15th March || Jesus Wept || Libby Woodward

I want to start by saying happy Mothering Sunday to you, to all

the ladies in the room, particularly historically,

Mothering Sunday is a day when you return to your mother church

and celebrate family. And so today we are celebrating

mums, but we are also celebrating ladies, particularly

as last week was International Women's Day.

Like who knew that they fell so close together?

Maybe that's every year and I've just never noticed it.

In fairness, this year's the first year I've ever even

noticed that there was an International Women's Day.

I'm already off my notes. Oh, come on, Libby.

So we celebrate mums and ladies today.

I want to say personally to all the women in the room, thank

you. Thank you for the way that you

nurture, the way that you lead, the way that you care, the way

that you mother people within this community, whether you have

children in this community or not, you are here.

You carry a unique God-given, God-given calling and we are

incredibly grateful. So thank you.

OK, so I'm cracking on with our series Living in the Shadows.

It is quite a heavy topic. If you're visiting today then

welcome. As we walk towards Easter.

We are in the period of Lent and we are doing a series on death

and dying. Yes, you heard me correctly.

For those of you that have been here the last few weeks, thank

you for still being here. You're doing really well.

You are honestly, I'm very, very pleased you're still here.

If you are visiting today and you haven't heard any of these

talks, they're now all available on our website or any podcast

platform of your choice. That's a new thing.

So do I would encourage you to listen to them, not just because

I think that they're worth listening to, but it will help

the context for this talk as well as we have talked about

living in the valley of the shadow of death as it talks

about in Psalm 23, but not just that shadow, but in Psalm 91,

living in the shadow of the Almighty.

We walk in those two shadows throughout life.

Let me start by praying. Holy Spirit, thank you that

you're here. We acknowledge Your presence and

your care and your love and your compassion for each of us.

And Lord and I ask that your words would speak to our hearts

directly this morning. And whatever we carry, however

we show up in this space this morning, You would have

something to say to us personally.

Oh ma'am, so Paul was writing to a young church in the city of

Thessalonica, and he said this in Thessalonians 1 Thessalonians

413 now. And now, dear brothers and

sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the

believers who have died so that you will not grieve like people

with no hope. He's saying that he wants us to

grieve. Hopefully to to grieve is

expected and his encouragement. Paul, who was an incredible man

of God, wrote a significant amount of the New Testament.

He is saying to the church, a new baby church in Thessalonica.

But to us here today, grieve with hope.

We will all face the unsettling reality of broken endings.

If you haven't already, you will at some point walk through the

valley of the shadow of death. As we lose people that we love,

we are to let our broken hearts grieve.

While on this journey through the valley, we can hold on to

hope. And so today I want to look at a

look at what it looks like for us to grieve and to grieve

hopefully, because in Jesus we are free to grieve honestly

whilst holding on to resurrection hope.

So I mentioned turning to John 11.

If you've got a Bible physical or on your phone, the words will

appear on the screen behind me, but you might want to turn to

it. We're going to be seeing today.

We're going to look at how Jesus in Jesus we are free to grieve

honestly because we can live with resurrection hope.

Just to give you a bit of context, I'm going to jump in at

verse 17. Mary and Martha, who you might

have heard of if you've read any of the New Testament, they've

talked about a couple of times, but they are dear friends of

Jesus and they send word to him that their brother, brother

Lazarus, who is described as someone who Jesus loved, is

sick. But rather than rushing straight

to Bethany where Mary and Martha and Lazarus were, he stayed a

few days where he was. But then knowing that Lazarus

has died, he travels with his disciples to go and wake him up.

And we're going to pick this up in verse 17.

So do sit comfortably as I read this.

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had

already been in his grave for four days.

Bethany was only a few miles down the road from Jerusalem and

many of the people had, and many people had come to console Mary

and Martha in their loss. When Martha got word that Jesus

was coming, he went to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house.

Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if only you had been here, my

brother would not have died. But even now I know that God

will give you whatever you ask. Jesus told her your brother will

rise again. Yes, Martha said, he will rise

when everyone rises at the last day.

If you were here 3 weeks ago, I talked about resurrection.

That's what she's referring to. She had some grasp of it and

then Jesus told her, verse 25, I am the resurrection and the

life. Anyone who believes in me will

live even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and

believes in me will never, ever die.

Do you believe this Martha? Yes, Lord, she told him.

I have always believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God,

the one who has come into the world from God.

Then she returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the

mourners and told her, The teacher is here and he wants to

see you. So immediately Mary went to see

him. Jesus had stayed outside of the

village at the place where Martha had met him.

When the people who were at the house consoling Mary saw her

leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus's grave

to weep. So they followed her there.

When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said,

Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing

with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply

troubled. Where have you put him?

He asked them. They told him, Lord, come and

see. Then Jesus wept.

The people who were standing nearby said, See how much he

loved him. But some said, this man can heal

a blind man, couldn't he? You've kept Lazarus from dying.

Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with

a stone rolled across the entrance.

Roll the stone away, Jesus told them.

But Martha, the dead man's sister, protested.

Lord, he has been dead for four days.

The smell will be terrible, Jesus responded.

Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believe

So they rolled the stone away. Then Jesus looked up to heaven

and said, Father, thank you for hearing my word.

You always hear me. But I said it aloud for the sake

of all those people standing here, so that they would believe

you sent me. And then Jesus shouted, Lazarus,

come out. And the dead man came out, his

hands and his feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped

in a headcloth. And Jesus told them, unwrap him

and let him go. Right at the centre of this

account that John gives us is the shortest verse in the Bible.

Then Jesus wept. Or Jesus wept 2 words, but they

reveal something extraordinary about the heart of God.

And this morning I want to unpack those two words to show

us how we can live in the shadow of grief and loss.

We can grieve honestly, but yet we can live with resurrection

hope. You know, to live as mature,

wise followers of Jesus, we need to hold this tension that the

tension between honesty and hope, because the more real we

are, the closer to God we are. Even in the valley of the shadow

of death, we can take shelter under the shadow of the

Almighty, resting, nestling under his wings.

There is hope to be found under the wings of God.

And yet throughout life, we mustn't ever deny death and the

grief that we feel. We mustn't sweep it under the

carpet and just pretend that everything is OK.

At some point or other, if you haven't already, you will face

the death of somebody you love very much, and grief is

inevitable. And of course, if you have been

fortunate enough to have been truly loved in this world, you

will cause extraordinary death, sorry extraordinary pain to

others when you leave. That is the covenant of life and

death, the reality of grief in this world.

We will have trouble. Jesus promised us that.

And there is nothing more troubling than losing somebody

that you love in every moment of our lives, in the highs and in

the hurts and in whatever you are living in and experiencing

right now, Jesus is with you. Jesus is near, so Jesus wept #1

God meets us in honest grief. The first thing that Jesus

weeping at his friends tomb shows us is that God doesn't

stand at a distance from our grief.

Jesus refuses to protect himself from grief.

And as we grieve and as we grieve, our example is Jesus.

He is our model and we see from this account from John that

grief must be honest and it involves not just weeping, but

it involves anger. Lazarus has been in the tomb for

four days. Mary falls at Jesus feet.

Martha falls at Jesus feet and says, Lord, if you had been here

he wouldn't have died. And then we see then when Jesus

sees her weeping and the crowd weeping, something powerful

happens. John tells us that Jesus was

deeply moved and troubled. You know, the Greek is much

stronger. I read from the New Living

Translation because I think the translation is better.

The Greek is stronger. It says he was outraged, He was

raged, He felt anger. Deep anger welled up within him.

It says Jesus was angry. If you have lost somebody that

you loved, I imagine most of you have felt anger at some point,

and that's OK. Jesus is angry about death.

Why? Because he hates it.

He hates death. Death is an intruder in God's

good creation. It was never part of the

original design. We were made for life.

And so when Jesus stands by the tomb of his friend before any

miracle, before any resurrection, you know, we've

read the story. We know what happens.

Nobody else standing there did. Jesus knew.

But before any miracle, before any resurrection, he weeps.

No explanation, no quick fixes, just tears.

And this tells us something so important about the character of

God, and that is that when our hearts break, God isn't distant

from pain, from our pain. We see in Jesus that he moves

towards us in our grief. He doesn't walk away.

Jesus is so outraged at death that he is willing to die to

break its power. He died to undo the pain of

death. That's what we celebrate in the

Lord's Supper. We say we celebrate and then

it's quite somber and reflective.

We celebrate because we remember what Jesus did gives us life and

hope. He took the power of out of

death by dying and rising again. And while Paul is right when he

says we are to grieve hopefully, the thing I love about Jesus in

this passage, he gives us permission to grieve.

He gives us space to weep. Do not get ahead of ourselves,

but to give ourselves time that we need to weep like he did.

You know, our instinct with grief is so often to rush

through it, you know, to contact, particularly in the

West, to contain it, to suppress it, to move on quickly.

But grief doesn't work like that, Irish writer Kerry Doherty

said. Grief does not speak the same

language as our everyday existence.

It's shape shifts. It hides.

Grief changes us forever. I've said that before.

It doesn't disappear. And when we rush through it,

sorrow gets stuck somewhere within us.

And so often people expect us to get over it, to move through

grief quick, grief quickly, or released to hide our pain

because it makes them feel uncomfortable.

We've lost the art of Co suffering with our companions.

We've lost the art of sitting shiver, this ancient Jewish

practice, which is what would have been happening with Mary

and Martha, which is why there's mourners around.

There's people in their home, they are sitting shiver.

It's such a wise practice that we don't know how to do.

For seven days, everyone would come.

Everybody that knew the person that had died would come and

sit, would grieve together corporately.

No fixing, no rushing, just present, weeping and asking why

I talked at the beginning of these theories about wounds that

are being exposed. This practice of sitting shiver,

of sitting together is allowing the wound to breathe, allowing

the air to get to it. Jesus shows us that grief,

anger, and tears are not faithlessness.

They are honest. In Jesus.

He shows us that we are free to grieve honestly because of the

resurrection hope that we have. Jesus wept and it shows us that

we can be honest in our grief, which includes anger and

weeping. Also #2 Jesus wept.

We are given the freedom to ask the question why?

You know, if Jesus enters into our grief so fully, then we're

free to bring our questions to God.

Although it doesn't say it specifically in this passage in

John 11, we have evidence throughout the life of Jesus

that in the face of great pain we are not to shy away from

asking God why? Throughout Jesus life we know

that the Psalms were his personal prayer book, his book

of worship songs, and over half of the Psalms roughly are known

of Psalms of lament. Lament is a way of praying

honestly to God, not hiding raw real emotions, but bringing them

to him. You know many of the Psalms are

prayers of protest. People crying out, oh how long

oh Lord, how long? You know, I know this personally

from the ages of about 14 to 16. I was processing more of my

sister's death, and lament was the only way I could pray.

I couldn't sing in worship because I was really angry with

God. I had those words of Mary and

Martha. God, you could have saved her.

I believe that you heal. I believe that you're a God of

miracles and you let her die. I was angry, but yet I wanted to

be in worship because I wanted to be in the presence of God,

even though I couldn't sing. After my dad died, the same

thing happened. I couldn't sing the song You're

never going to let me down because I felt utterly let down.

That's lament. I wasn't walking away from God.

I didn't didn't doubt his existence and his love for me.

What I did was I bought my pain directly to him and said, now

you deal with this maybe like a slightly stroppy teenager, but

that's lament. You know, in healthy

relationships, people are honest, aren't they?

You know, they're willing to hear hard things.

In the best friendships, in the strongest marriages, honesty

doesn't rock the boat, doesn't rock the relationship.

It reinforces it. You know, if we live honestly,

we need to bring our true emotions to God.

And if you need any more permission to be honest and ask

God why and to be angry and weep, we just need to look to

Jesus, you know, in his moment of deepest pain on the cross,

You know, he presents a raw, visceral question to his Father.

He prays aloud the words of Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

AJ Swaboda, who is an American pastor, academic and podcaster

of the of this verse, he speaks. He says this by provoking such

deep dark point, a deep, dark, poignant question at his final

moment. Jesus did what no other religion

in history is willing to do, and that is to question God.

God questioned God, we are free in our dark hard.

We are free to ask in our dark hard moments the penetrating

question of why the God of the universe knows what it is to

suffer. Will we follow Jesus and will we

follow his example? You know, to follow Jesus well.

I think demands that not only we can ask the question why, but we

must. God is honest with God, and so

we need to be honest with him as well.

So often we try to contain our pain, to pretend that

everything's OK. We push through the Blues.

We lip sync to worship songs with lines that say you're never

going to let me down. When throughout it all, the Man

of sorrows, the one who's so familiar with every aspect of

human existence, he just wants us to be honest with him.

And as we are honest with him, something happens in this

practice of lament that changes us.

You know Jesus on the cross he prays, My God, my God, why have

you forsaken me from Psalm 22? And towards the end of his death

on the cross, he cries out in Psalm 31, Into your hands, Lord,

I commit my spirit, deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.

Jesus was honest, and if we journey that honesty while he

hung on the cross, He went from honesty and forsakenness to

proclaiming God's faithfulness. If we are prepared to be honest

with God and trust Him, our pain gets transfigured into trust.

If we're honest, hardship, grief, it helps clarify our

revelation of who Jesus is in our pain.

If we're honest, the fog starts to clear and we're able to see

that He was the Word made flesh. He is the Word made flesh, that

He is the Man of sorrows. He is the one familiar with pain

and Jesus. In our weeping and our wise, He

draws close. God is close to the broken

hearted. He doesn't skip over pain.

Instead, He redeems it and He will redeem it all.

You know, we've learnt, haven't we, that if we trust Jesus, if

we come to him to seek his face, we understand that everything

that we are experiencing, He has been the forerunner.

He has gone ahead of us. He knows what it is to suffer

and and be in pain. You know, I don't always

understand. I don't have certainty, but I

continue to grow in trust. Author Jen Pollock Michael had

put it like this. Part of the practice of modern

faith in times of suffering is to relinquish our rights to

answers. I mean, that sucks, doesn't it?

I want answers. I ask why, and I want to know.

She goes on to say God has never promised to explain himself, but

he has promised to stay nearby. You know, even when Jesus is

dying on the cross and he's saying my God, my God, why have

you forsaken me? I imagine there's also an

internal dialogue that's going. You promise that you will never

leave me nor forsake me. You will never leave me nor

forsake me. We can hold those tensions.

Jesus wants to be present in our pain.

He wants to Co suffer with us as Jesus Co suffers with God.

He draws near, never rushing, but carrying us if we will let

him. Jesus wants to come close, like

he did with Lazarus. He comes close.

He weeps. That's the kind of God that I

put my trust in. I want to keep putting my trust

in the suffering servant who doesn't skip over sorrow but

stands in solidarity with us in the thick of it.

The crucified God who was moved to tears because of the pain and

suffering we face. You know I'm not going to tell

you how to grieve. I'm just trying to give you some

hints to tell you that you can. Jesus wept and we are free to

grieve honestly and yet still hold onto the hope that the

resurrection gives us. God draws near.

When we grieve, we're able to ask the question why?

And thirdly, Jesus wept and the story doesn't end at the tomb.

The same Jesus who weeps at the tomb is also the same Jesus that

calls the Lazarus out. You know, I said it a few weeks

ago, hope is our destination and in our present circumstance it

is our compass. There is wisdom to be found in

holding this tension. You know, Christian life is all

about holding tensions, OK? Like if you haven't worked that

out, that's one for free. Holding this tension in this

context between honesty and hope, when we face hardship, we

can grieve whilst clinging on to profound hope.

And the truth is that there is one thing that is as real as the

pain we feel, and that is the reality of the resurrection.

If you look back over verses 38 to 43, you'll see Jesus calls

out Lazarus. He raises him from the dead.

It's a remarkable miracle, but it is also the foretaste of

everything that is to come. It's like a preview of Jesus own

resurrection, which we will look at on Easter Day.

Jacob's going to be speaking, we're going to be at Keene Hall,

don't come here, it's closed. And we're going to be looking

more at the hope of resurrection, this resurrection

that lies ahead for us. But if you've got your Bibles

open, you might want to skip down the next few verses of

Chapter 11. Because the people that have

witnessed Lazarus coming out of the grave, having been dead for

four days, they then go off to a bunch of Pharisees and chief

priests and tell them what has happened.

And it's them that then conspire to basically put Jesus to death,

which makes me cross with the eyewitnesses.

But it had to happen, right? So I can hold that emotion here

in honesty and be like, The thing is that we so often miss

in this story because we focus on Lazarus rising on the

questions that Mary and Martha had, is that Jesus knew

everything that was lying ahead. He knew that the only way that

he could get Lazarus out of the tomb was by putting himself in

there in his place. This was not just a stand alone

resuscitation, but it was a foretaste of resurrection.

Resurrection guaranteed for you and for me and for all of God's

people for all of time. Jesus had to put himself in the

grave and why? So that he could lead us into

resurrection life. And I find myself back in Romans

65, which I've talked, I've quoted in every talk I've done

on this. For if we have been united with

him in a death like his, then we will certainly be united with

him in a resurrection like his. The rising of Lazarus.

It is the IT is only the beginning because the future

hope for those who are in Christ, it is marked by a

certain hope, our future. It is resurrection and so our

grief, it can be infused with hope, the hope of everything

that lies ahead. Just two things to finish on.

We can hold on to hope in this present moment, even when we

feel so broken, even when our hearts are in shreds, even when

it feels dark and hopeless and full of despair.

We can hold on to hope, Firstly, because prayer is a really

powerful thing and not just ours, but those of our Saviour.

You know I if you've experienced the death of a loved one or

intense pain and suffering, many of you in this room have spoken

to me about it. There is a sense that you feel

held by the prayers of your friends and I have definitely

experienced that. Pip mentioned it last week in a

talk. It's hard to explain, but you

feel held. You feel lifted up by those

people that are praying for you. And I want to remind you,

particularly if you're hurting to ask people to pray, don't shy

away from it. Don't feel like you've got to be

all British and like together. Feel free to allow the snot and

the tears to flow. People will pray for you and it

makes a difference. But not only that, we're

reminded in Hebrew 7. This is Hebrew 7 Speaking of

Jesus. He lives forever to intercede

with God on our behalf. Jesus, the risen ruling Lord, as

he reigns right now in paradise in glory, He is praying for each

of us. Jesus lives to intercede for

every single one of us. So if you're here today, if

you're in the midst of grief, if you're feeling angry, if you

want to just weep, if you're asking questions of why there

can be glimmers of hope as people gather around you and

pray, but also as you know that you're being held up by the

prayers of Jesus. Jesus can't help even in all of

his glory. He can't help but pray for us

because he can't bear the distance between us.

He never disengages, and he is still not disengaging even when

it feels dark. Jesus bears the wounds of his

own crucifixion, and he intently and intensely is praying for

you. This is what intercession looks

like. The heavenlies are ringing out

with the cries of Jesus interceding for us.

So through the resurrection of Jesus, he is praying

passionately for us right now. That is the God that we worship.

Prayer is powerful. And secondly, God cares about

the details. He knows us inside out and back

to front. You know, if you flick back in

your Bibles to the Old Testament, to Joel, the people

of God have rebelled against him.

And Joel is speaking to a people whose land has been devastated

by locusts. Everything is gone.

And God says through Joel something remarkable.

He says, I will repay for you the years the locusts have

eaten. You know, God could have said

something really general. He could have painted broad

brush strokes, but he doesn't. He focuses on the detail.

He mentions 1/2 centimeter crickety, insectic thing, a

locust. Why?

Because I think God cares about the details of our pain.

He doesn't overlook the specifics of our loss.

He sees it, He names it, and one day He will redeem it.

The whole God story, the whole of the story that is in our

Bibles, is one of love and it promises restoration, redemption

and resurrection. We worship a God who sees and

names our every her, our every grief.

He doesn't sweep them away, but he gathers them up.

And as he gathers them up the detail of every devastation we

have known, they are not undone, they are not thrown away.

But somehow they're reconfigured.

They're reworked into something beautiful.

He takes the broken fragments of our lives and he does something

new with them. One day our agonies will be

redeemed. One day every pain that we have

faced in life will be transfigured into something

beautiful. I had a picture of a Potter on a

wheel. I've never done it, but I know

that they they create something beautiful and, and they mould it

and they shape it and if it's something falls off, they take

it back up and they put it back on and they they do something

amazing. I wish I knew how to make

pottery, but that was the picture I had in Revelation 21.

Jesus says I will wipe every tear from our eyes.

You know, sometimes I wonder how that's going to happen because

in my imagination, you know, when I'm seeing Jesus face to

face in glory or when he comes again in the new creation, I

think I'm going to be overwhelmed with joy and rather

excited, which I'm easily excitable.

You know, I'm going to be lost in worship, you know, but yet

Jesus says I'm going to wipe every tear from your eye.

Well, if I'm crying at that point, I think it's going to be

tears of joy. And I don't want him to wipe him

away. I want to relish it.

But perhaps in that moment when John sees that vision in

Revelation to anyone, and Jesus is wiping away every tear, it's

because he's wiping away every tear we have ever cried, every

loss we have felt, every sorrow we have borne, every grief we

have held on to, seen by Him, remembered by him, and he will

redeem it so. And he will say there will be no

more death, no more mourning, no more crying, and no more pain.

But between the now and the then, the now and the not yet,

we want to be a people who grieve honestly.

Grieve not like the people that have no hope, but grieve

hopefully. But let's allow every tear that

needs to be shed to be shed. Let's be honest, let's ask the

questions why. Let's Co suffer with one

another. Let's sit, shiver with each

other, but hold on to hope that in light of of the resurrection,

we can be hopeful. In Jesus.

We are free to grieve hopefully because we live with

resurrection hope. I know that in this room we all

have different stories. Some of us are carrying very

fresh grief. Some are carrying older grief,

but it's still aches and our hearts still feel broken.

Some of us are angry, and that's OK God can cope with our honest,

angry responses. Some of us might feel like we're

in a season where we feel fragile and uncertain.

And the beautiful thing about this, the occasion we've just

read about in John 11, is that we know that Jesus doesn't stand

at a distance, but he comes, He walks right up to the tomb, He

sees the pain and he weeps. So whatever you're carrying this

morning, I want you to know that God is not distant.

He is coming to stand with you, to weep with you.

We can grieve hopefully because of the promise of resurrection

hope. If you're able to, why don't you

stand and we'll pray? I just want to make some space

for Jesus to meet each of us as individuals.

He knows what we carry. He knows the pain, and it might

be this morning that you're not in a place of pain and you're

not carrying anything that's hard.

This is all good stuff because one day you will.

That's a guarantee. But if you're in that place, you

can stand alongside friends, family members, companions who

are grieving. Holy Spirit, we welcome your

presence. We thank you that you're here

already. It might be if you're carrying

something you just want to open your hands to say God, this is

it. A bit like when I was in pain, I

just held it to God and was like you deal with this Holy Spirit.

We stand here and we say, would you come here is what I am

carrying. Jesus, thank you that you're not

distant. Holy Spirit, I ask that you

would bring your comfort and your peace, that you would

remind us that death is not the end of the story.