John 11: 45-53

 John 11: 45-53

Faith is not a function of evidence but of the will. It is in the first and final stages a choice we make. In the first stage toward faith there must be a willingness to consider the evidence fairly. But along with that openness for consideration of the evidence there must be a willingness to accept the truth and all it means and implies.  This is the final stage as we move into faith. When there is doubt and honest questions the evidence can be persuasive. 

But when there is unbelief nothing can convince, because the heart and the will do not want to be convinced. Even with the evidence that an incredible miracle has occurred and with more than enough evidence that signs are happening the religious elite began to develop a plan to kill Jesus.  This was not a problem of evidence. The healing of the man born blind and the resurrection of Lazarus should have been enough evidence of the truth of Jesus's message and the authority of His claims. But for those who do not want to believe even this was not enough.  

So what is the blockage? Verse 48 provides some inside. In this case of the Jewish leaders were concerned that Jesus was a threat to their power, the political control. That meant He was a threat to their wealth, prestige and privilege. People are still the same. The claims of Jesus's leadership over our lives will mean a significant change and we may have not wanted that change. We enjoyed our vices and would rather close our eyes to the evidence than be changed.  We would rather try to live life on our terms and in so doing reject Christ. God for His part will respect our choice.

“Lord, help me to have a heart that is open to You. AMEN” 

John 11:38 - 44

 John 11:38 - 44

Even the best of us are a mixed bag. All of us are part heroic faith while we still harbor genuine real doubts.  In verse 22 Martha said; “Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give You”. That is a statement of heroic faith. However when Jesus calls for the stone to be removed from the tomb entrance Martha said, “Lord by this time there will be a stench for he has been dead for four days”. Martha is at this point having more faith in death than in Jesus

We are all mixed bags of great and terrible, of faith and doubt, we have been anticipating God acting and believing that what is, is all that we will get. Thankfully God's grace and goodness is not wholly dependent on our faith. Jesus prays at the tomb not because He needs to pray to raise Lazarus, but He wants those around Him to know that He and the Father are working together, so that the Son can be seen doing what the Father wants. 

As a mixed bag of faith and doubt I don't have perfect faith. What I must have is faith in the perfect Savior. Faith and doubt often live together. Hopefully faith will be growing, and consuming doubt as we see the Lord at work. For those who believed but still doubted, especially Martha and Mary, much of that doubt was consumed in this miracle.  For Lazarus doubt would have been almost completely impossible. Can we be honest about our doubts and find in them a place to grow our faith? Unbelief is a different matter altogether and it's what we see in the next Passage.

“Lord, use my doubts as a place to grow my faith. AMEN”

John 11:17-37

 John 11:17-37

We have painted Jesus in colors that are soft pastels that have only a soothing effect.  We have misunderstood Jesus’ meekness, assumed it was passiveness, we made Him into a stoic that never experienced the full range of emotion.  We have tried to cut out of Him His passion. That picture of manbe pamby Jesus is only possible if we do not look too closely at Him. In our passage Jesus has come to the funeral of Lazarus. Here Jesus sees firsthand the misery of those who are mourning Lazarus‘s death. He hears the heartbroken accusations of Mary and Martha directed toward Him. He saw Mary weeping and Jews who came with her also weeping. That English word weeping is far too mild. This is literally the wailing of despair and gut wrenching misery. This was loud and messy and highly emotional.

What was Jesus’s reaction to this display? He was “deeply moved in spirit and was troubled” v 33. And in verse 35 Jesus joined in the wailing. The last phrase in verse 36 is difficult to put into English. Our language fails to express the depth of hurt and anger of this phrase. Jesus was angry. He was not miffed, He was not put out or aggravated. He was to His core furious and wrath filled. The grammar indicates that He was stirring up the emotions in Himself. When someone is angry and upset we often say “calm down”. What Jesus was doing was not calming Himself down He was troubling Himself.

What was causing this escalating emotional reaction of Jesus? Some have said it was His reaction to the lack of faith He saw. That is bogus, Jesus was never angry with the victim of sin. Jesus witnessed the full manifestation and expression of Satan’s kingdom, and He was furious. When we see the manifestation of Satan’s kingdom the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, the living death we ought to be angry. Not at the victim but at the manifestation. Passive indifference is not patients, it is apathy. When we see the manifestation of Satan’s kingdom perhaps in the prostitute, the addict, the homosexual offender.  These moments we ought to have anger. Not at these people but at the chains of their bondage. It ought to make us angry enough to be part of God’s plan for their liberation.

“Lord, grant me a holy fury as the evil of the kingdom of darkness and motivate me to declare Your freedom to those in bondage.  AMEN”

John 11: 1-16

 John 11: 1-16

Jesus having made it across the Jordan safely will stay there from the Feast of Dedication, late December, till His return just before His death and Resurrection. It is after this season of renewal that Jesus heals Lazarus from death. Grammar has much to teach us in this passage. The illness will pass through death but that is not the ultimate result. We see the whole story: we see the calling of Lazarus back from the dead. We have read the happy ending. But those who lived the story did not have that advantage while they were in the story. Lazarus experiences the difficulty of a terminal illness. There is every possibility that the journey to death was difficult and painful. There would have been little palliative care and there would have been very natural suffering for Lazarus and his sisters as death approached. We should not lose sight of the reality of the first part of John 11 just because we know the end of John 11. The glorification of the Son by the Father is displayed in this miracle, but that miracle came through the suffering of a good man.

There is for us an important lesson that on the road to the glory of Christ; we will be called to suffer. We have often developed the false belief that in following Christ suffering is either removed or mitigated to the point of a minor nuisance, that is a dangerous misunderstanding. In terms of Eternity our suffering is only a minor thing. But in the moment our faith is not pixie dust that we sprinkle on misery and make it go away. Sometimes misery is something we must accept, be strengthened during and endure completely before we experience God being glorified through us and in our suffering

“Lord, grant me grace to suffer in such a say that You are glorified.  AMEN”