On a weekend in which many of you will be visiting the graves of those you love, I invite you to open your Bible to John 11:38-44.

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1 OUR BEST FRIEND IN GRIEF John 11:38-44 On a weekend in which many of you will be visiting the graves of those you love, I invite you to open your Bible to John 11: John Paton was 32-years-old when he accepted the call to missionary service in the New Hebrides in the South Pacific. In March of 1858 he married Mary Ann Robson, and on April 16 they sailed together to the cannibal island of Tanna. In less than a year they had built a little home and Mary had given birth to a son. But on March 3, 1859, one year after their marriage, Mary died of the fever, and three weeks later the baby died too. John Paton buried them alone. Overwhelmed with agonizing grief and with no one to bear it with him, Paton later wrote, But for Jesus I d have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave. 1 And if you haven t walked the lonely road of grief, one day you will. One day it will be your turn your turn to stand over the body of one who meant the world to you your turn to walk away from the grave to a life that will now be radically different than the life you had always known your turn to wonder where God is and what God is up to and why didn t God do something about all this your turn to climb into an empty bed, your turn to be confronted with the empty chair at the table, your turn to sort through the things that are left behind your turn to cry yourself to sleep, your turn to face the darkness, your turn be at the mercy of emotions you can t seem to control. If you haven t walked the lonely road of grief, one day you will. And when you do, you will need a friend to walk it with you. 1Told by John Piper, The Pleasures of God (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1991), 269.

2 I Mary and Martha needed a friend. Lazarus had died. His obituary in the Bethany Gazette said that Lazarus died at the home after a brief illness. The obituary eulogized his fine citizenship in the community and his membership at the Bethany Synagogue. Also according to the obit, Lazarus was predeceased by his parents and survived by two sisters, Mary and Martha, both of the home as well as a host of other family and friends, including the itinerant Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. No sooner had Lazarus come down with the fever than his sisters sent word to Jesus to come and heal him. But Jesus ignored their request. And that was a little hard for Mary and Martha to understand. "He must not grasp the gravity of the situation," Mary said to Martha. "Have faith, Mary, Jesus will get here in time." But He didn't. In fact, Jesus didn't even head to Bethany until Lazarus was good and dead some four days dead, stone cold dead. And to make matters worse, Jesus didn't wait because He was busy or because He was burdened with other commitments He just couldn't escape. He waited on purpose. And now Lazarus was dead. In his autobiography, Growing Up, Russell Baker writes about the death of his father. Baker was 5-years-old at the time; his father was only 33. And after a brief stay in the hospital his father died. Baker writes that though he was only 5, that s the first time he thought seriously about God. He went on to write: "That afternoon, though I couldn't have phrased it this way then, I decided that God was a lot less interested in people than anybody in Morrisonville was willing to admit. That day, I decided that God was not entirely to be trusted." 2 Mary and Martha would second that emotion in the wake of Jesus delay while they watched their bubba die. Jesus was like family to them. Their home was a place where Jesus could kick off his sandals, prop up his feet, and rest a spell. Their home was a place where Jesus could drop in unannounced and find a warm meal and southern hospitality. Everywhere Jesus went people demanded something of Him: "Cure me. Cleanse me. Feed me. Save me." But things were different at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Under that roof, they took care of Him. 2 From a sermon entitled "Good Grief" by Charles W. Scriven in the book Best Sermons 1, James W. Cox, ed. (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988),

3 So when Lazarus fever raged and he seemed at the precipice of death, it didn't seem too much to ask for Jesus to come down and check things out. The disciples thought it a reasonable request too. But Jesus didn't go. And Mary and Martha wondered. And Lazarus wondered. As Martha mopped Lazarus' brow with a cool, damp cloth, Lazarus must have asked for the umpteenth time, "Any word from Jesus?" "Not yet," said Martha (trying to sound confident). "I'm sure He'll be here anytime." But Jesus didn't come. Didn't send word. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Not a peep out of Him. As silent as a grave. And one morning when Martha went to care for her brother, his body was cold. She felt for a pulse nothing. She leaned over his chest and listened for his heart nothing no beat, no motion, nothing. Not wanting to believe the obvious, she shook him, "Lazarus, wake up! Lazarus?" And when she could deny it no longer, she fell across her brother and wept, "Oh God, no, God no." Hearing the commotion, Mary joined her within seconds. And they wept and they prayed and they cried; and for the life of them they couldn't understand why Jesus had never come. Word got out about Lazarus' death. And before long, neighbors and loved ones were doing their thing. Enough food to feed an army piled up in the kitchen. Their synagogue family had come. Their rabbi came too. Support was all around. There were tears and laughter, reminisces and old stories, and lots of grief. But still no Jesus. The funeral. The burial. Still no Jesus. And though Mary and Martha were both a little reticent to voice it, they began to wonder if Jesus cared as much about them as they had first believed. II Jesus did show up finally. The customary weeping and wailing continued for days afterward and was still going on when Jesus finally got there. Now Jesus didn't barge in and make a scene. He hung out at the city limits. But word did get to the house that Jesus was there. Mary, perhaps still angry with Jesus for not showing up soon enough, decided to stay home and ignore Him like He had ignored her.

4 But Martha went to see Him. And listen to what she said. Not a word of thanks for coming. Not a word of welcome. But a harsh word, a stinging word: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Do you hear her pain? Then, out of the pain hope: "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." "Your brother will rise again, Martha," said Jesus. "Sure, I know that," Martha replied. "He ll rise again just like the rest of us on that last resurrection day." "Martha, you're not getting the point. 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, Martha?" "I believe you, Lord. You are the Christ and the very Son of God." Now, feeling a sense of hope, Martha hustled back to the house to get Mary. "The Teacher is asking for you, Mary." So Mary hurried to Him. And when she saw Him, she fell at His feet and unburdened her pain: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." I guess that was more than Jesus could take. The pain, the grief, the disappointment moved Him deeply. He was deeply moved in his spirit, writes John. The word for deeply moved carries a note of fretting and anguish and anger. Jesus wasn t just sad, He was angry: angry at death, angry at the grief and the pain it leaves in its wake, angry that His friend Lazarus had to die and His sisters had to stand by powerless to stop it. Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit and shed some tears himself. The folks there to comfort Mary noticed the tears streaming down Jesus face: "See how He loved him!" said some. But others, still angry and sorrowful over the death of their friend, asked the question that would not go away, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" In other words, Jesus could have done something and didn't. And if we haven't had the courage to voice those questions in our grief, we've probably at least thought them. III

5 Do you see what's going on here in the story? Honest grief. Open grief. A grief that s not afraid to ask hard questions even if those questions are addressed to Jesus. Here are people taking time to grieve, taking time to feel the depth of their loss. A friend of Martin Luther once wrote him a letter. His friend s wife had recently died. He was devastated with grief and asked for Luther's advice. Luther told his friend to grieve, grieve, and then grieve some more. But he warned him finally to put an end to his grief lest he become idolatrous and worship his dead wife instead of the living Lord. That's good advice. But for any number of reasons, many of us try to race through our grief or just pretend we don t have to grieve at all. I remember an occasion where I was trying to comfort the children of a fellow staff-minister and my best friend at the time, Jim Willmoth, who had suddenly died. There were a lot of tears in that room, including mine. The doorbell rang. A visitor from the church, a retired minister, came by. He saw Jim s three boys crying the oldest one only in about the fourth grade, and said, You boys need to quit crying and be strong for your mother. You re the men of the house now. Jesus couldn t have been any angrier at Lazarus tomb than I was at that man at that moment. Some people want to pretend that grief isn t necessary. Maybe we think grief is a sign of weak faith. Maybe we just want to avoid the pain. Maybe we feel the need to be strong for someone else. So we try to set our grief aside and move on as quickly as possible. But grief is not one of those things that can be cured by a couple of sedatives, a pep talk, or a good night s sleep. You have to give yourself permission to grieve. If you don t, you ll act well before you are well; your grief will leak out in other emotions, and you just prolong the process. Doug Manning writes: Doug Manning writes: You give yourself permission to grieve by recognizing the need for grieving. Grieving is the natural way to work through the loss of a love. Grieving is not weakness nor absence of faith. Grieving is as natural as crying when you hurt, sleeping when you are tired, or sneezing when your nose itches. It is nature s way of healing a broken heart. 3 It s okay to grieve. Jesus is okay with it. He can handle your sadness and your anger and your questions and any other emotions you are feeling. He understands how much trouble you have concentrating and focusing when 3Doug Manning, Don t Take My Grief Away (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1979), 66.

6 your grief is fresh. He s not troubled by your irritability or your low frustrationlevel. And Jesus understands your periodic panic, your unpredictable tears, and the guilt you feel over the unfinished business you had with the deceased. Jesus understands the deep waves of loneliness that sweep over you from time to time. Years before Jesus came to the earth Isaiah described Him as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3). Jesus understands your grief, and He understands the way grief works. Maybe that s why Jesus seemed so at home with the grieving sisters of Lazarus. Not once did Jesus tell them to dry their tears. Not once did Jesus tell them to quit asking questions. Not once did Jesus tell them to build a bridge and get over it. Jesus met them in the midst of their grief. Jesus is there with the grieving family. Jesus feeling His own grief and shedding his own tears. Jesus being questioned as to His love and care. And Jesus giving time and permission for those hurting friends and family to grieve. By His own tears, Jesus says to them and to us, "Feel your pain. Own your grief. Ask your questions. Voice your doubt. You have loved deeply. You will grieve deeply. I know. I understand. It s okay. IV Now grief isn t the last chapter in the Lazarus story. The story has a happy ending. Hear the word of the Lord (read the text). Wow! Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead calls him right out of the tomb, grave-clothes and all. Mourning is turned to dancing. And everyone stands around, eyes as big as saucers, amazed and astonished at the power of Jesus before whom even death must submit and bend the knee. Surely Jesus is the Son of God. Only God could do something as incredible as this. It would be nice if that's the way it always happened. There at the graveside, mourners filing silently away, climbing into their cars, when Jesus shows up and springs into action. First, Jesus instructs the funeral director to open the casket, and then, with a shout of, "Come out!" Jesus raises that loved one from the dead. Sorrow melts into joy. There is dancing in the graveyard. And what was about to be a long ride home takes on the leisure of a Sunday drive. I suppose it would be nice if that's the way it always happened.

7 But we know better, don't we? We've stood in far too many graveyards to entertain a scenario like that. Jesus doesn't come to the graves of our loved ones and bring them back to life. We don't take our loved one home from the cemetery, we take our grief. So this story differs from our experience. We don't get resurrection like that for our loved ones right away. We get it someday, on the last day, but not today. We do get comfort in knowing that death doesn t get the last word, that our believing loved ones are alive and well with Jesus absent from the body and present with the Lord and that when it comes our time to die we will see them again. That helps us when we grieve. But in the immediate pain of our grief this helps us most of all: we still get Jesus in our grief feeling our pain, bearing us up, joining our weeping. He does not leave us orphaned and alone He comes to us. And in our deepest hour of grief when we feel the most alone, we are not alone. It s just that Jesus stands with us in our pain instead of standing outside of it. But for Jesus, said the lonely, grieving missionary John Paton, I d have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave. V In his novel, The Blood of the Lamb, Peter DeVries tells the story of a man named Wanderhope. Wanderhope was a man who struggled with faith, struggled with his resistance to God and his need for God. This whole struggle came to a head over his daughter Carol who was dying from an incurable disease. She was in the hospital where she had spent so many days. She was still there on her eighth birthday. In an effort to lift everyone's spirits, Wanderhope's housekeeper baked Carol a beautiful birthday cake. Wanderhope headed to the hospital to take it to his daughter. On the way, he stopped off at St. Catherine's Church, a little Catholic church where he often stopped to try to pray to a God he longed for but didn t really know, a God who to him seemed a million miles away. He tried to pray but couldn't find the words. Anxious and afraid, he left the church. And with his mind consumed with Carol, he forgot the cake left it in the pew.

8 As soon as he arrived at the hospital, the nurse told him that Carol had just died died before he got there, probably died while he was trying to pray. She was all he had left. In an instant, his own life flashed before his eyes. His strength vanished. He left the hospital in desolate, confused, and bitter grief. He wandered aimlessly for some time. Then, he remembered the cake. So he went back to the church, found the cake, and walked out with it. Outside, under the main entrance, he looked up into the figure of the crucified Christ carved in stone. In a burst of passion he took the cake out of the box and, with all of his might, flung it against the face of Christ. The icing fell against the crown of thorns and slowly oozed down over the forehead and the eyes of Jesus. At last the frosting fell away, and the face of Christ appeared. Wanderhope looked into that face as if he had never really seen it before. It was a face that knew suffering, a face that understood his pain. And when Wanderhope saw the face of Jesus, his weary legs gave way. He sank down to the steps and wept. DeVries concludes the scene this way: Thus Wanderhope was found at that place which was said to be the only alternative to the muzzle of a pistol; the foot of the cross. Wanderhope hurt. Wanderhope grieved, but now, no longer alone. But for Jesus. Do you suppose Wanderhope discovered what Mary and Martha discovered so many years before? VI That Jesus is our best friend in grief. That Jesus can handle our deepest pain, our hardest questions, and our hottest anger. That Jesus will not forever leave us lost and all alone. That Jesus the resurrection and the life, Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus the one who never leaves us or forsakes us, that Jesus will come to us. He will come to you renewing your joy, putting laughter back into your heart, and getting you through your grief to a better, brighter day and ultimately to that day when the circles on earth that are broken by death will never be broken again. So, lean on Jesus when grief grabs you by the heart and won t let go. Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Jesus is the friend who will bind up your grieving heart, and in good time, turn the tears that fill the night into joy in the morning.

9 Preached: May 24, 2015 First Baptist Church, Hot Springs, AR John Scott McCallum II