When Heaven Meets Earth: Real Men Cry

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Date: 3rd Wednesday in Advent Text: John 11:1-45 www.kongsvinger.org

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern
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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins in salvation by grace through faith alone.
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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 11th chapter.
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Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister
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Martha. And it was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother
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Lazarus was ill. So the sister sent to him, saying, Lord, him whom you love is ill.
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But when Jesus heard it, he said, This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the
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Son of Man may be glorified through it. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
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So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
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Then after this he said to the disciples, Let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him,
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Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again? Jesus answered,
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Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
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But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. After saying these things, he said to them,
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Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. The disciples said to him,
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Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover. Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep.
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Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died, and for your sake
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I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe, but let us go to him. So Thomas, called the twin, said to his fellow disciples,
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Let us also go, that we may die with him. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had been already in the tomb four days.
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Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.
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So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house.
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Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now
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I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.
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Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her,
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I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
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Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the
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Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. When she had said this, she went and called her sister
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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.
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Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.
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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.
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Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him,
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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the
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Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
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And he said, Where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept.
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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 have also kept this man from dying?
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Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
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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 for four days.
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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.
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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.
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And when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. And the man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth.
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Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let him go. Many of the
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Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.
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In the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, a little bit of a tough concept here.
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Have you all ever been told something to be true by somebody well -meaning, but when they've told you the thing that they thought would really help you, it turned out that what they told you was flat -out false?
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It's a little annoying. I'll give you an example. In our day and age, and maybe it goes back to time immemorial, we are told real men do not cry.
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Real men do not cry. I'm beginning to think that sinful men are really poor definers of what a real man is or isn't.
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In fact, I would note that in our text today, as we consider the incarnation, I would like to posit this idea.
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Jesus is the most real man we've ever seen in human history. Adam had it for a bit, if you would, but blew the whole thing, so it's hard to give him any credit along those lines.
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You want to know what humanity looks like. You want to know what patriarchy looks like. You look at Jesus Christ.
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He's a man's man, and he is the one who loves his bride so dearly that he lays down his life for her, that he clothes her in his righteousness, that he washes away her sins.
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He is truly a man's man. You want to know what manhood looks like, what it looks like to be a real man?
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You look at Christ bleeding, suffering, dying on the cross so that his bride can be forgiven, reconciled, pardoned, clothed in splendor.
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A man's man, if you would. It's in that regard, then, that we consider, first, a text that we may have heard one other time where Jesus wept, apart from our gospel text for today, and that's in the
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Gospel of Luke chapter 19. The context here is actually quite interesting if you consider the implications of it.
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How many times have you heard somebody complain or grumble that somehow God is so unloving, so unkind, so mean, so despicable, that he would dare judge human beings and send upon them death or destruction or judge them or whatever?
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And so they look at the God of the Old Testament as somehow he's a big old meany grumpy pants, and you can't really trust that God because he, well, he sent the children of Israel to slaughter those poor
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Canaanites, those innocent people, and no loving God would do such a thing.
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You have no idea what God's like, none whatsoever. Now it is true that God acts in judgment.
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That is not what God is like. He does this because he's exhausted every possible way to be reconciled with those who have rebelled against him, and when we look at Luke 19, starting at verse 41, as Jesus is drawing near to Jerusalem, he's heading in to bleed and die for your sins and mine.
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It says when he drew near to the city, he wept over it. We've all seen weeping, right?
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Weeping isn't just the little daubing, you know, you've got a little moisture coming out of your eyes.
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Oh, no, no, I, no, no, don't worry, my eyes are just a little dry, that's all, no.
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Weeping can't be hidden. Weeping is something that people take notice of. Weeping involves sobbing.
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Weeping involves, at times, uncontrollable noises and blubbering.
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Is this any way for a man to behave? Yes, and consider then,
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Jesus, what he says here is, well, it reveals to us the heart of God and how it is so loathsome for him when he acts in judgment.
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Listen to what Christ said, Oh, would that you even now had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they're hidden from your eyes.
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For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side, and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation.
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Does that sound like a God who is just chomping at the bit to act in judgment?
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You know, I remember when my dad would spank me and say that proverbially stupid thing, this is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.
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I never believed it with my dad, but you know what? I believe it with God. I believe it with Christ.
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He wept over Jerusalem, wept that she remained impenitent, wept that she wouldn't hear his words, wept that she didn't see the time of her visitation.
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God himself was in her midst, and they behaved like the devil.
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In fact, at Christ's crucifixion, while he was on trial, before he was crucified, Pilate asked, what shall
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I do with this one Jesus, the King of the Jews? Crucify him.
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What does Pilate do? Coward that he is, washes his hands and says, his blood be on you.
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And what do they say? Well, his blood be on us and on our children. Now we recognize that what we meant for evil,
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Christ worked for good. But what Christ works for good is only for those who believe.
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Without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so in this regard then, consider our gospel text.
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We won't reread the entirety of it, but you'll note that Lazarus has died,
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Christ got word that he was sick, and Christ cools his heels for several days. Isn't that like God?
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Hello, can you hear my prayers up there? Don't you know I'm suffering? I could die.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. And he does nothing. But you'll note that he already said ahead of time, this will not lead to death.
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It will be for the glory of God. So when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
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Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews who had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.
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So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house.
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One of the things I love, a little minor detail, is that if you remember when Jesus went to their house, right?
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It was Martha who was the one who was clanging the dishes, who was making a fuss in there, practically looking outside the door saying to her sister
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Mary, get in here and help me. And what was she doing? Sitting at the feet of Jesus, doing nothing, right?
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And so she comes in, make my sister get up and help me. And what does
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Jesus say? Oh, Martha, Martha, you're troubled, anxious about many things.
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But one thing is necessary, and what Mary is doing will not be taken from her, right?
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It's a great picture, if you would, of all the anxiety of trying to impress God with your good works as opposed to sitting at his feet and hearing him.
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But apparently that had such a huge impression on her, that rebuke of Jesus, which was necessary, right?
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Jesus had to mansplain a few things to her. But she took the lesson.
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She took the lesson, and here at the death of her brother, Martha now is the one, man, she stopped what she was doing and she listened to Jesus.
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It shows in what she says. So Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
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True, but listen to the but, but even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.
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That's faith. And Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. I know,
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I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day. I stopped, I listened, I heard,
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I believe. It's such a great redemption story if you think about it, right? The pot clanger to the confessor of the truth regarding the resurrection.
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So Jesus said to her, beautiful words, I am the resurrection and the life.
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The resurrection isn't an event. Life is not some abstract concept. The resurrection is
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Jesus. Life is Jesus. Apart from him, there is no life. And then he says, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.
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And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?
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Every time this text comes around in the series A in the three -year lectionary,
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I point out that I've presided at the funeral, funerals of Kongsbinger members.
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And if God gives me more years here, I'm pretty sure I'll be conducting more, right?
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So how can Jesus say they will never die? I always point out, does
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Jesus ever lie? Never. Not even once. What he's saying is true.
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How? I have no idea. I just trust him. So she said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the
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Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. And when she had said this, she went and she called her sister
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Mary. Mary, the one who sat at the feet of Jesus, who wouldn't even help her sister with the hors d 'oeuvres, or hors divorce, as my wife would say, right?
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She came to Mary in private, said the teacher's here, he's calling you. So she heard it. She rose quickly and went to him.
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Now Jesus had not come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.
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And 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.
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Now when Mary came to where Jesus had saw him, she fell at his feet, saying, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but there's no but here.
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She's truly, truly in mourning. And Jesus saw her weeping, and the
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Jews who had come with him were also weeping. He was deeply moved.
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And here's the issue, is that when you read this in the
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Greek, imbermaomai, he was deeply moved.
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The implication of imbermaomai in the Greek is that Jesus is angry.
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He's displeased in an angry way. Which kind of leads to the question, what on earth is he angry about?
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It's so clear in the Greek, it's just hard to pull it over in English.
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So listen to how it goes. Jesus saw her weeping, the Jews who had come with her also weeping. He was imbermaomai in his spirit, greatly displeased, angered, greatly troubled.
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At whom? Mary? That doesn't make sense. The Jews who were with her who were also weeping?
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No. He was deeply moved by just how wrecked everything is.
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This isn't the world he created, this is the world we created. The end of the sixth day,
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God said everything was tov ma 'od, very good. But we listened to the serpent.
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We traded paradise for the shot of being gods ourselves, and we've come up woefully short.
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We've lost paradise, we've lost God, we've gained death. Jesus is deeply moved, he's displeased, he's angry at the whole mess.
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Not at the people, at the wreck. And here's where we have to point something out.
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This is the consequence of our sin. This is the consequence of our rebellion.
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But scripture says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life.
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Jesus is the man who weeps over the city that will not repent and will ultimately face
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God's judgment and he weeps that they receive God's wrath rather than mercy.
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The same Jesus is deeply moved by how absolutely wrecked humanity is, the creation is, how the whole thing is groaning in anticipation of the revealing of the sons of God.
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It's nothing like what he made it to be. And in this world that we live in, people suffer.
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They get sick. They die. There are children who have lost their parents.
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There are parents who have lost their children. There are deep relationships that we have that are torn apart by death.
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And each and every one of us has death stalking us. You can see him hiding off in the corner somewhere and we're just wondering when he's going to pounce next.
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He's ruined you. Satan's ruined me and this is not how he meant to be.
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And Jesus is angry but he's not angry at us. He's angry at everything that has happened to us and like a man's man, he weeps over the whole thing.
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And he asks, where have you laid him? Come and see. And Jesus, a second time in scripture, weeps.
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Those who saw it didn't quite know what to make of it. I thought real men don't cry.
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It looks to me like they do. See how he loved him?
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Some said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man had also kept this man from dying?
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You know, it's in this regard that, man, I think about some of the brutally horrible things that I've heard that Christians have said to other
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Christians. Those who are suffering from illnesses or they've been in accidents or they've had their health taken from them because of one consequence or another.
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Christians say horrible things like, if you just believed enough, then you would have your healing.
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If you just had enough faith, if you just tithed, if you just did more, if you just, if you just, if you just, then
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God would. What did Lazarus do to be raised from the dead?
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He's not mentioned as a tither here. Or even as a great man of faith.
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In fact, the text right here is super clear. You know, the only thing that Lazarus was doing was the same thing that, well, corpses do and have been doing for a long time.
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Decomposing. How much effort does that take? How much faith does it take to decompose?
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They're already talking about the odor and the stench. But see, that's the thing. That's how
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Jesus finds all of us. Scripture is clear. We were conceived and born dead in trespasses and sins.
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But God sent forth the good news in the mouth of the apostles and then the pastors after them who have proclaimed it to you and to me.
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They've been sent to baptize and make disciples of all nations. They are sent to do these things by God himself.
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And where the gospel reaches God, the Holy Spirit works and finds spiritual corpses.
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Zombies. The walking dead. That's what we all are by nature. And God has mercy.
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And some are raised to life. They are vivified.
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They are regenerated by the mercy of God through the means of grace.
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So could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?
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Of course he could. But we've all seen Jesus heal the sick.
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We've seen him give sight to the blind. But giving life to a dead man?
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And it's in this context that Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. And Martha is the one who confessed that he will be raised on the last day, on the day of the resurrection.
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So the text says, Jesus then deeply moved again. Embrima omae.
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Deeply moved. Angered. Displeased. I always like to picture this as like back in the day when
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I was watching cartoons when I was a kid. Like Popeye the Sailor Man. It kind of seems like a little bit weird.
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But remember, you knew that Popeye was getting ready to do some business to put a world of hurt on Brutus when he opened up his can of spinach, right?
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That's what's going on right here. Jesus is like opening up his can of spinach.
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He's deeply moved and he comes to the tomb and you can almost see him rolling up his sleeves.
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And he said, take away the stone. Now Martha needs to speak a little sense.
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The sister of the dead man said to him, Lord, there's going to be an odor.
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He stinketh. He's been dead for four days. And I don't think
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Jesus turns on her hard. You can just see him looking at her going, did
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I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? A little bit of a rebuke.
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And maybe like Jesus's mother in John 2, where she says, you do whatever he says.
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You can see Martha kind of giving the nod. All right, go ahead. So they took away the stone.
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Jesus lifted up his eyes and he said, Father, I thank you. I thank you that you've heard me.
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I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around so that they, so that they may believe that you sent me.
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And when they said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
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And the reality of this is kind of interesting. The tomb where Lazarus was laid is a multi -storied tomb.
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He was on the bottom floor. All right. And they didn't have the benefit of a spiral staircase.
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So there's a little bit of time in between going on here.
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Lazarus, come out. And you can almost hear the crowd kind of murmuring. Is he going to do it? Can Jesus do this?
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Can he really raise a guy from the dead? What's going to happen here? They're all looking and they're all staring.
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They're all listening, right? And you can only imagine the gasp when
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Lazarus comes out. And he's still bound hand and foot. It's almost comedic if you think about it.
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Poor Lazarus going, right? And everyone going, and the text says the man who had died came out.
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His hands and his feet bound with linen strips. His face wrapped with a cloth.
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And listen to the words. Jesus said to him, them, unbind him and let him go.
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That same Jesus, one of our hymns that we sing in Easter, Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands.
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Jesus who had Lazarus unbound from death himself was bound, beaten, flogged, crucified, suffering with every breath.
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Six hours, three in the sunlight, three in the dark, bearing your sin and mine so that we could be unbound from death.
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And Jesus doesn't do this dispassionately. He doesn't play that stupid game.
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Well, I'm a man, so I better act like I'm all strong and stuff. Jesus truly can sympathize with our weakness.
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Since we have such a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.
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For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are and yet is without sin.
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And I would even add to this text, although I can't really add to it, just look at the cross references.
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Not only was Jesus tempted in every way that we are and yet is without sin, Jesus knows exactly what it means to suffer.
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And suffer he did. Not for any wrong that he did, but for every wrong you and I have ever done.
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His hands and his feet pierced. Crucifixion being a grueling process, agonizing, excruciating.
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He knows not only what it's like to be tempted, but he also knows what it is exactly like to experience excruciating pain.
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And yet he never flagged. He never said, uncle. Yes, he wept, but he did this so that you and I can be unbound.
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So that you and I can live. It's in that regard then that you can almost hear the beginning strains of that glorious hymn sung by the angels, glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.
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The announcement of the angel proclaiming to humanity unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior,
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Christ the Lord. Because that's exactly what we need. And he's a man's man.