But, in Greek, that words (two phrases) mean something very different.
The first means to exhale forcefully.
Some say, “Sigh.”
KJV is better, in this case, “Groan.”
But other ancient texts give us a clear picture of the real meaning of this word when they use it of a warhorse snorting on a battlefield.
The second means to be stirred up like waters in a storm.
Put these together, and what do you have? Jesus is angry.
When Martin Luther translated this into German, he used a word (that I can’t pronounce) that means, “he became angry, disgusted, and enraged.”
Why was He mad?
Not at the onlookers
Not at Mary and Martha
But at the notion of death.
Here is the Lord of Creation stepping into His world to see that it has gone completely awry.
This is not the way it was supposed to be.
Friends, Jesus is angry right now. He hates the coronavirus and has a special place reserved in hell for it.
Jesus is confident
In the presence of God
Something I have a hard time with sometimes.
But, Jesus is unwavering in His certainty that He is talking to someone who hears Him and will answer
In the power of God: in God’s ability to do good things with bad things
In the goodness of God
Which is challenging when we hold a high view of God’s power and still see suffering.
We start asking questions like, “Why is this happening when you could have stopped it?” or, “How could a good God allow this?”
Let me point out that these are legitimate questions which God invites us to ask Him directly.
In this situation though, I think it is significant that Jesus is unwavering. He doesn’t, for a second, doubt that God is, even now making good. Remember, He has an eye for redemption. Where everyone else is wailing at the broken pieces, Jesus is beginning to lay out the mosaic.
Jesus is confident now.
Take confidence from the confidence of your King.
Picture Him standing at the head of the army leading the prayers, interceding to God right now.
Jesus is resurrection
We all know how this story ends.
And, it’s important to point out that joy of the ending doesn’t diminish the pain or anger of the beginning. I want to re
That said, it is important that we don’t get so bogged down in the beginning that we don’t make it to the end. Friends, Lazarus rises from the dead!
As the last piece of the mosaic fits into place, everyone who had just moments ago questioned what Jesus was up, gasps at His power unleashed right in front of their eyes.
Redemption
Right now, Jesus is risen.
For Lazarus, resurrection was a one-off, a temporary suspension of the rules. He died again.
But, when Jesus rose from the dead, and never went back, and extended the same opportunity to everyone who follows Him (“Whoever believes in Me will live even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die”), He changed the rules.
And, His resurrection means something for right now.
It means that we who follow Him will be resurrected, so the worst thing that can happen to us is now robbed of its power
It means that we who follow Him are being resurrected, have been given the gift of resurrected eyes, eyes turned toward redemption that we can use right now to bring hope and healing to those around us.