Tag Archives: resurrection

July 6, 2021 · 1:49 pm

Why did Lazarus die?

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
  2 It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
  3 Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”
  4 When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
  5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
  6 So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. (Jn. 11:1-6)

As I was reading this over my coffee this morning, it struck me. (Funny how that works – I’ve read this countless times, and I didn’t exactly miss it before, but it didn’t strike me like it did today).

Because Jesus loved Lazarus and Mary and Martha;

And because he heard that Lazarus was sick…he waited two more days.

Think about that. Lazarus is dying. Jesus can heal him. But instead, Jesus delays. Lazarus dies. And he loved them.

This is astounding. Imagine what Mary and Martha were going through. For days and days they wait for Jesus to show up. Jesus delays. He dawdles. He stays two more days. Lazarus gets sicker.

Finally Lazarus dies. Mary’s heart breaks. Martha’s heart breaks. Where was Jesus? Why didn’t he come? Does he not care?

(If you have never asked those questions, have you really lived on this earth? How often do we wonder the same thing. How much more? How much longer? Why won’t he stop this? Why won’t he heal?)

But at the beginning of it all, Jesus tells them why. “That the Son of God might be glorified through it.”

There is something about Jesus that hadn’t been revealed yet. He hadn’t been “glorified”, that is, he hadn’t been seen for who he truly was – the Resurrection and the Life.

They all thought that not even Jesus could do anything about death. Lazarus is dead. It’s over.

And then Jesus says, “Lazarus, come forth!”

When God allows the pain to take hold; when God allows yet another thing to strike a blow; when God allows the devil to ravish and devour; when God allows us to go as low as we think we can – and then he takes us even lower –

It isn’t because he hates us. It isn’t because he hasn’t forgotten us. It isn’t because he is negligent or evil.

It is because we close our eyes and think we can solve all of our own problems. We can fix this, if we do just one more thing.

But when death occurs, when we reach that point where there is NO fixing it, NO coming back, NO solution – THAT is when we begin to see Jesus for who he is.

Not even death can stop the power of the Son of God.

Not great sin, not great despair, not great pain or great illness – not even death.

We have a hard time seeing it until we do. And that is worth everything.

If the Son of God can be revealed in our suffering and weakness, our pain and sorrow, then it is worth it all. No one falls through the cracks. He never fails.

The day will come when he will call you out of this tomb as well. And there will be no more tears and no more curse.

When we’ve seen the tears and the curse and know what it is to suffer great loss, then we are the first to shout for joy when victory comes.

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March 19, 2020 · 5:26 pm

The Sabbath and Life

6 Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered.
7 So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.
8 But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, “Arise and stand here.” And he arose and stood.
9 Then Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?”
10 And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
11 But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. (Luk 6:6-11)

I keep hearing very disturbing things from churches. There are so many who are exposing themselves right now for who they really are. Some things never change. I have heard certain Christians argue like this: “God has commanded us to gather together on the Lord’s day. We must obey God rather than man. God will protect us from the virus if we honor him with our obedience. And if not, it is better to obey and lose our lives than to disobey.”

The Pharisees of Jesus day reasoned the same way. And Jesus looked at them with anger.

The Pharisees, in the passage above, were far more concerned about the ceremony of the Sabbath than they were about the meaning of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was given to Israel that they might understand that it is God who heals and saves and gives life. It is God who will overcome the curse, not us.

13 “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying:`Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. (Exo 31:13)

The Sabbath was given so that God’s people might learn to rest and wait for the Lord of the Sabbath to do his work, which only he can do.

For that reason, it was necessary that Jesus heal on the Sabbath, since that is what the Sabbath was for – to point to the one who heals, apart from any works of ours.

But the Jews turned the Sabbath rest into a work to be performed in order to earn God’s favor! The exact opposite of what it meant. In fact, the Sabbath was given to teach us that only God sanctifies and we have nothing to do with it. We rest. God sanctifies. Get it?

Fast forward to the Lord’s day. We gather on the first day of the week, the Day of Resurrection.

In the words of one of my favorite hymns, “Today he rose and left the dead, and Satan’s empire fell” (Isaac Watts).

The Lord’s Day is the day of resurrection, of life! Death is conquered, the enemy is cast out!

Shall we then take that which was meant to celebrate life and use it as a means to spread death? God forbid!

“Is it lawful to save life, or to destroy?”

Close your churches, people. Quit thinking that the ceremony must be kept, even though it might mean the deaths of thousands. Shall we tempt God?

And I, being a pastor, do truly believe in the value of the Word and Sacrament, and the gathering of ourselves together. The word and Sacrament are the ordinary means of grace, which is another post. In ordinary times, we should do it as long as it is possible for us to do so.

But our wooden, outer keeping of the Lord’s Day matters nothing when we destroy lives by doing so. When we gather together while an unstoppable virus threatens, we are corrupting our Lord’s day with the leaven of the Pharisees – trying to squeeze a blessing out of God through our sacrificial law-keeping. But the Lord’s day isn’t about that. Christianity isn’t about us offering ourselves to God. It is about God offering himself for us. Christ died that we might be freed from the curse of the law. How monstrous it is to think that God, who sent his Son to die for us, requires that we put our lives at risk in order to keep the ceremony of the Lord’s Day!!

Jesus looked around in anger at the Pharisees. They reasoned the same way that many are reasoning today.

When we despise the lives of his people, he also looks in anger at us.

Something to think about.

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March 20, 2019 · 8:03 pm

I believe in the life everlasting

In the heartache of life, when day blurs into day and night finds you staring in the dark remembering your sins

When the ugliness of the curse and the filth of sin cover everything

When you plod from place to place in pain, when every step hurts and your heart hurts and the tears won’t come because big boys don’t do that

When the miry pit grabs the legs and drags you down, it is easy to forget…

And so you remember, and you say…

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting…”

As you stood under the waters of your baptism, and the clean, cold, clear water flowed down your head, so also you are washed. You are clean. You are dressed in the finest robes you can imagine, the righteousness of Christ. A crown is on your head and your skin has been anointed with the finest perfume. You have an invitation to the supper. It was bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. But you are not just there, you are welcomed there. You belong there. You were reserved a place from before the foundation of the world, because God loved you in Christ.

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

And the day will come when the gulf between heaven and earth will be no more. The curse will be taken away. The last war will be fought, the last argument heard, the last illness, the last death, and then the voice of the Son of God will be heard and the dead will be raised incorruptible.

I believe in the resurrection of the body. Wherever my ashes are scattered, wherever my bones end up, every speck is accounted for, preserved in death by the One who went there before. And when he speaks, the dead are raised incorruptible.

And we will walk in the new heavens and the new earth where the lion and lamb lie down together, where the leviathan and behemoth dwell in peace with man and man is at peace with man and God and all pain is gone. The thorns and thistles are no more, the uselessness and drudgery of this earth are no more.

And we will stand in the presence of our God forever.

I believe in the life everlasting.

I cannot imagine life without pain in my legs, and ache in my heart. I cannot imagine life without sin and death and pain and misery.

But I get a glimpse ever now and then. I taste the apricot and the apple, so I know what tastes good and fresh and wholesome. I hold my wife close and I know what intimacy and love should look like. And I get a glimpse in the scripture of who Jesus is, and long to see him face to face.

For then beauty will be perfect, and life and holiness and righteousness will be  complete. Then we will know what we only taste now. And we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. When God says to “think on these things” he would have our affections in heaven, where Christ is seated. There is our treasure, there is our hope, there is our end.

We are driven by the future. We are not determined by our past, we are not forever locked in the drudgery of the present. We are not defined by what we have done or what has been done to us.

We are defined by where we are going, who we are in Christ, and where we end up. The grave is not the end. Yesterday will pass away. Today will fade. Tomorrow brings “bright hope” for the place in heaven has already been prepared for us.

And when I finally reach the River, I will pass through to the Promised Land. My sins will be left behind. My filthy garments. My hopelessness and vanity, as well as my aches and pains, my sleepless nights, my pain-filled days – I will leave all of that behind in the River of Death, and victory will be mine at last.

That is where we are going. Jesus is already there. He is the way, the truth and the life. How do you get there? Only by trusting in him. You have to have his garments and his invitation, which only come by faith.

Look beyond this present world, with its loves and hates and fears and terrors. Look beyond the brokenness and hatred and rage and sorrow. Raise your head up and see where you are going. Jesus stands there at God’s right hand, ready to receive you…

I believe in the life everlasting…

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