The Gospel of John, chapter 11, the Gospel of John, chapter 11, and let's return together to that study, picking back up, at verse 33, actually I beg in your pardon, I'd like to read actually the context, let's return to 28, and the read through 37. Listen for it is God who speaks to us. When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, we are now talking of Martha. Saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling for you, and when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled, and he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him, but some of them said, could not he, who opened the eyes of the blind man, also have kept this man from dying, and the Lord blessed the reading of his word and the hearing of his people. Jesus asks for Mary, after Martha had given a confession of who she believes Jesus to be. Jesus discloses to her that he is the one who gives life and that those who were in him will never die, and then he asks Martha if she believes this. She says to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world. At the conclusion of her profession of faith in the person of Jesus, he then tells her to go and to get Mary. He sends for Mary with the simple instruction, we must assume because we aren't sure exactly how he told Martha to get Mary, but we do know what Martha said to Mary simply that Jesus has sent for you. A strange reversal of roles, isn't it? Wasn't it Mary who once said it Jesus' feet, while Martha, who was in the kitchen doing dishes and preparing a meal, asked Jesus to rebuke her, and to send her into the kitchen to help back in Luke chapter 10, but now it is Martha who has heard Jesus clearly. Again, in verse 27, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who has come into the world. Here we find Martha is showing a genuine conviction concerning who the Lord is and that genuine conviction results in her immediate response. Seeing and acknowledging who Christ is, Jesus tells her go and get your sister, and she moves immediately and without question to go to Mary. We might ask ourselves at this point, do our lives reflect that same immediacy in response? A response in our life that reflects the acknowledgement of the person of Christ. Do we pray for our enemies? Do we turn the other cheek? Do we love the Lord, our God with all our heart, soul and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves? Do we treat others as we would have them to treat us? Do we go into all the world to make disciples of all people? Like Martha, who was there with Christ, have we spent time with the Savior? Do we live in dependence upon Him? She acknowledged, Lord, if you had been here, He wouldn't have died. Are we that dependent upon the Lord? Are we convinced, really, that He is the Christ? When Martha goes to Mary, Mary responds immediately to go to Jesus. Mary was with others, she was with friends, she was with family, she was with mourners. She is in a social setting where she is at the center of their attention. Imagine your own social setting, someone very near and dear to you as past, and others who love you have gathered around to mourn with you and to spend time with you. And your sister comes in and whispers in your ear, something that only you know, and you rise quickly and you exit the room without explanation to those who are with you. Bad etiquette in our world, isn't it? For you to make a hasty retreat from those who have come for the sole purpose of consoling you in a time of your own desperate need. They were there to comfort her. She's very broken up, and she's very emotional, and what they see is, she rises, and she essentially runs out the door. Now, they assume, of course, she's on her way to her brother's grave. After there, she will weep, and so they want to dutifully accompany her there. But for Mary's part, she didn't allow any relationship, she didn't allow any circumstance to keep her from her appointment with the Savior. She didn't allow any concern over social form, or any concern over impressions that other people might have to keep her from her appointment at the request of the Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ called, and the opinion of others was not of consequence, for where the Lord calls, we are to respond. Jesus told a parable in Luke 14 that reflects this idea of our response and a time of calling. It's the parable of the great supper. There the master of the house had provided a lavish banquet, and he had invited those who were in the town to come and to share the meal with him. It was an RSVP. It came time for the meal, and the animal had been slaughtered and prepared, all was at the table, and ready to be served now. We know in our own homes the situation, because it when supper is ready, and the timing has brought all things to be prepared at just the right time, and all is set out on the table, and the head of the house, or perhaps the mother calls for the children to come, because supper is ready. If there's an unnecessary delay, things begin to get cold. Bread gets hard. The fat in the soup begins to grow hard on the top, or the chili, or whatever it might be. The supper is no longer in the good shape that it was when you first set it out. So his guest needed to be there when the table was set. They were not there. So by grace, he sins for them. He says, go out to those who I've invited, and tell them it's ready. The table is set to come in. But we read in verse 18 of Luke 14, with one accord, they began to make excuses. With one accord, that is, as if they had one voice, they all gave reasons why they could not respond. One says, I bought some property, and I need to check that property out. I just can't respond to you right now, because I've got property issues. I'm all tied up in, and I can't come. Another said, I have bought some oxen, and I need to test them before the warranty is out, I suppose, to make sure that they're going to be able to work for me. If I don't do that, and they're no good, then I'm stuck with bad oxen, I need to test the oxen to make sure that they're right. It's a business investment. I'm sure you'll understand. And the last one, one that we would think to be very sympathetic to, he said, I just got married. I just got married. You can't expect me to leave my new spouse, my bride, to come to your feast. I've just been wed. There's the master understanding. Having issued the invitation and set the table is the understanding at these delays and these excuses. Now the master is angry, and he replies, well, then none of you will be welcome. Not one of you will be welcome at my table. But Mary stands and immediately leaves to go be with Jesus, and she arrives there in many who would soon believe in Christ or following her. Mary is very emotional. She's broken at this point. And as soon as she arrives at Jesus, she bursts into tears and she falls at his feet. Jesus sees her and he looks at her in a very human moment as he watches her and then he looks to see a sea of black robes and mourning garments around him. And he hears the wailing, filling his ears and he sees and he hears Mary crying. We read that Jesus has deeply moved and then also troubled. He's deeply moved and he's troubled. Now the root word for this deeply moved that we read here is a word that has the root meaning that is applied actually to horses when they snort. And a horse, if you've been around them, when a horse begins to snort, it is not out of compassion. That is a sign of a horse being agitated or angry. Jesus is deeply moved in his spirit much like we might understand as anger is beginning to build. The same word is used in Matthew 14.5 and it's translated that he was moved to anger. In Matthew 9.30 and Mark 143, we again find that word as it is rendered that he charges them sternly in his direction to him. Here some have translated it and other translations, then the one we read that he was filled with indignation against them. How are we to understand this blending of emotions with Jesus? He's moved and he is compassionate and yet he also has a certain anger that is beginning to well up within him. What's the source of these two? How can they do it mutually together? I can remember my senior year in high school. I was a bus driver then they would let you drive a bus as soon as you had your license and I was driving a school bus and because my schedule, my senior year was fairly light, I had finished up all of my hours before the 11th grade and my senior year, I just had a few subjects to finish up and I had a vocation route that I ran. A vocation route ran middle of the day, you would go and pick them up in the morning and then drop them off and pick them back up in noon and my schedule allowed for that. I went to the junior high school and picked up the ninth graders to take them over to the vocation school for their classes there. There was one young man who was on the bus, he always sat behind me, he was a little bit older for a ninth grader, I think he was on the five-year junior high plan and he always sat behind me and a bit of a common guy we like to call him red necks then and I was also one too, so we got along well. He had a wonderful, beautiful 68 Camaro. Now it was primed because it was waiting for new paint but it was parked in the parking lot and every day we'd ride by and there sat this 68 Camaro that his father had given to him and it was a classic car in every sense of the word. He was proud of that car and he drove it with great pride and he talked about it with great pride. He would sometimes you could even see the pride glowing in him as you talked about this great car that he had and he had all that the 68 Camaro was supposed to have. The right muffler, the headers, all the way down when he cut it on it purred like a kitten. Now some of you understand what I'm talking about and you think that this is actually the point of the sermon. Every day as he sat behind me we talked and we joked, we weren't best of friends. I was older than he was. He was just a kid that I could relate to on the bus. One day I picked him up and he wasn't on the bus and everyone on the bus was very quiet. I asked what was going on and where he was and I found out that he had been in a horrible traffic accident in his 68 Camaro. He had two friends with him and they were out running about 70 or 75 miles per hour on a broad curve, taking the inside lane, couldn't hold it in the inside lane and so he swirved across the line into the lane which would have oncoming traffic. It wasn't a very well traveled road. It was way out in the country which is probably why he had decided that would be a good place to show his friends just what that car had and he's surrounded the turn to their fate if you want to call it that or a providence as we understand it. There was a pickup truck that was coming in the other lane. The pickup truck driver an adult more experienced, immediately cut his wheels to the right and drove off the road to try to miss the Camaro which was creeding towards him but unfortunately the younger driver way overestimating his own driving ability couldn't keep it in that lane either and he also went off the road and so they met head on in the dirt on the side of the road. The collision was so violent that the bumper of the truck was driven into the ground like a nail and all three drivers or all three passengers in the Camaro perished. I went to the young man's funeral sat in the back and I'll never forget the scene. It was so tragic the church was completely filled with students and with administrators and with teachers and as I sat in the back I watched his father win at the end of the service to say goodbye to his son one last time and he walked up to the grave at the front and completely collapsed. Two men came to help him and they took him by the arms and his knees were completely buckled and his head was back and he was wailing as they essentially drug him down the aisle and out of the church. He was completely broken this man who had given his son the instrument of his son's death.
Later while I was at band practice I played in a rock and roll band in those days that might be a shock to some of you. One of the people in the band came up to me and just in passing said, I read in the paper that there was a kid at your school who died in a car wreck and at that moment I began to have feelings which I hadn't experienced before and I found myself not able to control them and so I ran from the room essentially into the bathroom. I sat down in the floor and I began to weep uncontrollably. I couldn't stop. The door was locked and a couple of people knocked on the door and I wouldn't open and finally mistensen the mother who was in the house came and she knocked and she asked me to come out. I tried gathered myself some and I came out and she sat on the couch and I sat with her and then immediately I buried my face in her lap and began again. I was filled with sadness and I was filled with anger and it was unjust and it was not right and yet he was gone forever and I couldn't understand and she cradled my head for a long time and finally I was able to drive home myself. How are we to understand the combination of feelings of helplessness and despair and then anger against whom was I to be mad at the Father for giving his son this gift and his son was not yet able to handle it? Am I to be angry at God for taking this young man's life? Am I to be afraid now for my own life realizing how fragile it is and how quickly it disappears like a vapor when you least expect it? Jesus looked at Mary and the sound of whaling filled his tears. He saw those he loved and in his ears were filled with whaling and with sorrow and both emotions began to emerge. He saw the cause of their suffering, of their grief and of their sorrow which is sin. Sin has brought us death. Sin has brought us grief. Sin has brought us sorrow when he also heard in that whaling unbelief. He was deeply moved in spirit and he was greatly troubled. He was filled with outrage and with grief. Grief without outrage is nothing but sentiment. An outrage without grief is nothing but self-righteousness. Our own witness has to demonstrate that tension. Most German translations get it right. Most English translations tend to soften it a bit and they translate it with he groaned in spirit or he sighed heavily or he was deeply troubled. He's not angry because he feels he's being forced into a miracle of raising Lazarus because he's already announced. He intends to raise Lazarus to his disciples. He's not upset because he judges their mourning to be hypocritical because it's natural to mourn. It's not wrong to mourn and he doesn't scold anyone for their mourning. He's moved by their grief and he's angry against the sin and the sickness and the death that has come to a fallen world. He looks at Mary and while he is sad for her hurt he knows what has caused it. He is sorry for her tears and he knows what has brought them to her. Death and sickness are a result of sin and he is also angry at the unbelief because all around him are those we are told who came to believe later but at present they were mourning like pagans and their mourning bear testimony that there was no hope and in 1st Thessalonians 413 we are reminded but we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who sleep that you may not grieve as others who do not have hope. There were those who did not yet believe and their mourning was as of mourning without hope. Their wailing was wailing because Lazarus was lost to them forever. There was no anticipation of resurrection or reunion or ever seeing one another again. They were mourning as those who have no hope. Profound grief is natural but grief that degenerates into despair is an implicit denial of the resurrection. We are to grieve and to be deeply mourned. Please do not hear me say that when someone you die loves it is wrong for you to cry and to mourn but when your mourning turns to despair that means you have given up hope and there is no hope anymore. When David was mourning because his child was sick he prayed and he prayed that God might relieve the sickness but when the child passed then David got up and instead of then moving to fast he then ate and when he was asked about it he said I fast and I prayed when there was a possibility that God might preserve his life but now that my child is gone I know that I will see him again and so it is time to move on. Mourning a sign of our grief a sign of our being hurt because of the lostness that we feel because sin has caused sickness and death to enter into our world and steal from us the joy that we are to have should not cause us also to sink into despair. Despair means we have no hope that there would be anything good that would come afterwards. So Jesus is both righteousness indignant and empathetically loving. How can he be both? How can we be both? Matthew 23 Jesus uttered terrible woes against the city that kills the prophets and stones those that God sends and then he also grieves in the same chapter over Jerusalem. O Jerusalem Jerusalem if only you had known the day. In Ephesians 2, 3 Paul reminds Christians that they even they were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind that we as Christians were by nature children's objects of God's displeasure his anger and his wrath but in that same chapter Ephesians 1, 4, and 5 we're told he chose us in him before the foundations of the world that we should be wholly and blameless before him in love. He bring destined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. Our God loved us before the foundations of the world and yet in flesh we were the objects of his divine displeasure and wrath but saved in Christ. Jesus always obeys the Father and is indignant against those whose attitudes are not governed by the truth in the context. Jesus is indignation and his anger mixed with sympathy and that's why our translation reads the way it does that he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. We experience this if you have any children almost every day, almost every day. Has any of one of your kids done something foolish? That's made you so angry you could snap them in half and yet because they were hurt you were also so sad because they were hurting. Have they ever done something to where you really wanted if it were legal and you were just a let go to slap them inside of the head for being so foolish and then on the other hand you see that they have gotten hurt in their foolishness and your heart breaks at the same time. Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. He was troubled because Mary was hurt deeply but he was also indignant at the sin that has brought their hurt and at those sounds of wailing that were the result of hopeless unbelief and then in verse 35 we read the words Jesus wept the great preacher Spurgeon who preached two sermons on these two words said there's infinitely more in these two words than any sermonizer or student of the word will ever be able to bring out of them even though he should apply the microscope of the utmost attentive consideration. Jesus wept Isaiah 53-3 Jesus was quote a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His tears show us that Jesus was a man and that even in sinless perfection he has a perfect capacity for emotion. His emotion is not conflicted by self-love or self-loathing or any other sin. His joy is a pure joy and his grief is authentic and pure. This is the wonder of the incarnation isn't it that God would enter into a broken world as man and yet be fully God. Hebrews 4.15 we did not have a high priest who was unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are and yet is without sin. Jesus knows our grief and further Jesus has entered into it. He voluntarily accepts their grief as his own and he enters into it with them even when he knows he is about to relieve them of it. He is a king but he doesn't rule from a throne removed from his people like a shepherd our king dwells daily with us in Revelation 7-17. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes because of his tears hours will be wiped away in verse 36. So the Jews said see how he loved them they understood though imperfectly the tears of Jesus see how he loved them the cross the cross in our Christian witness testifies to God's righteous indignation and anger because of sin and it testifies to his compassion and his love to his children it was on account of sin that there was a cross it was on account of sin that Jesus had to say my God my God why has thou forsaken me as God turned his face away in righteous indignation as his wrath against sin and against man against you and against me was poured out the very creatures he at the same time simultaneously was showing his love for by placing his son on that cross at the same time the Christian testimony as we hold up the cross of Christ and proclaim his death until he comes is that God's wrath God's anger was poured out upon man at the cross because it was sin that brought death it was sin that brought punishment it was sin that brought the death of Christ our sin and yet it was love expressed as God gave himself he looked down upon us as we look at our own children and he wanted to I don't know how to put it in any way it's that we would understand and relate except to say ring our next but at the same time he wanted to embrace us he wanted to destroy us and crush us in his wrath because we are such an offense to a holy God in our sin and then also he loves us with a perfect love how can these two things ever be reconciled except at the cross only at the cross because at the cross we have divine wrath and perfect love Jesus about to bring Lazarus from the tomb here's the wailing of a people who have no hope he sees the effects of the curse of sin and he's angry and then he also sees those he loves and he's filled with love and tears flow down his cheeks so genuine is his love for his people that he enters into their sorrow with them because our high priest sympathizes with us he has walked as a man he has hurt as a man he suffered as a man he mourned with us as a man he died for us as a man and he reigns God Almighty in heaven above