Sermon: Jesus: The God of Life

Sermon: Jesus: The God of Life

1 Samuel 24:1-17

115:1-8, 16-18

John 11:1-45

For the majority of human history death was seen as our greatest enemy. It was the inescapable and inevitable end of all flesh. Yet, it has always felt wrong. There is something so jarring about death, so unnatural about how we experience it, and so drastic in the sheer distance we feel. We experience this in devastating ways when someone dies before their time so to speak, but death is just as jarring when we can see it coming and someone has lived a long and fulfilling life. In someways this is one of the greatest ironies of our life, death is so natural and yet there is nothing that feels so unnatural. This is because death is not natural. Death is not what God meant for us. Death is the product of sin, which makes sense because sins are the actions that remove us from the presence of God the source of life. Jesus came into this world not just to take away sin, but to draw us back to God and life. So, today, we see Jesus the God of life itself.

The hard part about relating to this story and understanding its full grandeur is that most people today are so unacquainted with death. Most people keep death at arms reach as it is kept to hospitals, funeral homes, and cemeteries. As I accompany people through the death of a loved one, I am surprised that so many adults almost have no experience of death. They end up having to sort out so much and make sense of something on the spot that doesn’t make sense. In Jesus’ day, people would have been very acquainted with death. Sick people would stay in their homes and all too often die there from simple diseases. The likelihood that children would survive pregnancy and birth was immensely low compared to today. Then of course there was hunger, persecution, overworking, banditry, public stonings, executions, and more. Today death is still as rampant, but we keep it behind closed doors, so most don’t understand it or even contemplate it.

Without God, death is inescapable and final. Mary and Martha, the disciples, the mourners, and even Jesus knew this. This is why their deeply emotional responses make so much sense. Lord, if only you had been here our brother would not have had to die. Could not the one who restored sight to the blind have kept this man from dying? Miraculously healing was one thing, but bringing someone out of the jaws of death - that is beyond human experience or understanding. That was overcoming the greatest enemy humanity could ever know and one we could never defeat. Even with our abilities to prolong life, we have too often brought death closer. All our vying for power, all our modern degrees of control, and even many of our technological advancements have often brought death to us

So here is Jesus mourning and struggling with his friend’s death. He feels what death does and how it separates Lazarus from God, from Mary and Martha and from all his family and friends. More than anyone else, Jesus knows what death means and how disastrous it is. So rightfully he mourns.

Yet, death means something wholly different to Jesus too. Jesus knows that in godly faith death means something wholly different than what this world sees. So he waits. In all of his mourning, he still knows there is something better to come, so he waits before going to Lazarus. He says this will not end in death but in the glory of God and his Son. In God’s miraculous and amazing knowledge, even death can be for good. As I discussed last week, God’s glory is actually for our good. If sickness is the product of human rebellion against God. Death is the ultimate consequence of our separation from the God of life. But if God is glorified, if we gain a better vision of God and a greater desire for God - don’t you see that this already begins to defeat death - it takes away its sting, its true end.

This is why Jesus can say, “I am the resurrection and I am the life says the Lord, all who believe in me will have life, even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me shall not die forever”. Jesus knows full well that his friend is dead. He knows what that means. He knows that for the vast majority of faithful people, our present physical bodies will decay and die. But this is not actually death. Anyone that rests on the breast of God, the God of life will never truly die. This is why drawing people to Jesus is so important. We aren’t just drawing people out of a scary world into his Kingdom of peace, but we are drawing them out of an inevitable end to a eternal destiny. We are drawing people into the only true salvation from death and this broken the life. The promise of faith in Jesus is beyond our human understanding, but when we look into our heart of hearts what we will find is that these promises feel more natural then this life and that ultimately they were what we long for and were meant for.

This physical death is still hard though. We still feel the distance, even if faith in God helps to narrow that distance. We are physical, incarnate creatures that connect physically, relate, touch, and know through a physical world (along with other experiences). This is why even in faith, even when we know someone has not truly died, even when we know that we aren’t truly separated from someone, we still mourn. Jesus did. Paul tells us we don’t mourn like others without hope, but we still mourn. This is why Paul also tells us that the final enemy to be defeated will be death - the death of this world, the physical death. At that time all will be set right: pain and tears will be no more - death will be no more. We will be recreated in a body like Jesus’ that is physical as people touched and ate with him and yet is so divinely spiritual that transcends human understanding.

This brings us to the moment before the miracle as Jesus prays. He says, “Father, I thank you that you hear me. I know that you always hear me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me”. This prayer starts with a relationship of intimacy, Father and Son. Jesus knows how close he is to the Father - a closeness he invites us to. He thanks God - always important. He repeats for us that God hears him. Jesus knows God hears him - he has an astounding faith. He emphasizes that simple fact for us, so that we might know who Jesus is and so that we might know what we are being invited into. He prays so that we may believe. It’s intriguing, sometimes prayer isn’t for us, it is for those listening. It strikes me that communal prayer is about communicating and drawing people into a relationship with God - including ourselves.

A side note: Notice something interesting, Jesus never asks the Father to raise Lazarus from the dead. Instead, he spoke in faith to Lazarus and knew that the Father would respond. He had such a trust that he acted knowing His Father would show up. This is a challenge to our faith. We should pray for healing and even new life, but after we have discerned God’s will, we are also called to act, to step out in faith, and expect God to show up. Even with discernment, oftentimes, we aren’t like Jesus knowing exactly what God wants to do, but even still, God will show up when we step out in faith.

Finally, this brings us to the miracle. Lazarus walks out of the tomb where he was buried four days prior. He is covered in the same graveclothes that they left him in, yet he is restored - he is alive. Jesus shows himself to be the Lord of life and the overthrower of death. He is the Lord and God above all things, even the worst things we could imagine. He shows himself to be the one that we can place all our hope. He is not limited to what we think is possible.

This should draw us briefly to Jesus’ 8th miracle, when Jesus doesn’t just resurrect himself, but he himself is resurrected. Jesus enters into death, not to mention the worst suffering humanity could ever endure and he defeats it forever. He takes death onto himself and the power of his love and life can never be defeated. Remember this is death itself that Jesus defeated. That means that nothing else can truly oppose him - not this secular society, not an unbelieving generation, not war, not rumours, not injustice, not our hearts, not even closing churches. God in Jesus and through the Holy Spirit will overcome it all and all will bow before him. Jesus’ resurrection being the 8th miracle, just like it appears on the 8th, Sunday the first day of the week, should remind us that the resurrection of Jesus is a new life, a new creation, a new start as it is an invitation now into his glorious life and Kingdom.

To close, we see that Lazarus’ resurrection led many Jewish people to faith. This probably isn’t surprising to most of you. If someone dead was to rise to life who wouldn’t believe? I think we would be surprised by how many people explain it away - the do with the practically historical fact of Jesus’ resurrection. The thing that is surprising though is what leads up to this faith. Mary, Martha, these mourners, and even Jesus himself, went through great grief and struggles. Jesus had already done 6 other miracles, one that is literally referenced by the mourners, and yet it took their mourning and suffering to believe in what God could and would do. This is a sad reality, oftentimes, God brings us through the hard times, knowing full well that it is the only way that we might come to greater faith in him and so a greater life. But if we have faith to realize it, this is actually God’s grace. A loving parent has to restrict their children, even put them through struggles, things they don’t want or can’t yet do, knowing full well that this is actually for their best. It is even more true with God. He knows what we truly need and he is doing everything to draw us back to Him the Lord of Life and Love. AMEN