We turn this evening in our Bibles to the gospel according to John chapter 11. John chapter 11, our scripture reading for this evening. And I'm going to be reading the first 44 verses. And as we focus upon the narrative, I want to focus in particular upon verse 38. John chapter 11. This should be a very familiar passage of scripture and an account of Jesus' ministry for many of us, if not all of us, but certainly something appropriate for this time of the year as we think about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ himself. We read as follows. Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany. the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is sick. When he heard this, Jesus said, this sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's son may be glorified through it. Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed there where he was two more days. Then he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea. But Rabbi, they said, a short while ago, the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there? Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light. After he had said this, he went on to tell them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up. His disciples replied, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better. Jesus had been speaking of his death, but the disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And for your sake, I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him. Then Thomas, called Didymus, said to the rest of the disciples, let us also go, that we may die with him. On his arrival, Jesus von Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. Lord, Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha answered, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Yes, Lord, she told him, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who was to come into the world. And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. The teacher is here, she said, and is asking for you. When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him, he asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jew said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying? Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. Take away the stone, he said. But Lord, said Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days. Then Jesus said, did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, take off the grave clothes and let him go. Here ends the reading of God's word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our Lord endures forever. Please keep your Bibles open. We're going to focus in particular upon verse 38, but also a few verses Before that, verse 33, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. And then again in verse 38, Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. Brothers and sisters, in our Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ was prophesied to be the Messiah. And he was described by the prophet Isaiah as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, familiar with our suffering. And later on, of course, we know that the letter to the Hebrews speaks of Jesus being someone who understands our suffering and our temptations, someone who is familiar with our lives. I want to think about the phrase, man of sorrows, with you for a few moments tonight. I want you to think about what that means, that Jesus is a man of sorrows and that he shared the same emotions that you and I did. In every respect, without sin, Jesus shared our emotions. And I want to Preach about this tonight because I think it's very important that we distinguish what the Bible says about how Jesus responds to the death of Lazarus over against what I think are our two extremes that we have to navigate around When Jesus comes to the tomb when Jesus confronts Mary and Martha He is not a stoic He is not someone who does not reveal his emotions. We know that he wept and And as we'll see in a few moments, not only did he weep, he became deeply troubled. He became angry at the tomb of Lazarus. That on the one hand, because there are many people who think that Jesus is nothing more than some marble model, that Jesus sort of walked upon the earth six inches above the earth. He never really experienced what we experience. In fact, one of the earliest heresies in the Christian church was the heresy called docetism. Docetism said that Jesus only appeared to be human. He wasn't really human. He only appeared to be human. But that's not true. For our salvation, Jesus Christ, took upon himself our flesh and blood and along with that our emotional life as well, that is without sin. The other extreme to avoid is the sentimentalized Jesus. Jesus who in a moment of weakness breaks down and shows his emotion, that his emotion is a sign of his weakness, of being overcome by emotion. as though it were just as sinful as our own sinful emotions. That's not true either. The emotions of Jesus are the emotions of a sinless man. Perfect man and perfect God. But more than that, and here's the point I want to make tonight, the emotions of Jesus often point to his redemptive work. So when he cries at the tomb of Lazarus, and when he grows angry at the tomb of Lazarus, he does so for your redemption and for mine. It is part of his calling as our savior and our mediator. It's not just to confirm to us, as important as it is to say, well, he was like us in all respects without sin. It's more than that, it's to say that as he wept and as he grew angry, he was giving rise to his redemptive plan, his redemptive purpose and calling from the Father. So as we make our way through this very challenging passage, challenging in a sense that there are all kinds of surprises that we find in John 11. Do we not when you read this account? Things that just seem odd to us. They certainly seemed odd to Martha and Mary and maybe even the people witnessing this event. But they are here recorded for us for our salvation to glorify Jesus as the resurrection and the life. I want to have a pair of contrasts here. There is confusion and exasperation, first of all, for those mourning at Bethany. We read the account that Jesus hears, he gets word, that his friend Lazarus is very sick and he's being called to come to that little town of Bethany to make his way there, to drop everything, what he's doing, and to get over there. We would do that, wouldn't we? Pastors do that. I'm grateful that I had a mentor who taught me that whatever you're doing, if there's an emergency, you go. You don't say, well, this is my day off, or I'm in the middle of a golf game. Sorry, I can't attend to this. We would think that if a dear friend was seriously ill, was on the verge of death, what would you do? You would go, but Jesus does not go immediately. He waits. The loving and the glorious thing for him to do on that occasion is to wait. Certainly this troubled Mary and Martha. It troubled the Jews who were mourning Lazarus. Why does he do that? In fact, what did they say to Jesus, Mary and Martha? If you had only been here earlier, if you'd only come right away, you might have saved him. Could not this man who healed a blind man have healed Lazarus to prevent his death? And this terrible situation we're now facing, this young man who's dead now, Jesus delays. Why? Have you thought about that? Why does Jesus delay his departure? It's not because he's insensitive to the situation. It's not because he doesn't really care for Lazarus or for Mary or Martha. He's preoccupied with other things. No. He says, I have delayed this. I have waited until Lazarus died so that the glory of the Lord would be manifested. There is a design. Lazarus is only sleeping. And how many times doesn't Jesus say that? When he heals, when he raises up the dead, she's only sleeping, this little girl. And he says, Talitha, which in Aramaic means little girl, come arise. She's only sleeping. And the people think this man's out of his mind. He's crazy. What do you mean? She's only sleeping. She's been dead. And for Lazarus, certainly people were saying, this man's been dead for four days. Jesus, what are you talking about? This has happened, said Jesus, so that the glory of the Lord would be revealed. It harkens back to what we read in chapter 9 in John's gospel, where Jesus heals the man who was born blind. And of course, the people around him were surmising that he was born blind because God was either punishing him or punishing his parents for something they had done wrong. So the equation was if you've done something wrong and had not repented of it, then you get this punishment. Much like Job's counselors and Job's misery. Job, obviously you've done something wrong. Job, you have to confess your sin. This is why God is punishing you. But Jesus says this man has been born blind so that the glory of the Lord would be manifested. So that Jesus Christ would be manifested as the one who has power over blindness. And think of how many times Jesus heals blind people. Is it simply a coincidence? I think the reason why Jesus so often chooses to heal the blind is that it was an illustration of what the gospel does. The gospel opens the eyes of people's hearts to see the truth, to see God, to see the way of salvation. A story always reminds me of something that Dr. John Piper used to tell and has written about in some of his books. For those of you who may not know, Dr. John Piper, he was the pastor for many years of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. He's written many books. He's well known among reformed and evangelical people. He pastored for some 40 years in Minneapolis, and he received a call one day that a young couple had a baby born in the hospital, and this baby was born, unbeknownst to them beforehand, this baby was born without eyes. There were only little fleshy sockets on this baby's face and the baby's skull. And so you can imagine, as I would imagine as a pastor, you're driving to the hospital asking yourself, what do I say? What do I say to console this couple? What do I say to counsel them? What passage do I read? And he said, the passage that came to mind was John 9. This has happened so that God would be glorified. And it brought great comfort to the father and the mother and the congregation as well, that these things do not happen by accident, but by God's design. There is confusion and there is exasperation. Both Mary and Martha express their exasperation. If only you had arrived earlier. They love him, but they're confused. And at the point of simply saying, why? Why bother coming now after he dies? What's the point? Think about it. Jesus could have healed Lazarus from afar, couldn't he? Like he did with others. He tells a man, go back to your home and you'll find that your son has been healed. And indeed, his son had been healed. But Jesus doesn't do that here. Why? It is to manifest his glory in the face of death. How does this speak to us? The situation of confusion and exasperation. Why do these terrible tragedies happen in our lives? We ask ourselves. People who we know, people who we love, whether they be family or friends, people in our congregation, We understand when someone dies at a ripe old age. In fact, sometimes we've said to ourselves or to others, it's a blessing. I've known many parishioners over the years who have said to me, I pray every day for the Lord to take me home. I had a man in my last pastorate who prayed that for the nine years I served as his pastor. He lived to be 90 years old. And I always said to him, if the Lord hasn't called you home yet, it's for a reason. He still has work for you to do. But I understand how the elderly pray for that. But think about someone taken in the middle of life. Someone taken in their youth. And we have questions about why. Why this brokenness? Why must there be warfare in the Ukraine? And you've seen the pictures. You've seen the bodies lying on the street. You see the civilian population being targeted. You say to yourself, why does this sort of thing happen? Why are there people so calloused? So cruel that they would launch rockets at civilian targets not caring who gets killed. People being displaced, several million people being displaced. You say, why does this happen? Because of the cruelty, because of the greed, because of the lust for power of a few people in positions of power. We ask ourselves when a mother, young mother, dies of breast cancer and her children are still in grade school or even younger. We say why why does this happen. I've said this as a pastor myself. Someone dies from an undiagnosed condition and the congregation not only the family but the congregation is bereft. Why. And we say does Jesus really know and does Jesus really care in those situations. Does Jesus really care about Lazarus? Does he really care about Mary and Martha in this situation? Or does he seem to you to be hard and calloused? Sometimes we struggle, sometimes we're not bold enough to say it out loud, but in our hearts we struggle with exasperation. How can these things happen, especially to God's children? If God is sovereign, if God is loving, if God is wise, if God is merciful, If God controls all things and numbers even the hairs of our head, why do these things happen to us? Why? And ultimately the Lord says, trust. Do you believe? Do you believe that these things are for my glory and for your joy? So there's first confusion and exasperation. And then there is secondly, tears and anger. Tears and anger. Notice, first of all, for those who are mourning at Bethany. And I want you to notice especially how Jesus ministers. Jesus ministers by his teaching to Martha, but when he comes before Mary and the Jews who are mourning Lazarus, what does he do? He doesn't scold them. He doesn't tell them to dry their tears. He doesn't say, you people should not weep, because after all, we believe in the resurrection. He himself weeps. And why does he do so? Jesus enters into our grief as the man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. But now wait a minute. Jesus weeps. Tears are streaming down his face. He is deeply, profoundly moved. at this moment, and yet he knows that in a few moments Lazarus will be raised to life. So what do we have to make of this? Is this just a show that he puts on? Is this just a display of emotions for the sake of trying to fit in with the rest of the people who are mourning and sobbing over Lazarus's death? No, there's more to it than that. In fact, that's why I've singled out verses 33 and 38. Many of our English translations do not carry with it the tone of what the original Greek says. It talks about Jesus being deeply moved. Some translations say that he was profoundly disturbed. That gets closer. I have found, believe it or not, that the best translation that captures the essence of the original Greek is Eugene Peterson's The Message, which is a paraphrase, believe it or not. And I know many conservative Reformed people have certain strong opinions about something like The Message, but there's a point where a paraphrase like that can help us understand the nuance of the language here. Did you know that what is happening here in John chapter 11 is that Jesus is not just moved, not just disturbed, but he is intensely angry. That's really what the text means. Jesus, when he saw the tomb of Lazarus, and when he saw all these people mourning in front of that tomb, he was deeply angry. And so there's been a great deal of discussion among Bible scholars and commentators and the like as to what Jesus was angry at. There are some who would say that Jesus was angry because he was scolding as it were the people because of their unbelief Don't you know I'm gonna raise him from the dead. So stop your crying. Will you? Like a parent with a with a small child stop your crying I'll give you something to cry about But that's not what he was doing There's also a very bizarre interpretation that says Jesus here is angry because now he's being forced to do another miracle I guess I have to raise him from the dead now, now that he's dead. That's not what's going on here. I think a far more compelling and biblical explanation of his anger is this, that when Jesus looks out and sees the people mourning, and he sees Mary and Martha in particular, he sees that tomb that's closed, he becomes angry because he sees what sin and death had done to God's good creation. and to the people whom he loved. A number of years ago, it's been over 100 years ago, there was a Presbyterian theologian by the name of Benjamin Warfield who taught at Princeton Seminary and is greatly respected, it's particularly among Presbyterians, but he wrote an essay or a short book entitled The Emotional Life of Our Lord. And he addresses this issue of why Jesus was deeply angry. And this is what he writes, and he leans heavily upon John Calvin's interpretation of what's going on. I quote, the spectacle of the distress of Mary and her companions enraged Jesus because it brought poignantly home to his consciousness the evil of death, its unnaturalness, its violent tyranny, as Calvin phrases it in verse 38. In Mary's grief, he contemplates, still to adopt Calvin's words, quote, the general misery of a whole human race and burns with rage against the oppressor of men. Inextinguishable fury seizes upon him. His whole being is discomposed and perturbed. And his heart, if not his lips, cry out, for the innumerable dead is my soul disquieted. It is death, says Professor Warfield. It is death that is the object of his wrath. And behind death, him who has the power of death and whom he has come into the world to destroy. Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but this is incidental. His soul is held by rage. And as he advances to the tomb, in Calvin's words again, as a champion, who prepares for conflict. Not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe, Jesus smites in our behalf. He has not only saved us from the evils which oppress us, he has felt for and with us in our oppression, and under the impulse of these feelings has wrought out our redemption. I wonder, have you ever heard That account of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus explained in that light. I must tell you that until I wrote this sermon last year, I had never thought about Jesus being angry at the tomb of Lazarus, angry at what sin had done, how it had devastated that good creation, how it has torn people's lives apart, how it has brought such sorrow into the world. And Jesus is angered by that. Think about that in terms of our own experience today. We are not called to be stoics in the face of suffering and death. Just because we believe in the resurrection, we ought not to say to people, well, you can't mourn, you shouldn't shed a tear, you shouldn't weep profoundly. The Apostle Paul says, we mourn but not as those who have no hope. We mourn, but not as those who have no hope. We mourn because of the loss, the separation from people we love. We mourn because we see, again, the very clear evidence that the wages of sin is death. Again, as the catechism says, not that our death is now the payment for our sin, but we do know that death is the consequence of the fall into sin. And in anger, maybe you've had a moment of anger in the face of death where you cry out for redemption along with the entire creation. Romans 8 talks about that. The whole creation roams in anticipation of the resurrection. All things being made new. Don't you have that experience when you see a loved one dealing with cancer? Someone not only young but also old seeing the infirmity That old age brings on the loss of physical and mental abilities. And your heart cries out, it shouldn't be this way. And you long for the day, as John says, when all things shall be made new. And there will be no more sorrow, no more deaths. No more disease or pain for the old order of things will have passed away. Haven't you said in a moment of anger under those circumstances, this is not right. It should not be this way. This was not the way God created his universe. God created us for life, but sin has brought this misery upon us. But the story doesn't end there. Not only is there confusion and exasperation, not only tears and anger, but there is also comfort and joy. Comfort and joy. For those at Bethany mourning for Lazarus, Jesus simply speaks, Lazarus, arise from the dead. Arise! And he's brought back from the dead. What does it remind you of? It reminds you of the beginning of the creation account in Genesis 1, and God spoke, and the creation comes into being. He spoke, and there were sun, moon, and stars. He spoke, and there were the heavens and the earth. He spoke, and there were living creatures. He spoke, and man was created out of the dust of the earth, and he breathed into him the breath of life. Jesus simply speaks and Lazarus is raised from the dead, but as he asked Martha Do you believe in the resurrection? And she says yes, I do now, you know that the Sadducees in Jesus day They denied the resurrection They were a strange lot. They denied the resurrection Why because they claim that in none of the first five books of the Old Testament. Is there any reference to resurrection? And Jesus confronts them and says, well, then why does the Bible say that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? He's not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. A very powerful argument. But he says, do you believe in the resurrection? He says, yes, I do. I know that someday there will be the resurrection. He says, no, I am the resurrection. I am the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. People are amazed that Jesus has power even over death itself. What they do not know, what they have not yet experienced fully, is that this power comes at the expense of his own life. That he will lay down his life, he will assume our penalty so that we may have everlasting life. This speaks to us today as well. Lazarus died eventually again, unlike Jesus, but the story of Lazarus is a lens. His arrival in Bethany is a lens. The story of Calvary and the empty tomb, they are a lens in which we understand the broader message of the glory of Jesus Christ being magnified at the cross and at the empty tomb. You see, Jesus was angry at the tomb because of what he saw sin had done in bringing death upon his people. And he was so angry, in fact, that he was determined to see that death was vanquished by his own death. He died so that we might live. Jesus is, indeed, the man of sorrows. And as much as we appreciate what this means for us in terms of Jesus being able to sympathize, do you realize, do you recognize tonight that what we need, what the world needs is more than just someone who can sympathize with our misery. We need, you need, the world needs someone who goes beyond that and is victorious over our misery. As I mentioned this morning, the Apostle Paul says that because of Jesus Christ, death has been swallowed up in victory. Jesus was so angry at the effect that death had upon his people that he brought himself to the cross. There was a point in Luke's gospel where, in chapter 9, it says Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, knowing full well, knowing full well what awaited him there, knowing that he would be arrested, mistreated, crucified, which was a criminal's death. He knew that he would be rejected by the Father, which is why he cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane, Father, if it's possible for this cup to pass from me, let it be taken from me. Yet not my will be done, but your will be done. And he lays down his life as the good shepherd so that his sheep may live, that you would enjoy that victory as well. So that as our catechism says, and I read this almost every time I've conducted a funeral service, why then do we still have to die, says the catechism? If Jesus died for our sins, why do we still have to die? Our death is no longer the payment for sin, says the catechism, but rather is our transition from this life unto eternal life. Jesus says, not only does he sympathize, he is the resurrection. He is your hope. He is your joy. Let his resurrection be the source of your eternal life and your hope forevermore. Amen. Let's pray. Father, indeed, we are deeply comforted by the man of sorrows, our Lord Jesus Christ. How thankful we are that he was not simply a marble model, aloof, detached from human emotion. Nor was he someone whose grief was overwhelming to the point where he could not respond. but there was nothing he could do, but rather, in the face of his anger, he was all the more determined to make his way to that cross upon which all our sins were laid and through which we have everlasting redemption. And so, Father, may our hearts rejoice. May our hearts, even in sorrow, in mourning, do so as those who have placed their hope in the risen Savior, knowing, as we just sang a few moments ago, that if Christ is the firstfruits of the resurrection, we may be assured that though we die, yet shall we live. Bless us and comfort us with these words, we pray, for Jesus' sake.