Abide-Part 7 "death" 3.29.26

In this episode of Abide, we reflect on John 12 and Mary’s act of anointing Jesus’ feet, a moment rich with love, humility, and prophetic meaning. As the series centers on John 15, this story invites us to consider what it means to abide not only in Jesus’ life, but in His coming death. With Holy Week on the horizon, we’re called to slow down and dwell in the weight of the cross and the depth of Christ’s sacrifice. Mary’s devotion becomes a model for abiding in Jesus with reverence, surrender, and a deep awareness of what lies ahead.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that was brought us, uh that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds are we healed.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

John 12, 1 through 8. Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. When Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume, she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscarat, who had later betrayed him, objected. Why wasn't the perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As a keeper of the money bag, he used it to help himself to what was put into it. Leave her alone, Jesus replied. You will always have the poor among you, but you not will not always have me.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

I'll read verses uh nine through thirteen.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

As a father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love. Just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love. I've told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. My command is this love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

To lay down one's life for one's friends. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

You may be seated. Today we find ourselves in the home of these three siblings, Lazarus and Mary and Martha. And Jesus is the invited guest, he's the guest of honor. He had he should be, because he just rose, uh raised Lazarus from the dead, and he is sitting there reclining with Lazarus at the table. This is right before, the scene is right before the scene, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and everybody is yelling, Hosanna, and waving their palm branches. And as they are gathered, Mary brings out this perfume, an expensive perfume, and she breaks open the bottle and she begins to anoint Jesus' feet with it. And this is beautiful because this she does this before Jesus even gives the example of this of washing the disciples' feet. She does it prior to that. And as she wipes his feet with her hair, Jesus tells everyone in the room that she is preparing him for a burial. The disciples are somewhat familiar with this because they've heard him say it, and he said it really plainly in Mark chapter 8, verse 31. He says, The Son of Man must be killed, and after three days he will rise again. And this can't be easy for the disciples to hear. And in John chapter 15, uh the passage that we've been focusing on for uh several weeks now, he says, he talks about his death. It's a little bit more hidden in this passage, but he talks about it in this passage as well, in the remaining in and abiding in me. In John chapter 15, he says, Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. This month, uh 10 years ago, uh this month, a dear friend of mine died. We had met in uh September of 2015. Um and the first day I met him, he came down and introduced himself to me at the church, and he told me that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the clock was ticking. He had a major surgery the next day, the whipple surgery, where they remove a lot of the organs. And uh, and so I met with him and his wife that morning, right before. And then after that, formed this deep relationship over time. Uh, we met and gathered together a lot. And uh and he had this quirky humor uh and we would laugh a lot. He loved to play games, we played board games a lot, he made a couple of games. Um and as we gathered, I often would forget uh the his prognosis of what was about to happen. I mean, we get to talking and I'd leave, and I it just sometimes it would just escape my my thoughts that this man has cancer, and we are having fewer and fewer days together. He was a gifted um musician. He wrote uh a lot of songs. He he made a CD for me of some of his songs. Uh he played guitar really well, like Andrew, and uh and he uh he would he would often go to a local breweries here and he would play open mic night and he would sing. And so he would do that regularly, even with this diagnosis, even as he struggled with uh his body failing. And so he would play music and people would gather. Um in February of 2016, his his health was clear, it was declining fast, his body was uh was showing it uh quickly, and so he decided to do one more song, one more open mic night at the brewery. And he goes, and unfortunately I couldn't be there that night. And so he sang, uh he sang for the crowd, um, and then he came home. And so a couple days later, uh I practice this without being emotional. So a couple days later, we're sitting in his living room, and his body is super weak, and he is uh he's really sleepy, but he insisted on singing this last song for me that he sang at the brewery. And so his wife got up and grabbed the guitar and uh he sat next to her and he leaned against her because he didn't have the strength to sit up and began to play. And in this whisper, he he got out the uh the first line of the song All my bags are packed and I'm ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

And so he he he was able to sing the whole song.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

And when he got to the verse, you might be familiar with old John Denver singing uh I'm leaving on a jet plane, I don't know when I'll be back again. And he started his voice faded, and he would f he fell in and out of sleep even as he played.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

And it was so evident that oh, the reality of his death is soon. And just uh a few weeks later he passed. I wonder how the disciples felt when Jesus would often remind them that he was going to die.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

They'd become so close. I mean, I had seven months with my dear friend. He had, they had many of them had three years as they did all of these great ministries together and these miraculous things. And Jesus kept telling them, the Son of Man is gonna die and he's gonna raise again in three days. And they it it boggled their mind because he was doing these amazing things. I mean, he seemed blameless, he seemed like the Messiah, he seemed like, okay, he could do these amazing things. Um, and and he's he's confronting uh some of the powers of this time, and so they all were baffled at him talking about how he was gonna die because he seemed like he could stand up against anyone. Jesus who turned water into wine, he healed the blind, the deaf, and the sick, Jesus who fed thousands by multiplying the bread and the fish, Jesus who boldly argued with religious leaders, Jesus who raised Lazarus from the dead just moments or days ago, he has to have a sign or a miracle that he can pull out of his pocket that is going to overthrow this oppressive Roman government. But instead, Jesus willingly submits to the humiliation and the shame and the mocking and the abandonment, and he walks right up to the cross and he lays himself down and he submits to death. In Mark chapter 10, verse 45, it says this for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. And the the serving would look like this to give his life as a ransom, as a payment for many. They are words that the disciples were confronted with, and they're words that you and I are confronted with in the in this room on this morning in 2026. We're confronted by it because we're confronted by Jesus' death. And we're confronted by that because who is this man really, as we consider his death. People are generally okay with talking about how Jesus lived. That can go okay usually. But as soon as we start talking about how Jesus died, it gets awkward or uncomfortable for many.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

The cross looks really foolish.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

There are creeds that were written throughout the centuries. Uh, a couple of them were written in the 1700 years ago, and they've been quoted ever since. One is the Nicene Creed that some of you may have grown up reciting. Uh I will I'm gonna read a little bit of it to you, it'll be on the screen. I'll have you join me in just a moment. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made for us and for our salvation. He came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and he was made, and was made man. Read this with me. For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried. On the third day, he rose again.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Why did Jesus have to die?

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Why did he why was he so intent on the cross? Like why was he facing that cross so intently and so tenaciously? Uh he could have, he there are a number of things that he could have done to avoid that. We find an answer to that uh from John the Baptizer. He was introduced way at the beginning of John chapter 1. And here's what he declares. It's it's this scene over here that we see on the on the middle uh uh um window here, John the Baptizer and Jesus there, and at one point John the Baptizer points to Jesus and he says, Look or behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

How does Jesus take away the sin of the world? So to understand that declaration that he made so boldly, we've got to go back to the beginning. Go back to Genesis. The creator God creates the first humans, and there's this perfect union between them.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

But quickly thereafter, the humans give in to the evil ones' temptation that they could do life without God. They decided they no longer needed God to guide them in the way of living and the way of truth, instead of this loving union between the Creator and the creation. They choose a union with the great deceiver, and they're ultimately choosing death. The scriptures call that choice sin. No longer trusting and believing in God, but thinking we could simply trust in ourselves. Whenever you see the word sin in the book of John, it's generally about not believing in who Jesus is. There are other definitions around the sin. There's a great, beautiful modern definition that I introduced to you last year. It's the human propensity to mess things up. You're familiar with that. Maybe you rub shoulders with it today. The Old Testament and New Testament say it in a different way, but the same in Romans. There's no one that does good. No, not one. There's no one that seeks God. And some of us would object, well, wait, come on, there's still some goodness. And I agree with that. There is this common grace of goodness in humanity that God is just being kind to us to like foster. What this is saying is goodness to completion. Like a goodness that will happen all the time, like completely in us. And there's no one that fully seeks after God on their own. And so that's what the writers are saying to us in the Old and New Testament, that God allowed for a choice and we chose not to be in union with God. The choice was the most loving thing that God could do, because if he made us to love him, then our love would be a little bit of a sham. If he made us so that we could only love him and didn't have the choice not to. And there's no middle ground here. Humans are either desiring union with God or they are not. Jesus says that in a few different ways. To be against God is to be held captive by sin. And Genesis 3 shows what that looks like right away. Humans striving and fighting against each other and trying to overpower each other.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

And as a result, all of creation groans under the weight of sin.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

I think that uh I don't know why it comes up to me in me the most, but when I'm driving on the road and I see a deer on the side of the road, for me it feels like oh, the weight of sin on creation. And so creation groans because death is here. So at one point, the law is given. I'm giving you a quick overview of the Old Testament. Are you with me? Stay with me. The law was given, and there's it's like this mirror that you hold up to yourself and you realize how destructive sinfulness really is, and how we struggle to love God, and how we struggle, really struggle to love each other. And so offerings began to be made on behalf of the sins of the people. But we keep seeking out, as we're trying to seek out righteousness, we keep seeking out other things. And the law, and we learn quickly that the law, it's just impossible to keep. It's just gonna be difficult for us to keep. And so we feel like morality could be the answer, but we struggle with morality. We think morality is the thing that's gonna save us. Even today, we keep on coming up with new laws to see if we can make everything right. I mean, we try to come up with laws all the time. If we all would just be in the same political party, everything would be okay. If we all had the same government all around the world, then we would all be at peace. If we all just stewarded creation well, then we would all be good humans. If we all just embraced a certain justice, then we'd all be okay with each other. If we all just had the right type of restrictions on our phone, we would pay attention to each other better. Right? We just keep on adding these laws, thinking it's going to make us better. It's gonna make us better. If we're honest, if I'm honest, what I really want is I want you to see life just like I see it. I want you to think just like I think. I want you to have the same opinions that I have, I want you to have the same convictions that I have, and then you will be better and I will stop fighting with you. And we'd have utopia.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

But if 8 billion people think that way, it is going to be impossible for it to get better. And we fall short.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

I want to let me just say this real quickly. Uh I do believe things there is a right, there is a flourishing way that we could live with each other that could reduce inequality and reduce oppression and reduce destructive behaviors between us. I believe that. I believe that's important. But those won't fully answer all of our struggle. And Jesus addresses that. He says, We could have all of these laws, but what's going to result in Romans 3.23 is for all have sinned have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. We just keep on falling short. Why? Because Jesus said, listen, you've heard it said not to kill, but let's get to the real heart of the matter. Let's get internal, where laws really have a hard time discerning if they can be governed internally, like my intentions in my heart. So Jesus says that you've heard murder is bad, but let's talk about hate that you just kind of keep on fostering in your heart. If you you've heard adultery is really damaging to families, but let's let's address something even deeper. Jesus says, let's address internally your intentions, you're like the lust in your mind where you objectify other people. And there's law, there aren't really laws that could govern that area of our life.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

It's that internal stuff. We fall short.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

We're under this captivity of sin that leads to death, a physical death for sure, but there's also the spiritual death that keeps us from flourishing in the lives that we live from day to day. On any given day, it doesn't take much to realize that something is wrong. I mean, there's this tension that you feel almost every day that tries to mess up your relationships. There's a tension that we feel almost every day with the headlines that are on the news. I mean, I know, I know you're not blind to the propensity to mess things up. But no amount of technology or education, our constitutions, our governments, or passing of laws, or increasing in punishment of crimes are going to resolve the human issue.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Do you feel like all that's good news yet?

SPEAKER_03 21:04

None of it is gonna resolve this human issue. And we quickly realize we cannot be the source of our own saving. Something or someone outside of the human race has to do something. And God so loved the world that he did something about it. Simon Chan says the answer to the problem of evil is the Christian story, which actualizes love and forgiveness and the power of life. The story of the Bible is this one great story of the good news of God pursuing us in such a way that He became flesh and dwelt among us, as the writers of the Gospels describe. This humility, and we as humans either resist God's tenacious love or we surrender to it. The light in the darkness, just like Isaiah says, the people. People were covered in darkness, and then there's this light that John tells us about, and he shows up and shows us what it means to live the human life. But he doesn't stop there. And we've been talking about that for the last several weeks. But he doesn't stop there. God, fully aware of us being captive to sin and death and the oppressive, destructive, deceitful works of the evil one, God chose to conquer death through the suffering of death.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

To conquer death, to conquer something requires you to go through it.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

So if I were to say, uh, you if you were to conquer Mount Everest, what would you have to do? You'd have to climb it. No cheating, you can't get in a helicopter and get to the top. I don't even know if you can do that. Uh so you would have to climb it. If you were to run, if you were to run, Eric, a marathon, what would you sorry, if you were to conquer a marathon, what would you have to do, Eric? You got a train and then you run it. You fully get to the finish line. Okay, I have a ridiculous fear of spiders. I know they're small, but they they I have a hard time with them. And so if I were to conquer my fear of spiders, I would actually open the door to my crawl space and go in. But I can't do it. So I'm not conquering that. Uh maybe in eternity.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Um Jesus pointed his face to the cross. He suffered in every way. He went right through death and he comes out the other side in victory. I want to conclude with just a couple of passages for us to reflect on.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

That talk about what Jesus' death accomplished. In 1 Peter chapter 2, the writer who be who abandons Jesus on the night that he's betrayed, not only abandons him but denies him. A few years later, Peter writes this about the accomplishment of Christ's death.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

He himself bore our sins. In his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Would you read this with me?

SPEAKER_02 24:43

By his wounds you have been healed. In Romans chapter 5, verse 6 through 8.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

The writer Paul, who made it his mission to kill Christians, then encounters Jesus and is radically transformed, writes about what the death of Christ accomplished. You see, at just the right time, when you were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What I want us to do this week for Holy Week is figure out how do we reflect on that? Some of us grew, I grew up, I mean, I was practically born in church. Uh and so something becomes so familiar that it loses the depth and richness of it. And so how can you and I go about this week and really reflect on the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus? Would you consider taking time to just slow down just a little bit and consider like God's mercy and his love for us? And what would that mean for me to live out daily? When Jesus calls us to abide with him, and then he talks about his death, what would it mean to look to abide with him every day in his death? We'll talk about resurrection on Sunday, and we'll have a big celebration then. But I want us to focus on this for a little while as we go into this week. What would it look like for your families and your friends and your neighbors and your enemies to watch you as you die daily to self and find new life in Jesus? How does that look daily?