The Questions of Jesus | Do You Believe This?

Reading is from John 11, beginning with verse 17, on his

arrival. Jesus found Lazarus had already

been in the Tomb for four days. Now, Bethany was, less than two

miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary

to comfort them and the loss of their brother.

When Martha had 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. I'd 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, the one who believes in me will live

even though they die and whoever lives.

By believing in me will never die.

Do you believe this? Yes, Lord, she replied.

I believe that. You are the Messiah, the Son of

God, who is come into the world? This is the word of the Lord.

Find a seat. My wife and I were having a

conversation the other day about names.

One of the things that she does on the side, is she names

products? So, if you run a big company and

you need to name a new sandwich or a new beer, she works for the

company that helps you to name things and we were going around

our neighborhood, considering the names that we saw all around

us and you can sort of tell when things were named, if they were

named in the 90s, and they might have had Huns and them.

So, there is a cafe. Called.

I think it's called right in the nick of time.

But it's th why Emmy? It's a cafe Bakery.

We don't name things like that anymore.

Instead. We name things kind of

straightforward. So there's that place in the

seaport. Drink.

What do you think they do there? There is a pizza place called

do. There's a bakery called bread.

And so we named our church. Resurrection.

Because if you want a straightforward one word

summation of the heart of the church and the Heart of what

God's doing in the world. It is resurrection Central to

the gospel. Resurrection.

The word is filled with possibility and promise.

Maybe that which I lost isn't lost forever.

Maybe that, which is broken can be repaired.

Maybe that wound, that is so deep and festering.

Maybe that could be healed. Maybe there is hope beyond the

darkness and the grief in my past.

Now resurrections also an odd concept, right?

Because dead things don't come back to life, sort of a rule

that we have something that we've observed in the world.

That dead things don't live again, but Resurrection as an

idea or as a concept, it's largely hopeful, that's the note

that's being struck. But lurking just beneath the

shadow of Resurrection bright beneath.

The surface is the shadow side, which is that death always,

precedes Resurrection death, always precedes Resurrection.

We're intimately familiar with death, want to talk a little bit

about death this morning. I love that.

We were singing that song where we were asking Jesus to rescue

us and have mercy on us now and at the hour of our death and you

might have thought. Wow, that's out of place.

On a Sunday morning. But right along with its message

of Resurrection, the church has historically held up a big sign

that says death is on its way. It's a real thing that you have

to confront. It's lurking, somewhere around

the corner. It's somewhere in the future.

It's coming towards you at its own pace and its own time with

its own methods. Violent death is around us.

It's in our streets. There is accidental death, on

our roads. Incurable death fills our

hospitals, surprising death hits our homes.

It's shocks and it horrifies it unsettles.

It haunts us. There will be various times in

your life. When you feel that more than

others. If things are going well in your

life. Then this message seems a little

out of place. If you're in a difficult spot or

death has come close to your family.

Then you might be feeling this pretty heavily.

Because try as we might your organic diet, which I need to be

on your perfect gym routine, which I need to be on your

Innovative Medical Treatments. You can't stop this thing.

It's our archenemy as human beings.

Novelist Neil. Gaiman said everybody's going to

be dead. Just give them time.

So today, I've chosen this passage that takes place in the

middle of a funeral. Because if if if the news you're

putting your hope in isn't good, news at a funeral than you

ought, not to be placing your hope in it.

Okay. So let's try it out here in this

funereal setting. So Jesus is on his way to the

Grave side of his friend, Lazarus.

Yes, even Jesus, friends died. We're told in verse 17 that by

the time Jesus got there. Lazarus had already been in the

Tomb for four days. And so at that point, the

families already, deep into the mourning process, and we find in

verse 19, that many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to

console them concerning their brother.

And so, this gives us a context to that.

They're in the middle of a seven-day mourning period.

That was common in the culture of the day.

That if someone died in your family, they had to be buried

very quickly because they didn't have the same kind of science

stuff to Serve the body over a number of days.

So they bury them on the first day and then the community would

surround them for seven days to mourn.

So people would stream into the home and offer consolation and

sorrow because death ripples through families, right?

When we know this, that's why all cultures developed different

ways of dealing with death. I think that if you, if we had

this way of dealing with death, where our neighbors surrounded

us, where our Community of Faith came close, we would be in

pretty good shape. What death is tough for us,

partly? Because of the way we've treated

it, which is that we have quarantined it to the edges of

our society. We've put death, it has to stay

in the hospital. It has to stay out of sight

until we have been able to make it up to Make it look like it's

life again. And then it, we don't have death

in our homes. We have funeral homes.

That's where the funerals live and we only go there

occasionally as if to forget, the death is a reality.

Look at the seaport. Look at all the hip new

neighborhoods in our city. Where are the cemeteries?

No one is planning to die. Out of sight out of mind because

death cast a shadow on everything and that's what's

happening in our text. Martha is walking through the

valley of the shadow of death. And she's saying if only Jesus

had been here, maybe this could have been different.

Look at verse 21. Lord, if you had been here, my

brother would not have died. Martha had followed Jesus.

She had seen his miracles. She had watched him.

He'll leprosy. Give sight to the blind.

He delivered oppressed people from the evil one.

She knew that he was powerful. She also knew that he had kind

of a direct line to God when he prayed, God seemed to respond.

So if nothing else, Martha knows that Jesus is like a prophet

healer and so she says in verse 22, even now I know that

whatever you ask Ask from God, God will give you.

Now, we often miss make a mistake here.

We think that Martha is expressing Resurrection, faith,

and she's saying, like I know that you could raise my brother.

That's really not what she's saying.

What she's likely saying is something like I know that even

now if you ask God to comfort us that he would provide

Supernatural Comfort. I know even now that if you put

in a good word for my brother in the afterlife than maybe he'll

get decent treatment. I know even now that if you

wanted to turn those Five Loaves into a bunch of food for all the

people that Been in my house, for the last six days.

You could probably do that. You could still help us Jesus,

but what she's probably not saying is that I believe you

could beat the arch enemy. Because if only Jesus had been

here, but he wasn't here. And so now all hope is lost.

Right. We have to deal with this new

scenario because dead people don't come back to life.

And when someone loses a loved one, the last thing that they

want to hear our platitudes, wow, at least, he's in a better

place. At least.

Her pain has come to an end and Christians have their own

version of these platitudes. We call them theological

platitudes and someone's morning.

You might hear someone else say well God works in mysterious

ways, or he works all things together for those who love him

or God is in control. Now, here's the thing, those

three things. I just said, they're all true.

They're just out of place at that moment.

His true is they may be true statements.

And the wrong spot can do more harm than good, which is what

makes the next statement of Jesus?

Really weird? Because it seems like he is

speaking of theological platitude.

He says, in verse 23, your brother will rise again.

Now, it's important to know the context of Martha's belief.

So she is a first-century Jew and the majority of first

century Jews. Have a understanding that at the

very end of time. God is going to raise his

faithful people up from the dead.

Right? So Jesus says, your brother will

rise again and she goes, yeah. I know, I have that Future Hope

and that's what all the people in my house.

Have been saying for the last couple days, and I'm kind of

sick of hearing this. So it's a theological platitude

from an angle. At least, you know that you're

going to see him again someday. Jesus repeats it, your brother

will rise again. So Martha responds in verse 24.

I know that he will rise again, in the Resurrection on the last

day. Yeah, I know in the last day.

I know the pie in the sky stuff. Jesus.

But it doesn't do me, what much good right now because Lazarus

is dead. Death is final, especially if

you've been dead for four days, which is how long the text says,

Lazarus has been out. I can understand why some people

have trouble with the idea of Faith or a religion because it

seems to defer hope always to the the end, right?

It's like the period on the sentence that I call life.

That's where the hope is at the very end.

What good does it do in the present?

On what basis would I decide that it makes sense to put my

hope in that way out there. Future promise.

Now if something like the resurrection of the Dead were

true. Like Martha believes and like

Christians have historically believed then that would be

utterly world-altering. I hope we can agree on that.

If everyone if we knew that we would all be raised again at the

end, that would change some things.

But in order for me to know that that was true.

I would need like someone to come from the future to tell me

that that's true. Right.

Like a Time trap. I love time travel.

I really do. I love books about time travel

movies about time travel. I love it.

When the person comes from the future and they have, they're

coming. Usually because they have some

information right there. Like oh man, I got to get back

there because if they knew this, then we could avoid that, right?

So they go back into the past and they are trying to get

everyone's attention. They're always dressed in future

clothes and they're speaking of the future accent and they're

out of place and they say something like you have Abandon

this practice. You have to disavow this leader.

If you follow them, you're following them to your own Doom.

You have to start using this medicinal cure.

And minds are blown in the majority of people always

disbelieve them. But then, there's that one

person who takes them. Seriously.

I love it. But in order to believe news

from the future, you can watch in these stories.

People's minds. Have to stretch their paradigms

have to expand to accept what they're hearing.

And if they can that information from the future changes, the

present and I want to suggest that we have something of a time

travel situation on our hands in this text.

Martha says, in verse 24. I know that he will rise again,

in the Resurrection on the last day in the future.

And Jesus says, in verse 25. I am the resurrection and the

life. Jesus is the resurrection and

the life and this is the shocking point in our text.

When Jesus said your brother will rise again.

It was not a theological platitude.

He was being serious. He was saying, you know that

Endtime future resurrection that period at the end of the

sentence that you sort of place your hope in.

Yeah, that I am that and I am bringing that into your present.

I am from the future and I'm here to prove that death does

not ultimately win. In fact, I'm not just bringing

the secret that the resurrection is going to happen in the

future. I'm telling you that I am the

resurrection and the life. I am the source of all life.

Anything that exists has sprung from my Lively creativity in the

past, anything that will be raised.

Again will be raised because it is connected to my life.

I am the resurrection and the life life itself.

Embodied. For Martha.

The death of Lazarus was the biggest blow of her, her life.

You never experienced anything like this.

Not only did she lose her. Brother, her intimate friend her

companion. She lost a lot.

More Joanne, Brandt is a new testament scholar, and she

points out that the death of an adult brother who was head of

household is a Calamity for unmarried sisters.

So, as they're grieving that week during that seven-day

stretch, their there is not like, they're in this great

socio-economic position. They're they're set up, they can

kind of take a couple months off to process the loss.

No, it's the loss of their brother and all of the sudden

Martha and Mary are marginalized minorities, their economic

Drifters. They don't have time for Pie in

the Sky. What they need is God on the

ground. They need someone with the

power, over life and death. That someone to break into the

present and demonstrate that fear and anxiety, and grief and

sorrow and pain are not going to go on for eternity, and they're

not going to have the final word.

They need someone like Jesus to step in and say, I am the

resurrection and the life. Martha.

You said, if only you had been here, I'm saying I am here.

This is the good news that reality Church proclaims in

Boston. The Resurrection Church

proclaims in Boston. Jesus, who is life himself, the

source of all life, the hope of all life.

This one has broken into history.

He has overcome the grave to make it known to you that

abundant overflowing vibrant. Deathproof life is available to

you now and in the future. When you connect your life to

Jesus the life, then death is not final and all of deaths,

Friends start to be taken in a different light because when

your faith is in Jesus, the resurrection and the life, you

know. That war is not infinite.

That Injustice is not indefinite.

That poverty is not permanent that racism will not go on

forever, that we will be reconciled.

That fear is not final because in Jesus death has an expiration

date. And like a time traveler trying

to explain a new reality. Jesus expands in verse 25.

He says, I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in

me, though. He die.

Yet shall he live read that last part again?

Whoever believes in me, though, he die, yet, shall he live?

So this is what Jesus means when he says Resurrection, he's

saying even if you die, like, Lazarus has died.

If if One Believes In Me, then death is not the end of your

story. It doesn't death is not the

period. It's not the conclusion.

How do you get access to the promised life that's available

in Jesus? Like what he says, he says,

whoever believes in me. It doesn't say whoever obeys me.

He doesn't say whoever can measure up.

Whoever can win over my favor. He doesn't say.

Whoever makes the cut. He says, whoever believes in me.

This makes Jesus so beautifully different than all of the

systems of, in our world that promise life.

He's the source of Life, the defeater of death, and he

invites you to believe in him in order that his life might be

given to you as a gift. It's what allowed the Apostle

Paul to say in 1st, Corinthians, 15:55.

He looked death in the face and he said, oh, death.

Where is your Victory O Death. Where is your sting?

He has confidence that this Jesus.

Who is the Rex, resurrection? And the life has come into his

own life and it has changed the way that he sees death.

He's encountered life himself in the person of Christ, and Jesus

has sucked the fear out of death.

And he reveals death for what it is, you know, and I love horror

movies. Death is terrifying in horror

movies. The movie.

It follows. Excellent horror film.

If you are looking for one to scare the tar out of you on the

Saturday night. It follows is about it.

Following you and its amorphous, right?

It's not clear what it is, but the whole movie, there's

something and it no matter where you run, no matter where you go.

It is following you and it's going to look different every

time sometimes it looks like a creepy old woman in a hospital

gown. Sometimes it looks like a little

kid. They're like neck bent.

It's fought but it's following you.

Our films are stories imbue death with incredible power.

And Jesus is saying that's an improper view of what death is

death is frail. Death is dying, death is on its

way out. It is only a matter of time.

Life wins. This life is not just something

that comes at the end of the sentence at the end of your

life. You get to experience true life.

No, it's actually something that is he wants to reverse engineer

into your present. Leslie.

New begin says to be bound to Jesus by faith is to share

already. Now the life, which is beyond

death. And this is what Jesus offers

you today and already now experience of the life, which is

beyond death regardless of your qualifications, regardless of

your background, regardless of your track record, your bank

account, your title, your reputation, your past.

He's offering you life from the future now.

He says, I came that they may have life and have it

abundantly. That's why he came that you

might have Abundant Life. And so the question, then the he

puts to us today, is do you believe this?

Do you believe this? He puts the question to Martha?

He's just told her that, he's the resurrection and the life.

And at the tail end of verse 26. He looks at morning Martha and

asks, do you believe this? Do you believe that I am in the

present, the resurrection and the life?

God In the Flesh, who is breaking into history?

To ensure that death doesn't win.

Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus can

break into your present situation to bring hope in the

midst of hopelessness and light in the midst of darkness and

satisfaction to your bottomless desire and healing to your deep

wounds. Jesus says, I am the

resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?

And what happens when you do believe this?

You get a new identity. Now identity in our world, works

like this, you're always building it.

You're always crafting it. Your identity is made up of

everything that you have done or experienced in the past.

And then in the present, you're just sort of like, at the mercy

of whatever has happened in the past and your identity is just

the sum total of who you have been all this time, right?

And that can tell you that, as you go on the tough stuff Stacks

up and it always gets to be a part of your identity.

And you're carrying around the weight of who you have been?

Identity in our world is from the past.

It's from the history. It's it's what lies behind us.

and in Jesus, your identity comes from the future.

Your identity. Your fundamental who you are is

not who you have been but who you will be in Christ who he is,

growing you into. You are gifted a hope-filled

identity where this Jesus speaks to the death in your past,

speaks to the stuff. You're carrying and he looks at

you and he says that is actually I know you define yourself.

That way. I know that your narrative that

runs in your head all day is made up of that stuff back

there, but I'm telling you that I am gifting you a different

story. That you are not the sum total

of what you have done. You are the sum total of what

Jesus has done and is doing by the power of His.

Holy spirit. That's good news.

There's nobody else can give you something from the future like

that. A new identity.

Do you believe this? And then a new purpose.

A new purpose to be one who lives out and offers experiences

of this Resurrection Life. You know what, our churches

ought to be. They ought to be places where

you can get a taste of God's future places where you can get

a glimpse of the goodness that God has planned for his world.

A taste in this community of reconciled relationships, a

taste in this place of forgiveness, a taste in this

place. Of all that God has.

Were mercy and Justice can be experienced.

When you go into Baskin-Robbins or another ice cream store.

You can try out different flavors.

I hope you've had that experience.

It's awesome. So you get a little white spoon

and you take, I want to have the cookies and cream.

I want that pistachio. I want and there's a limit.

Okay, I have found out that there's a limit to how many

things they will let you try. but the church, Is that

Community which is offering to the world, a taste of what God

has in store a taste of God's future.

Experience forgiveness, experience, wholeness

experience, Grace experience, acceptance experience, being

wrapped up in community experience, being accepted for

who you are experience, changing who you are experienced growth

and newness of life, because Jesus has declared your identity

from the future. A new identity and a new

purpose. And so this morning, we're going

to have some time for reflection, some silence, some

Stillness. Oftentimes, we avoid Stillness

because that's where the fear of death Creeps in.

But I think that the beauty of life could could sneak into the

Stillness that Jesus the resurrection and the life might

actually want to meet you presently now.

And so, Jesus asked the question.

Do you believe this? And I think that he asks it to

those who claim to believe it, right?

There's probably plenty of people here because why else

would you be in church on a Sunday morning, who claim to

believe that Jesus is the wrecks, resurrection, and the

life. And he puts the question to you

today. I mean Martha believed in Jesus,

she believed everything that she knew to believe about him.

But he wanted to know, are you presently trusting me in the

most difficult thing that you've ever experienced?

Martha's wounds are raw. Her brother has been dead for

four days. And Jesus wants to know, are you

trusting me there? At Ground, Zero of pain.

And so, when we have still a Miss, if you, if you are one who

believes in Jesus, I want you to bring that to him.

Your anxiety, your deepest fear, your deepest grief, your

despair, your depression, and offer it to Jesus, and ask him

to be present, to ought to bring his resurrection life into the

present. And I don't know what that will

look like. I don't know how he will meet

you. I mean, you might believe like

sure God will make things right at the end.

But what if he wants to do something now, presently?

It's your disappointment or your sorrow your loss.

Martha actually ran out to meet Jesus.

He was on his way to her house and she went out.

She interrupted him on the way. And so this is an opportunity to

go out to meet Jesus and to bring your stuff and say Jesus.

If only you had been there. Do you think that you could be

here now, right? And if you don't follow Jesus,

then the same question is put to you.

Do you believe this? And it's a question that I hope

causes you to ask questions, like What is my hope in the face

of death and violence and sickness and pain?

Am I experiencing the kind of vibrant life that Jesus seems to

offer. Jesus asked.

What do you believe this? It's not an accusatory question.

Sometimes I take his questions that way like I'm on the spot.

Do you believe this? It's a kind, you know, that good

friends can ask you kind, questions that pull out, the

true stuff that you've been having a hard time articulating.

Jesus asked this question to you with kindness in his eyes in

order to pull out some stuff that you may have been having a

hard time articulating. He's inviting you into

conversation and relationship with him.

Death is the enemy. Jesus is the Resurrection Life.

It's more than a teacher, more than a prophet, a messenger, A

Healer, a miracle worker. He's God In the Flesh crucified

for you. Risen again, home from the

future. To rescue you.

Do you believe this? Amen, let's pray.

Oh God, we confess that we live in a world with

a