Welcome to the sermon podcast of Willow Creek Church in Winner Springs, Florida. Willow Creek exists to declare and demonstrate the liberating power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can learn more about our ministry at willowcreekchurch.org. Some holidays are very difficult. I think of Mother's Day, I think of Father's Day, I think of Valentine's Day. Those can be especially difficult holidays for many people. And it's not that there isn't good in them. Those are good holidays in many respects. We celebrate wonderful things. There's nothing wrong with celebrating them. We can enjoy them greatly. Mom should be honored. Dad should be honored. Significant others and spouses should be honored. And these days are great opportunities to do just that. They're rightful, fun-filled celebrations. Nothing wrong with them. We should cherish them. We should celebrate what we have, what we've been given by God, and what we've come to cherish. But even so, these are days that for many of us are very difficult. There are less celebrations and more somber commemorations of what we've lost, maybe what we've never had, or that for which we long. I was reminded of this last night when I went on Facebook. My mother posted a picture to her Facebook profile. One that I had never seen before in all of my years growing up. It was a photo of her as a young, nine-year-old child, or actually a younger child, with her own mother. A woman that I never met. My grandmother went home to the Lord long before I was ever born. She in fact died when my mom was just nine. It was a very happy photo to see. It was fun to see my grandmother. It was fun to see my mother at such a young age. But that photo in another way framed a very sad reality. The things that we cherish, the things that we love, the things that we long for, if we live long enough, can either go unfulfilled or be lost completely. This world has so much beauty, but there is so much darkness that can overwhelm it in our hearts and in our minds. And so with that in mind this morning, I want to draw your attention to this great passage of Scripture where we see our own Savior, our Lord Jesus weeping. And as we'll see in just a moment, doing even more than that. Verse 28, when she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, 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? Father we are troubled by things that we read in this passage. The same questions that faced Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus their brother, grip us not only in death but in loss, loss of many kinds. We wonder how you a loving God could not prevent or at least solve the problems we face. But Lord we also thank You this morning that though we are oftentimes given to confusion and can mourn, we mourn as those with hope. The hope that we'll see this morning in this morning's passage and in weeks to come. The glorious hope of resurrection and maybe more broadly, the glorious hope that you have not left this fallen world to itself, but have entered in to share in its brokenness and to overcome it, to reset all things, to make things what they should have been and could have been all along. We pray in Jesus name, amen. Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. The gospel writer John has told us that very specifically, very pointedly, Jesus loved Mary, loved Martha, loved Lazarus. In fact, when you go through the gospel stories in the life of Jesus, you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere where Jesus is said to love individuals more deeply, specific particular individuals more deeply. You can think of James, John and Peter, that inner circle of disciples over which Jesus poured his life and expended so much of his personal, on top of his public ministry. But when we see Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, we see Jesus love expressed not generally but specifically toward particular individuals that he loved so much. In view of that love, we would be tempted to believe that he would want to spare them of any suffering, because in our mind and our thinking, suffering and love do not go hand in hand. If we love people, we do everything in our power to spare them from suffering. We don't allow them willingly to suffer. The role of those who love is to bring care and comfort to prevent suffering, not to allow it. And so when we read just a couple of weeks ago that Jesus heard of Lazarus illness, an illness that would lead to death, and so decided to stay in view of his great love for these three, decided to stay away rather than to draw near were perplexed. And rightly so. It's okay to be perplexed. That was one of our points before, is that Jesus tells us over and over again, implicitly in his ministry that it's okay to be perplexed, to be confused, to wonder what's going on. We drew your attention back to Luke chapter 10 where Jesus had previously visited Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And when Jesus in that famous episode went to visit them, we saw a portrayal of Mary and Martha quite unlike the portrayal we see of them in this chapter in the Gospel of John. In that chapter it was Mary who could not get close enough to Jesus. She had to be near him. She literally sat at his feet, listening and clinging to every word that he said with deep abiding affection for her Savior, for her Lord, for her friend. She didn't want to be apart from him. It was Martha who was far off from Jesus. There were so many people drawn into their house and Martha was abuzz with all the activities necessary to care for such a great group of people. In fact, Martha, Judgey Martha, was so bothered by Mary attending to Jesus that she went out and spoke to Jesus and said, would you please tell her to help me? Did Jesus rebuked Martha and said, Mary's chosen the better thing? In other words, I'm not always going to be with you, but these people that you're caring for there, they're going to be here a lot longer than me. It would be wiser to spend time with me, Mary has chosen what's better. But at the news of Lazarus death, there's a shift in Mary and Martha. Mary does not run to Jesus. She can't go quickly to him. She's paralyzed probably by a cocktail of confusion and grief, maybe even some degree of anger. John records very specifically and intently that all she could do and all she did was sit in her grief. She wouldn't go to Jesus anymore. The one who had first stood for her off now goes to Jesus and you have to expect, you have to expect Martha to find Jesus and read him some degree of the riot act and she does. She points out to Jesus, if you had come, he wouldn't be dead, but then we see something in Martha that seems so much more like the Mary we see back in the Gospel of Luke. She quickly follows and says to Jesus, even though he's dying. I know that you can speak to the Father and the Father will do whatever you ask. She believes in resurrection. She's clinging to the hope of the resurrection and Jesus speaks to her of the resurrection and she says, first to him, generally, I believe there's coming a day when all of those who are in you will rise to new life that great day of resurrection. But Jesus says in so many words that resurrection is not only coming, it's here because he says these startling words to Martha. He declares the Gospel to her. I am the resurrection and the life. I'm the resurrection and I'm here with Mary. Jesus doesn't so much declare the truth of the Gospel. As we'll see in just a moment, he demonstrates it. That was a proclamation of truth, but listen carefully. That was truth, but with tears. Verse 28, when she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary saying in private the teachers here and he's calling for you and when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. I want you to notice that the first thing Martha does is she goes to Mary privately and the question is why? Why would Martha think it important to go to Mary quietly in private and tell her that Jesus was coming? If we read in a broader context, we know the answer, at least one shade of the answer. Jesus has been gradually revealing himself to be the Son of God, equal with God the Father. To save your sent to redeem sinners, the promised Messiah, he's made shocking declarations. He's appropriated to himself the divine name. He said repeatedly, I am. He's also made it very clear that the religious leaders are not who they claim to be. If Jesus is who he claims to be, they are not who they claim to be, they're not followers of God. Jesus has said their children of the devil. So there's great animosity between the two and Martha is shrewd. She knows that if she draws premature attention to Jesus, attention perhaps, the Savior wouldn't want upon himself, it would rile his enemies and perhaps even compromise the good thing that he would do and could do for her brother Lazarus. I want you to notice the second thing we see in those verses that Martha's very shrewd in, alerting Mary, but notice how quickly Mary springs to her feet, verse 29, in which she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now, keep in mind the context, Mary has been specifically described by John as paralyzed by grief, confusion, maybe even anger, but at the first hearing of Jesus drawing near. She rose quickly and she went to him. That illustrates something I think that's so vital to appreciate within the church. It's oftentimes said that if we have true hope in God, it will preclude doubt. It will preclude sorrow. It will preclude confusion or even anger. The emotions that we naturally feel when we are faced with so much suffering and darkness in the world, there's nothing in this passage that would indicate that Jesus rebukes Mary or Martha for their reactions instead, everything to indicate that Jesus just simply meets them where they are and in meeting them where they are, graciously moves them, the good shepherd of the sheep toward better pastures, pastures of hope, of renewed conviction. When the Son of Christ's love draws near, the clouds of Mary's doubt and despair, her discouragement, start to burn up, maybe not completely, but enough that she's quick to believe again. She is a heart of faith. She's been loved well by Jesus. In the knowledge that Jesus is coming, it's a reinforcement that even in the face of her greatest affliction, he's not given up. His love has not failed when she feared it might have. At first 30, it was straight something else. 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 in her house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out and 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. She says the very same thing that Martha said. Martha and Mary expressing their grief, their perplexity in different ways, but fundamentally reaching the same conclusion. Jesus has allowed something to happen that shouldn't happen, that they don't want to happen. And they want to believe and they want to trust but they're having a hard time and who among us doesn't know what that feels like. If you live long enough, you felt that, maybe you felt it more times than you care to count. But as Jesus draws near, he reveals that he's anything but indifferent to their suffering and in fact, he's been deeply moved by it. He's allowed it for a great and grander purpose, the glory of God and the good of God's people but make no mistake, it's a bad thing. Sometimes we console people when they face difficult trials and challenges with the knowledge that God works together, all things for the good. And when we say such pithy things and the face of people suffering, what they oftentimes hear in the midst of their grief is that we're equating the bad thing they face with good, that what they face in and of itself is good. But that's not what the Scriptures declare, the suffering that we face, the trials that we face. God brings good in them, through them, over them and around them, but the things we face oftentimes are not good at all. They're evil. They're opposed to God. They're the enemy of God in the world. And so notice how Jesus responds, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews 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, and Jesus wept. Now I want you to notice verse 35 first, because Jesus weeps. He's not weeping so much for Lazarus in particular, for Jesus knows just what he knew when he spoke to Martha and what he had decided among the disciples even prior two days before that he could raise Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus condition is not final, it's not caught Jesus by surprise. It's Jesus weeping over Lazarus in one sense no, but in another sense yes, but Lazarus not alone. What is moving our Savior to tears is the sad reality that the world he loves has gone so awry and the people that he loves are so sorely afflicted and even though knowing that solution is coming, that through his death on the cross he has removed condemnation for our sin and through his righteous life he's given us by grace through faith, a righteous record before the Father that we are reconciled to God positionally and are being reconciled to him even now. Even though he knows all this, he knows the pathway toward the fullness of redemption is marked with sorrow and suffering and Jesus is not indifferent to it. He weeps, but he does so much more than that. I'm not the first by any stretch to notice this, in fact I only notice it because I've been drawn to its attention by so many others who commented upon this passage. In verse 33 when it says Jesus was deeply moved, the Greek word used there is not merely an emotional flip, it's not sadness being described. This is very important because Jesus is not only sad, he's not only weeping, he's angry. The Greek word used here is used in other ancient Greek literature to describe animals of pray that are angry and snorting and fuming and ready to take life. What Jesus is feeling is an indignation, a righteous anger toward what has become of the world. I'm not really a fan of paraphrases of the Bible, I prefer translations of the Bible, but this is one instance where the message, a paraphrase of the Bible gets it closer to the actual than maybe some translations. When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him, he said, where did you put him? So it wasn't with grief, stricken words that Jesus said, where did you put him? It's with the fuel of adrenaline that he says, where did you put him? Jesus is not angry at Mary or Martha, he's angry at a world gone awry and what saddens his people, saddens him and what grieves his people, moves him to action. One of the things that I'd like you to see this morning, as we draw to a close, is that empathy is a mark of our Savior Jesus. It's true that our Savior Jesus sympathizes with us in our weakness, the writer of Hebrews tells us that. And when we as English speakers hear the word sympathy, we think of those who feel the same feelings that we feel. They can feel along with us. Empathy is a little different. Empathy is when someone enters into your suffering. It's not that Jesus just looked as a detached observer upon the suffering of Mary and Martha and looked as a detached observer upon the death of Lazarus, Jesus entered in to what they were experiencing, sympathizing with it to be sure, but also empathizing with it. God empathizes with you and you're suffering and then you're hurting. He's not a detached observer. Jesus bore all of your sorrows. He took the weight of everything you've ever endured. He carried it for you, that you might be liberated and set free. And though there's perplexity in the present age, you wonder how all of these things can be reconciled with the loving God. Jesus knows what he knew for Mary and Martha that Lazarus death would bring glory to God and would ultimately be through the good of his people because they would see that our God is not detached. He's not merely sympathetic. He's empathetic. He enters in. Empathy is a mark of Christ, but it's also a mark of his followers. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians, when he speaks of the church, he says it's a body, he says, but God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. That's one reason that I love our church, our church family. Every week I hear how members uphold others in prayer, care for one another, are stirred to care because this isn't just a show. This isn't just a gathering, it's not an attraction, we're a family, and when one member suffers, we all suffer together, and when one member is honored, we all rejoice together. Jesus entered in to the suffering of his people, and we who are in Christ do the same. But Jesus not only entered in, he felt deeply what they felt, and it stirred him to act. He not only felt empathy, he felt antipathy, anger toward the suffering they were facing. Tim Keller says this, he says, suffering will make you loving, and loving will make you suffer. That's the name of the game. If you actually do as C.S. Lewis said, if you don't want your heart to be broken, put it in a little casket, don't let it love anything, but put it in a casket, it won't be broken. He said it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place in the whole universe where you can be safe from suffering is hell, because only down there is your heart so hard that you don't love anything. Then of course you don't feel anybody else's pain. You feel something far worse, you feel unredemptive suffering, suffering that destroys. His bad as this suffering was for Mary and Martha. It created an occasion for them to see the faithfulness of Christ, the empathy of Christ, the sympathy of Christ, and his antipathy, his anger, his rejection of the presence of sin in this world. By raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus shows that he has come to kill death. The way he'll kill death is by subjecting himself to it for our sake. He'll be swallowed by the beast so that he can destroy it from within. By raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus intends to stoke the religious leadership bent on destroying him. In order to raise Lazarus up, Jesus knows that he must lay himself down. In order to raise you up, Jesus laid himself down because he loves you. If you love, there will be pain, there will be suffering, but God's love will endure all the pain and suffering that we deserve in our place so that we can take our lives up again and enter into a world, a new age in which every tear is wiped from our eyes. In Psalm 56, let me just close with this, in Psalm 56, David reflects upon his sufferings and he cries out to God. He says, be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me. All day long an attacker oppresses me. My enemies trample on me all day long for many attack me proudly. When I'm afraid I put my trust in you and God whose word I praise and God I trust I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? All day long they injure my cause. All their thoughts against me are evil. They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps as they've waited for my life. For their crime will they escape? And wrath casts down the peoples of God and then he says this of God in the presence of his afflictions. You've kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? David takes great comfort and confidence that God knows our suffering. None of it escapes his notice. He's not indifferent toward it. He's come to take it upon himself to set us free from it, that is priceless. Thank you for listening to Sermon podcast of Willow Creek Church, may the grace, peace, and freedom of our Lord be yours.