"Take Away the Stone, But Hold Your Nose!" Cicero United Methodist Church

Nov. 1, 2009                  All Saints Day            Text: John 11: 32-44           Jack Keating

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I have decided that the Gospel account I like to read the most is the Gospel according to John. In fact, when folks, who are new to the faith and looking to begin a reading program in the scriptures ask "Where do I start?", I steer them toward the Gospel according to John. To me the Gospel according to John reminds us and lets newer folks to the faith know how much it is that Jesus loves them, individually.

John wrote his account of Jesus around the year A.D. 90 and he wrote it to bring people to a firm belief in Jesus ... and to anchor believers firmly in the faith. He also wanted us to make sure that we understand that Jesus is God as a human being .... what we have come to call the Incarnation. In addition to this understanding on the spiritual meaning of the historical events in the life of Jesus, we also find out in John's account:

Who Jesus is.

What he did on the cross.

How Jesus can be known personally.

And how to receive eternal life through Jesus Christ.

The account in chapter 11 records the seventh miraculous sign Jesus performs in the Gospel of John. But before we get to the part of the story contained in today's scripture lesson we have to look at the problem.

(READ JOHN 11:1-16)

There's a story about the only survivor of a shipwreck. He washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed for God to rescue him and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed to be coming. He eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. But then one day, after searching for food, he arrived back at the hut to find it engulfed in flames, with smoke rising to the sky. The worst has happened: everything was lost. He was stung with grief and anger: "God! How can you do this to me?" Early the next morning he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" the weary man asked his rescuers. They replied, "We saw your smoke signal."

You see .... God may sometimes work in ways we don't see or understand .... But He still works.

In John 11:1 we see: ":A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha." We are not told the cause of the sickness or how long he had been sick. Had it come on suddenly? Had it been an extended illness which had become progressively worse? Anyone who has watched a loved one get weaker and weaker as an illness ravages his or her body knows the anxiety that this family may have experienced. You spend hour after hour giving comfort, feeding, doing anything you can to help the remaining days be as good as possible. But there is an agonizing feeling of helplessness.

Many years ago I was invited to the hospital room of a member of my church whose time left in this place was limited to just a few hours. Ruth had fought the good fight against her cancer and, as she lay in that bed waiting for Jesus to take her home, she was experiencing terrible pain. As her husband and I did all we could to comfort her between shots of pain medication, we both realized that the most frustrating part was that there was nothing we could do to stop the pain. There was nothing we could do to reverse the degeneration of her body. All we could do physically was to sit there with her and do our best to comfort her and love her. We knew the end was near and after a couple of hours; Ruth went home, in the arms of the angels, to be with her Savior Jesus Christ.

To love someone and be unable to do anything to take away their pain is a horrible feeling! That's what Mary and Martha were going through with their dear brother, Lazarus. What could they do? We read in the text that "the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, 'Lord, the one you love is very sick'" (John II :3). Surely Jesus would come! He would fix everything! After all, look at all the great things he has done: He healed the Roman official's son from many miles away, he's healed a paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda; he's given sight to a blind man! Surely, if he made it home in time, Jesus would be able to heal poor, sick Lazarus.

We can imagine the one who was sent to take the message to Jesus traveling as quickly as he could, the entire time thinking of the urgent word he was taking to the great miracle worker. He was probably hoping and praying that he would be able to get the message to Jesus on time. And then that Jesus would be able to make it to Bethany before it was too late. And when he finally arrived the messenger told Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is very sick."

But Jesus' response to this urgent request seems very peculiar: Rather than immediately rushing to the scene, he stays where he is for two more days. Why didn't he dash to Lazarus' side? Why didn't he immediately head toward Bethany? Did he not care? Was he just being lazy? Two days after he received the message Jesus finally decides to go to Bethany. But when he arrives - it's too late - Lazarus is dead.

Can you imagine Mary and Martha's disappointment? They had sent for Jesus several days earlier. But Jesus did not show up. They probably waited for Jesus while they prepared the body for burial. After all, we read in Mark 5: 35-36, 41-43 that Jesus raised Jairus's daughter shortly after she had died. But Jesus did not show up immediately after Lazarus died. They may even have been waiting for Jesus to come as they took the body to the cemetery. Surely, they knew that Jesus had interrupted a funeral once before. In Luke 7:11-14 we see that "as Jesus approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out­ the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from tile town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and lie said, 'Don't cry.' Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, 'Young man, I say to you, get up!' The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. "

But Jesus didn't show up at Lazarus's funeral! Where was he? What was he doing? Jesus didn't arrive until Lazarus had been dead and buried for four days! When Jesus finally showed up "Martha said to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." (John 11:21) Do you feel her anguish? "If only you had done this for me, Lord!" "Why weren't you here when I needed you?" "You have access to God's power over even the worst illness." "Why didn't you take care of the problem when I first told you about it?" "We pleaded for you to come." "I feel like you've failed me." "Some other people said, 'This man healed a blind man. Why couldn't he keep Lazarus from dying?'" (John 11: 37)

Don't we often wonder why God doesn't do things the way we think He should? And we may end up thinking: Why weren't you here when I needed you? Where is your almighty power now? Why didn't you do something?

Jesus found out where Lazarus was buried and he went there along with Mary and Martha, as well as some others. When he got to the tomb and saw the stone rolled over the opening he said, "Take away the stone" (John 11:39) "but Lord," said Martha ... "By this time there is a bad odor, for he has been in there four days" (John 11:39). The sisters have a big issue: their brother is dead because Jesus wasn't there to heal him. Now at the tomb Jesus tells the people to move the stone, but Martha protests.

Do you see the problem we have here? Even when Jesus tells us what to do as a step to solve the problem, we often don't want to do it. I like the way the King James Version translates Martha's response:

"Lord, by this time he stinketh". We're afraid to turn things over to Jesus because we may not want to do what he tells us to do. We might have to deal with something rotten and smell up the place. Problems stink and we often want to just leave them buried. Martha didn't want to smell the stench of her decomposing brother's body. What was Jesus talking about? Was he crazy? Open up a tomb of a man who had been dead for four days? No way!

Now we need to stop to remember that in first century Palestine, they didn't preserve their dead in the same way the Egyptians did or like we do today. They person was normally buried on the day of their death ..... Not because they weren't mourned .... but because they would immediately start to decay.

When Jesus opened the tomb everyone was probably absolutely repulsed. "O Lord, don't ask me to do that!" "We don't want to go there". Have you ever said something like that to Jesus? "Lord, I'll obey you, but surely you don't really want me to do that! I can't do it. If I do that, it'll stink!"

There are times when we come up with some real doozies of excuses! When we present our excuses for not following Jesus they may sound good to us at the time, but when we take a step back and look ... we see how ridiculous they really are. Excuses.... They're everywhere.

I read recently about someone compiling a list of actual excuses that were turned in by students for

missing school:

l. My son is under a doctor's care and could not take P.E. yesterday. Please execute him.

2. Please excuse Cynthia for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.

3. Please excuse Tom for being absent on January 28,29,30,31,32, and 33.

4. Please excuse Danny for being. It was his father's fault.

In order to receive the miracle God had planned for her, Martha had to stop making excuses and risk smelling the stinking, rotting corpse of her dead brother. And in order to receive God's blessings in our lives, we have to risk opening our problems up so that he can take care of them. But we are afraid.

We need to notice that the trouble wasn't just with Martha. It was with the whole group of mourners. In Greek, the instruction is in the plural form: "You all take the stone away." Something that big can't be done alone --- it's up to the community to do this together. And although Martha is the only one recorded as objecting, you can bet that everyone else was thinking the very same thing, "But Lord, by this time he stinketh."

So here is Jesus standing in front of a tomb that holds the decomposing body of a dead man. "Come on people! Roll the stone away!" "Give me access to the dead body." "If you want to see the power of God, cooperate with me."

It was a standoff On the one side was Jesus saying, "Move the stone." On the other side was everyone else saying, "No way, it'll stink!"

Isn't this how it often is with us? There's a problem, either with us as individuals or in the life of the church. Jesus tells us to open up the problem to him so that he can take care of it. And our response is that we don't want to do it. "Just let sleeping dogs lie." "Don't open up that can of worms." You can feel free to add whatever other clichés you want here. The point is that we often don't want to give Jesus full access to our innermost problems because we're afraid of what we might have to deal with.

A lot of us, I'm afraid, try to ignore our problems hoping they'll go away. But guess what? In a similar way that keeping the tomb of Lazarus closed would have caused Lazarus to keep right on rotting, closing our problems off from Jesus will cause them to continue festering. They will not just go away.

A problem relationship? A problem addiction? A problem of not knowing Jesus Christ? I would suggest that believing that something cannot be done for the problem.... Is the problem! That's because we're running away from the only one who has the solution to the problem. This results in keeping God separated from our problems. And keeping him separated from our problems means that he cannot help them.

Now I'm not standing here telling you that he'll take care of the problem the way you think he should -­that's one of the issues of this passage. Mary and Martha thought Jesus should have taken care of their problem right away as soon as Lazarus became sick. But it didn't work that way; it doesn't work that way. Jesus had his reason for waiting; and he still has his reasons for doing things the way he does them today. Now we may not always understand it --- we may not always have the answers --- but thank God that He does have all the answers.

So should we open our problems up to Jesus? The Biblical answer is a loud and resounding YES! When we finally do open up and expose the problem to Jesus he produces results! It may not be instant. It may be a while. But results WILL happen! After Martha protested, Jesus said, "Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?" (John 11:40) That's the reason; I think, Jesus waited for four days ..... so that what he was about to do could only be credited to God. Bible commentators have pointed out how the objections of Martha are immediately taken by Jesus to the arena of faith. She must believe in him, and in this case to believe is to obey. This is the point of decision for the grieving sister. She has no logical reason to do as Jesus has asked, for he has not explained himself to her. She can only think that Jesus wants to see the body of his friend one last time, even if it is in a decomposed state. Everything in her background and upbringing would be telling her to keep the tomb closed. But Jesus offers her a chance to see the glory of God.

It's when and only when Martha puts her total trust in Jesus and obeys him that she sees the glory of God. Only when we give to God our total trust and obedience will he really work in our lives. The okay is given by Martha and the stone is rolled away from the entrance of the tomb. Then comes one of the most dramatic moments in John's Gospel: Jesus stands before the tomb and shouts, "Lazarus, come out!" And ... Lazarus comes out!! He's bound in grave clothes and his face is wrapped in a head cloth. And Jesus tells them, 'Unwrap him and let him go!'" (John 11:44)

One writer tells us that "part of the greatness of this miracle is that Lazarus had been dead for four days and his body should have begun to decompose (v.39). Even so, Jesus restored him to life"

Only after Martha and the others obeyed the command would Jesus do something to help ---- he's not going to force his grace upon us. He offers it for us to accept or reject.

Martha learned that even when everything seemed hopeless, in Jesus there is hope.

Even when it seems like it's too late for a miracle, it's not!

Even when it seems like something has gotten so bad that not even God can take care of it, he can. God can work in our lives in unexpected ways, even when we might think it's too late. In John 11 we find that Jesus is:

The God glorifier

The love giver

The grief bearer

The hope bringer

The death defeater

The life giver

The bond breaker

What can we take with us from this account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead? First, even if opening up a problem will probably stink, we still need to give Jesus access to it. It's only then that he'll really be able to do something about it. It's then that we'll see the glory of God.

Second, we need to help one another move the obstacles that keep Jesus from working in our lives. It's up to the church to help one another "roll the stone away" so that Jesus can reveal his glory. We can do this through encouragement. We can do this through proclaiming the Word. We can do this through Christian counsel. We can do this through love. We can do this through accountability.

Jesus wants to show us his love, power, and glory. As the church this means we will be a place where the hurting, the discouraged, the frustrated, the confused, and the depressed find love, hope, help, forgiveness, guidance, encouragement, and salvation. As individuals this means that we need to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and live faithfully to him.

If you need help to "roll the stone away" we're here to help. If you have a problem that seems too big, God is bigger and he is ready and willing to receive you --- today --- here--- right now. You can do this by:

Believing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Confessing that Jesus is Lord and Savior.

Repenting of your sins.

Being baptized in the water of Christian baptism.

And then living faithfully by the power of the Holy Spirit.

            So, I pray that together, we might each help another "roll the stone away."         AMEN.