Sermon Tone Analysis

We've been traveling together through John and we come upon certainly the greatest of the miracles He performed, the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

We decided to park here for a few weeks, and today we want to look at the second and, really, three messages we're going to have on this event.

We have already seen that Jesus had left Jerusalem after giving sight to the man born blind.

The Pharisees' reaction to the attraction Jesus received was to stone Him.

And Jesus evaded that.

He escaped.

He left and went to a place called Bethany, but a Bethany up by Galilee, a place called Bethania or Bethabara, some three to four day journey from Jerusalem.

In the meantime, Lazarus has come down with an illness that will lead to his death.

Mary and Martha send a messenger to Jesus.

They know where He is with His disciples, and they simply tell Him, "The one whom You love is sick.

He is going to die."

Jesus sends back word that this will not end in death.

And the messenger comes back, and Lazarus dies.

He dies and in the Jewish custom, he's not embalmed.

He's entombed on that first day, and the family then begins to mourn.

Now just as we have burial and funeral customs we participate in as a society, so too did the Jews, and one of them was that you were to hire at least two flute players and one wailing woman to be a professional mourner.

That sounds strange to us, but that was their culture.

And so during the days that immediately followed the burial of Lazarus, the home of Mary and Martha was a scene of grieving, a scene of wailing.

Some of the wailing was from the family perhaps and some was generated by this professional mourner.

Now as we look at Mary and Martha and we look at the events surrounding their home, there are a few more things we're going to discover about this family.

For one, they're a prominent family.

We know that because of the phrase that many Jews had come from Jerusalem to Bethany.

Now this Bethany where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived was just a little less than two miles from Jerusalem.

Fifteen stadia is the King James term.

In fact it's the Greek term and a stadium was an eighth of a mile, so it's just an eighth of a mile short of two miles away, and so they're able to travel.

And the fact many Jews came was a sign of the prominence of this family, that they were fairly well known.

Also we have the event John will record in the next chapter but that has chronologically occurred previously, of Mary anointing Jesus with this very valuable perfume she breaks open in order to use for her anointing of Christ.

Another indication of the prominence of this family.

So rather than just having one professional mourner, there seems to be a lot of people gathered, perhaps several that are hired for the purpose and then all of the friends whom they have known who have come.

It is in this setting, some four days or the fourth day now since the burial of Lazarus, that Jesus arrives on the scene.

He comes to the edge of Bethany.

He doesn't go into the home of Mary and Martha, not just yet.

But He comes to the edge of town and apparently, He calls for Martha.

The Scriptures don't really say that, but that seems to be the indication because Martha is going to come and visit with her Lord.

We find this in John, chapter 11, in a message today that I've entitled "I am the Resurrection" because of that powerful statement that Jesus makes for us there.

In verse 17 of John 11, it says, /"So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.

Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.

And many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.

Now Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house."/

You know, it's interesting to see just this little glimpse of the profile because already we have seen with Martha and Mary that Martha is the one who is busy about work.

She's the one who is moving around and trying to prepare a meal at a banquet, where Mary is just sitting at the feet of Jesus and worshiping Him.

It seems Mary is the more contemplative one.

Martha is the more busybody one.

She's the one more active and even here, it's Martha who gets up and goes to see Jesus while Mary, perhaps, just remains there quietly in her home, grieving the loss of her brother.

It says in verse 21 Martha comes to Jesus there at the edge of town and /"Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.'"/

Martha is a great example of what goes through all of our hearts at times of loss.

And I know the Lord…though we're chronologically coming to this story today… the Lord has intersected this story today with some of you who are in the midst of going through loss.

It may not be the death of a loved one.

It may be the loss of a relationship, the loss of something so tender and valuable that it has left you conflicted.

You love the Lord.

You trust Him and yet, you're grieving, and you're wondering, and you're questioning.

And that's really where Martha is.

The statement she makes here is not a statement of ridicule.

Notice it again.

She says, /"Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."/

She's simply saying, "Lord, I know if You had been able to get here before he died, You would have healed him, and he would have lived."

She also knows, even while the messenger is away, the time has run out, that when he gets back and Jesus has not returned, she realizes there is just not enough time.

And so, she's not rebuking Christ as much as she's just lamenting the fact.

She's showing her faith.

She's showing she understands He has the power to do this if only He had been here in time.

But then, she makes another statement, an incredible statement in the next verse.

And she says, /"But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You."/

It is with this statement, I think, that we come to the loss, to the paradox, to the confusion, to the conflict that goes through your heart in times like this.

You love God; you know God has power and deep down in the midst of your grief, there is still that hope.

It's hope battling with despair.

The darkness of despair battles with the light of hope.

Her hope is, "I know that even now, whatever You ask of God, He will do, that even though in human terms, death has come and death is the end, with You, oh God, anything is possible.

And I know that even now, you can ask something of God and He'll do it."

Now Martha is conflicted because she received Jesus' words from the messenger.

You remember what the messenger brought back to her in chapter 11, verse 4. The messenger comes back with these words from the Teacher to Martha.

While Lazarus, perhaps, is laying there dying, the messenger says that the Master has said this, /"This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."/

Martha, no doubt, rehearses that statement over and over again, even as she sees her brother pass away.

Even as they take him to the tomb and they seal the rock over the tomb, she keeps hearing the words of the Teacher, keeps hearing the words of the Messiah: /"This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."/

It's the equivalent of us going to a verse of Scripture, a verse that promises hope, that offers hope in the midst of sadness and loss and grief and despair.

And it's that hope that verse will ignite, but we just don't know how it's going to play out.

We don't know how to apply it.

We don't know enough about the ways of God to understand how He can fulfill His promises in us.

We often go to Romans 8.

It says that /"all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."/

We realize that while God doesn't bring evil, He can take the evil and turn it to good.

And we want to camp on those verses.

We want to realize that even in the midst of sorrow and sadness and despair, God can turn this out for good.

But we don't always know how because we're human.

We look at death as the end.

We pray; we do everything we can to prevent death.

And so for Jesus' words not to have yet applied, for her brother to have died and been buried and now the fourth day since then, it makes it awfully confusing.

What in the world did the Teacher mean?

How can this be true?

And I don't want you to despair when you see the promises of God in Scripture, and you find yourself asking that very same question…God, I love You.

God, I trust You.

God, I depend on You.

And yet, here I am, in this situation and circumstance and I'm confused, God.

There is a hope based on Your Word, and there is the despair of the reality that's behind it.

And I don't understand, oh God, how You can reconcile this.

You're in good company because that's where Martha was.

You're not just a person of little faith.

You're not just a person who needs to study more.

You're not just a person who is not a super saint.

You're just a human, a believer who doesn't know all the ways of God.