I have to write a sermon in the next 48 hours. As expected, this week has been hell. I have been dealing with a shitstorm at work. My sleep is troubled. I am attacked, internally and eternally, that I am foolish, without virtue, and unqualified to say a thing.
To that I say this: we are all unqualified.
Today I am finishing a series of three linked passages. Lazarus is in the tomb, Christ has said he is the resurrection, and he is not acting the way you would expect. He is not comforting Mary and Martha in their grief.
One can speculate that in those times you did things openly and out loud. You said what was in your mind, and when you were sad you wept. It may have been expected that Mary went to weep at the tomb of Lazarus. The facts of death were well-known: men died at work, women in childbirth, and all when the Romans decided your nation was without utility.
But on this day a tomb that should be stinking was open and tradition was broken, for a man walked out, and all was made new.
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?”
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
(John 11:30-44 ESV)
This explains why Jesus said to Mary not words of comfort, but that she would see the glory of God. This had happened in the days of the prophets, but when Elijah raised from the dead the young man was not in the tomb. Had not been dead for four days. Was not rotting.
Lazarus was.
From this we should know that Christ is God, and his words indeed are valid. The reason the father did his will is that they were one in will and in harmony. The trinity is an offense to the unbelievers, and the claims of Christ the mutterings of a madman, or the work of the greatest grifter that lived: or they say he was a prophet agreeing with them without having the simple courtesy of reading the gospels and taking the text seriously.
Christ demonstrated he was divine while living. He raised others.
And not all believed. Not all will believe. Those who reject Christ will reject us. Unless we are not of Christ ourselves.
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