Episode Transcript
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Let's turn to John, Chapter Eleven
and continue our reading of this amazing event,
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the resurrection of Lazarus. John Eleven, versus seventh through sixteen, started
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verse five. Actually, John Eleven, verse five. This is God's word.
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Let's give our attention to it now. Jesus loved Mary, or loved
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Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when he heard that Lazarus was ill,
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he stayed two days longer in the
place where he was. Then,
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after this, he said to the
disciples, let us go to Judea again.
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The disciple said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking
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to stone you. Are you going
there again? Jesus answered, are there
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not twelve hours in the day?
If anyone walks in the day, he
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does not stumble because he sees the
light of the world, of this world,
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but if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is
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not in him. After saying these
things, he said to them, our
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friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but
I go to awaken him. The disciple
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said to him, Lord, if
he's fallen asleep, he'll he will recover.
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Now Jesus had spoken on his death
or spoken of his death, but
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they thought that he meant taking rest
in sleep. But Jesus told them plainly
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Lazarus has died, and for your
Sake, I am glad that I was
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not there, so that you may
believe. But let us go to him.
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So Thomas, called the twin,
said to his fellow disciples let us
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also go that we may die with
him, since the reading of God's word,
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may He bless it to us.
So we have this sibling group.
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We here as brothers and sisters.
Lots of people right, they have a
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sibling group. But Mary, Martha
and Lazarus, two sisters and a brother,
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and Lazarus, their dear brother,
is sick. He's so sick that
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he's dying. So Mary and Martha
Send Word to Jesus, their friend,
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and they say, your friend,
our brother, he's sick. And then
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we have this very striking verse where
it says that he loved them in Verse
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Five, and then verse six it
says so when he heard that Lazarus was
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ill, he stayed to days longer. Now, when you send word to
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your family members that someone is sick
and about to die and you tell your
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friends it's about to happen, come
quickly. We need you. Usually we
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don't think of the loving response as
staying and waiting, but that's what Jesus
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did. And to quell any doubts
that he might be doing something wrong,
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we have reminders all over the place
in this chapter that there was nothing wrong.
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That was Jesus was doing. Knows
the connection verse five. Now Jesus
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loved Martha and her sister, that's
Mary, and Lazarus. So when he
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heard that Lazarus was ill, he
stayed two days longer in the place that
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he was. Why did Jesus stay? He stayed because he loved them.
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Not In spite of his love.
Not, it may not be easy to
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see from Mary and Martha as perspective, or Lazarus as perspective for that matter.
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Why Jesus? Why the loving thing
was to wait? Why the loving
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thing was to let him die?
And the disciples in this passage that we
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have before us this morning, they
also struggled to see this as well.
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They struggled to understand what's going on. Why is he making the choices he
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makes? Because after these two days, what does Jesus say? He says
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let's go again to Judea and his
disciples. Say That also seems like bad
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timing, because weren't they just trying
to kill you there? They were just
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trying to stone you. And Bethany
is in Judea, just a couple miles
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outside of Jerusalem, the place where
all the leaders and all the people are
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who are wanting to kill Jesus.
So there's this real question about timing and
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death that we have in our passage, partly with Lazarus and partly with the
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disciples fearing for their own death,
and then, of course, Christ himself,
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who has purposefully not given himself over
and is avoided a rest, avoided
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being stoned, not because he's afraid, but because his time has not yet
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come. LAZARUSS is timed had come
for him to die, at least for
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a little while. The disciples time
had not yet come. Jesus time and
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not come, not yet come.
God is very concerned about the things of
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this world, even our deaths.
This passage records these conversations and reminds us
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that when it comes to death,
the timing of these things is all up
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to God, even when we don't
know and even when we don't understand.
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So, rather than fearing death,
this passage calls us to trust the savior,
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who has overcome death, who has
defeated death, and when we do
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so, he tells us we will
not stumble in this life and we will
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have eternal life in the life to
come. So let's look at the interaction
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that goes on here between Jesus and
his disciples in particular. We've begun this
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already, they say in Verse Eight, Rabbi, the Jews were just now
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seeking to stone you. Are you
going there again? He then gives them
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this proverb about the day and the
hours, and then, after saying these
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things, he says to them in
verse eleven, our friend Lazarus has fallen
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asleep, but I go to waken
him. They respond by saying then,
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why do we need to go?
You see, they're still trying to get
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out of it, right. Why
do we need to go to Jerusalem if
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Lazarus is asleep? Because he'll wake
up right, we don't need to go.
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It's dangerous. And of course,
Jesus says, I'm not talking about
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sleep, I'm saying Lazarus has actually
died. These words for sleep and death
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have often been interchanged. homer called
called sleep the brother of death, because
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that looks so similar. Right there
is a person I'm lying perhaps their mouth
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open, not moving, not responding. It looks really similar. And so
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these words of often interchangeable and in
some ways the concepts become interchangeable for Christians,
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because even the Lazarus has died because
of his trust and his faith in
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the Lord and because of the Lord's
work, he will rise as though he
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were asleep. Our Confessions and catechisms
talk about this, that when Christians die
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true deaths, they truly die,
but when they die, their bodies lie
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in the graves as though they were, their bodies were asleep in their beds,
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because it will be just as easy
for the Lord to rouse them out
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of the grave as it is for
perhaps a member of your family to or
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maybe even easier for a remember your
family, to wake you up out of
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bed. Of The Lord will say
up and we will come up and he
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will come in. The resurrection will
happen. This is us, our great
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hope, this is this day that
we are waiting for. But in this
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life, in the deaths that we
have, the death that we will all
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face unless he comes before we die, we find that death is very terrible
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thing. It's not just like sleep. And it's hard. In many ways,
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death tears US apart, death separates
us from each other. Death brings
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great sadness, and I'm sad to
say that a lot of times I've seen
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that when a person dies in a
family, sometimes there's a lot of conflict
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within families that results a very sad, sad thing. When a person dies,
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it forces a change in our world's
one that we rarely feel ready for,
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and the implications of it go on
for the rest of your life.
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And for this reason we try very
hard to have control over our deaths.
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We try to end those of those
around us, and, of course,
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in a way we do have control
over them. We tend to live longer
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when we get good sleep and exercise
and eat well, but we all know
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that none of these things are anything
else can finally stop death. The only
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thing, the only one that can
actually stop death is God. The only
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one that can overcome it and cause
something that is dead to come to life
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is God, and so that's why
Mary and Martha are exactly right to go
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to Jesus, who is the son
of God, the Christ of God,
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as we have sung, this Messiah
who is promised and who will one day
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bring about this great resurrection of the
dead. They are right to go to
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Jesus when they need help, when
they see their brother dying. This going
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to Jesus and following Jesus is very
striking when we see the opposite action of
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the disciples. When Mary and Martha, in their concern and perhaps fear,
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I don't know, concern over their
brother, they go to Jesus and they
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listen to him and they wait on
him. The disciples, however, do
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not listen to him. They're not
hearing his voice. Remember again what happens
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here. He stays two days and
then in verse seven we read then,
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after this, he said to the
disciples, let us go to Judea again.
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Let us go to Judea again.
Now, when the Lord of Heaven
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and Earth says let us go anywhere, what's the right response? Yes,
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master, yes, teacher, yes, rabbi, yes, Lord, I
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will go wherever you go. I
will follow you wherever you lead me.
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You might have the words of Ruth
come to my mind her. I'm going
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to follow Naomi and her God wherever
she goes. That's not the reaction of
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the disciples here. They try to
convince God that he's got a bad plan.
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I won't ask you to raise your
hands. Who's ever tried to do
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this as well? But I will
raise mine. Have you ever felt like
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God's timing is not good, like
you are frustrated and he doesn't seem to
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be working according to reason? Because
it is a reasonable thing what they say.
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They were just trying to kill you, Jesus. Why would you go
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there again? They're not happy about
it and they're scared for their own lives.
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This seems different than Marian Martha's reaction
to me, but there are problem
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is bigger than fear. It is
the bigger problem is their disobedience. Jesus
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said let's go, and they say
that's not a good idea. But Jesus,
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his ideas are always good ideas.
They are always perfect. They are
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his plan that has been crafted from
all eternity. When Jesus decides not to
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get arrested, that is exactly the
perfect thing to happen. When Jesus says
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I'm going to wait two days,
perfect, when Jesus says let's go to
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Judea, perfect. When Jesus calls
us to wait until he returns and for
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us to stay here in the world, but not be of the world,
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to live as pilgrims and exiles,
Resident Aliens, citizens of Heaven. That's
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perfect. That's exactly the right thing
to happen. Even though there are difficulties,
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even though there might be people I'm
trying to hurt us. We must
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never forget who he is, and
that's what's happening with the disciples here.
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Too often, when we need the
help of Jesus, we fail to go
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to him when he promises to come
to us. We wonder if we should
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really heed that or receive him.
When he says things ought to happen in
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a certain way, or when he
doesn't tell us that when and how things
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will happen, we doubt him,
we doubt his love, we doubt his
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care, we doubt his timing,
his wisdom. But this passage is reminding
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us, it's impressing on our hearts
again and again and again, he loves
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you. That's why he does the
things he does, that's why he waited
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to come and that's also why he
was going back to Judea, even those
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disciples were afraid for their lives.
One of the ways we see his love
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in this passage, let will be
later on when he actually causes Lazarus to
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rise from the dead. But another
a great way we see his love is
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when we have these words in verse. Eleven after saying these things, he
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said to them, our friend Lazarus
has fallen asleep. Loved. This word
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friend is no small thing. It's
no small thing. A good friend is
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worth a lot. Good human friend
is worth a lot to have someone that
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you can rely on and depend on. We don't always have friends in our
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lives that we wish we did and
we long for them and when we have
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them, we are thankful for them, when we give them presents and we
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spend time with them. A good
friend is a very valuable thing. One
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of the things that the ancients used
to say about friendship is that friendship was
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made because of people who are similar
to one another. Whether or not that's
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true, you can think about that. But one of the interesting comments,
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I think it's aristotle, but I
forget. Don't quote me on this,
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but I think it was aristotle who
said, would you ever is an interesting
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thing to me. Would you ever
want your friend to become a God?
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Right, that would be a great
thing. And his answer is no,
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because it couldn't be your friend anymore. The reasoning is you would be so
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different from you you couldn't be friends, because friends are people that are similar
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to each other. What's amazing here, though, is that the god,
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the one true living God, has
become just like us and has become our
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friend to do all the things that
friends do, accept in a perfect way,
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to always be there, to always
listen, to always guide and always
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give a good advice, to always
bring comfort, to always have a wise
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word. He is a friend to
marry the Martha, the Lazarus and to
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us. What an amazing gift that
is. And in these things we see
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love, friendship being a very particular
kind of love. Of course, this
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love will very quickly grow into Jesus, in his perfect timing, giving his
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own life, suffering and dying on
across under torture, under persecution, under
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shame, under false trials, all
these kinds of things. He does this
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willingly, because he loves us.
Jesus is our friend. We can go
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to him, we can trust him, even when we don't understand. This
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fact is impressed all the more in
this final thing I'll mention, and that's
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that he is not only our friend, but he's also our Lord. He's
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not like our human friends, who
are our ownly human friends, who make
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mistakes and how limitations and our struggle
in their own ways and aren't always able
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to be there and these kinds of
things. Know, this Lord is our
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God and we ought to follow him, and when we follow Him we do
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not stumble, and this is the
meaning of the proverb that he gives in
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verse nine. Are there not twelve
hours in the day? If anyone walks
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in the day, he does not
stumble because he sees the light of this
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world. Augustine and other church fathers
say that these twelve hours of the day
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are like the twelve disciples. Augustine
writes this. He says, do the
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hours give counsel to the day.
Let the hours be lightened by the day
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so that, by the preaching of
the hours, the world might believe.
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He says the day is the supreme
one, not the hours. What are
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the hours saying to the day?
We're not going to do this, we're
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not going to go. If we
follow Jesus, if we trust in Jesus,
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he is, as he says here, the light of the world.
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We will not fail he's our friend. He won't fail us. He's like
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the Sun. He lights up everything. He is wise, he is perfect,
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he loves us. Let us trust
him. The final verse of this
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passage that I want to touch on, his verse sixteen. Thomas called the
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twins, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may
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die with him. This is one
of two things, and I'm not sure
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you can debate about it over coffee
afterwards. This is either a brave call
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to go and die with the Lord. Right. This is Thomas saying,
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all right, if we're going to
go to Judea, I'm with you,
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and yet lacking faith. So brave
but lacking faith about the resurrection, in
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Christ's power over death. Right.
He's like, we're going to die and
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that'll be it. But I'm with
you, Jesus Right. So brave but
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faulty, faulty understanding and lacking the
hope and of the resurrection which will be
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here demonstrated in a moment in Lazarus's
life or death. I'm not sure how
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to put that at this moment.
So that's one option for Thomas. The
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other option is that this is sarcastic
pleading and doubt, like well, I
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guess we're all going to die.
Then right. So. So Thomas is
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either saying let us all go that
we may die with him, or let
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us all go, though we may
die with him. I don't know,
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I'm not sure, but either way
Thomas is doubting. Even early on the
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we get sort of Thomas's doubting faith
on later on in the Gospel, but
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we see it here as well.
Either way you take this, Thomas is
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still trying to control things. He's
trying to control his own death or the
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death of others. He seems to
be afraid in some way, not trusting,
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more than anything else, his friend, his Lord and his God,
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who has said let's go to Judea. And we're all like this, of
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course. We're all like Thomas,
forgetting about the resurrection, fearing too much
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about our deaths or trying to control
them by all kinds of ways, when
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what we really ought to be doing
is remembering the mercy, in compassion and
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friendship and love of our God in
Christ, whether we're talking about Lazarus as
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death, the disciples death or our
deaths, our job is not to question
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God and to figure everything out and
to control him and to force his hand
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under his timing. We don't have
to figure out all his ways. We
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just trust him and his gift of
love. For our sake, he says,
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he stayed away until it was time, and for our sake he went
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to Lazarus. For our Sake,
Jesus did not die until the appointed time,
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and he waited three days to rise
again. And for our sake,
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he is also waiting to return.
This last one is maybe the hardest one
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for me. I find myself,
like these disciples, longing and waiting.
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Why are you not coming, Lord? Are things not bad enough? Can
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you please get me out of this
situation I'm in. Just come, Jesus,
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so take care of it all.
Why won't he come now? Why
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won't he relieve our pain? Why
is there still suffering? Why are people
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still dying? I don't know,
but I know that he loves us and
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I know that he's wise and I
know that he's perfect in all that he
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does and that when we walk in
that light, in his light, we
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will not stumble and we will rise
again, even from death. So let's
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pray.
