Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
7 Signs: Lent 2025- Good Friday- Ian Graham: Lazarus and the Cross
Pastor Ian Graham leads us to contemplate the cross of Jesus and why the one who demonstrates the power over the grave dies to heal the world.
I'm going to be leading us in a liturgy this evening. I will read some parts and after I read there will be words on the screen for all of you to read with me. It all started with a wedding and ended with a funeral Laughter like a vein of gold gushing with new wine. How can the best be saved? For now? God we've come. A father's aching plea for his son. The word was more than enough to heal ailing flesh. The whole household stands in awe. God, we've come to see. Do you want to be made? Well, the reply, laden with conditions, but nonetheless, the mat becomes lighter and feet, perpendicular, now stand parallel.
Speaker 1:God, we've come to see open our eyes. A manna table spread in the wilderness, stale bread made soft, light and airy, smoked fish, not from a can gathering up all the fragments. Nothing is wasted. We would have tried to make him king too. God we've come to see. Open our eyes to the signs. But he was making something else. He withdrew to the place where it all began communion, darkness, stormy seas and the formless deep bearing the form of god. God, we've come to see open our eyes to the signs of the world made new, made new. New eyes formed from the dust of the earth sent to testify to those so sure in their seeing the light of the world illuminating our eyes. God, we've come to see Open our eyes to the signs of the world made new and your greater things. It all started with a wedding and ended with a funeral. Lord, if you only would have been there. God, we've come to see Open our eyes to the signs of the world made new and to greater things than these.
Speaker 2:Throughout this season of Lent we've allowed these seven signs to be our guide and in John 11, we arrive at the seventh sign and we find Jesus at a funeral. He comes to Bethany, outside of Jerusalem, the village home to some of his dearest friends, martha, mary and the recently deceased brother Lazarus. The funeral scene would have been heavy, a strange sort of frenzy, as the family's friends and neighbors came to mourn Lazarus. And as Jesus arrives, martha, the host, comes out to receive Jesus. She says in John 11, verse 21, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him. Martha at once both expresses her profound disappointment that Jesus was seemingly not on time and yet, at one and the same breath, there's a glimmer of faith. There seems to be limits to what she expects Jesus to be able to do after Lazarus has already passed. But there is something there. Even now, I know the Lord will give you whatever you ask, and it's her faith in Jesus and her friendship with Jesus that leads to one of the greatest revelations in all of the scriptures. Jesus said to her your brother will rise again. And Martha said I know, I'm confident of that that at the last day he will rise again. But then Jesus says to her in John 11, 25, I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Throughout, john, these seven signs have all been demanding the answer to this question. Will we believe Him?
Speaker 2:Here, martha expresses her belief prior to anything that Jesus has demonstrated, and she makes one of the greatest confessions in all of the Scriptures John 11, verse 27,. She said to Him yes, lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. When she had said this, she went back and called her sister, mary, and told her privately the teacher is here and he's calling for you. And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. But when Mary came where Jesus was and saw him. She knelt at his feet and said to him Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. Now Jesus goes to console Mary. Mary expresses the same disappointment Lord, where were you? But notice, there's no glimmer of hope, there's no part B to her statement. Where were you? Just sorrow, just finality, just falling at the feet of the Savior with nothing left.
Speaker 2:Verse 33 tells us when Jesus saw her weeping and those who were with her were also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. The Greek word that we translate, deeply moved, is the word embryomomai. It is used with the snort of a horse in war or a race and describes outrage, anger and fury. What is Jesus angry at? Why is he so stirred up internally? Jesus said to those around where have you laid Lazarus? They said to him Lord, come and see. And at that invitation Jesus does something so startling. When we think about the majesty and the glory and the splendor of God, we find simple words given to us of Jesus' response.
Speaker 2:John 11.35 tells us in the shortest verse in all the Scriptures, that Jesus began to weep. Jesus surveying the whole scene is now overcome and he weeps when Jesus had heard that Lazarus was sick, he delayed two days in coming to him. We're told throughout the story that Lazarus has been dead now for four days. So even if Jesus would have left immediately upon receiving the news, he still would not have arrived in time. But he had told the disciples, upon hearing the news of Lazarus's illness, that this illness does not lead to death. Rather, it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. He then tells the disciples plainly, before they arrive at Bethany, that Lazarus is not just asleep, he is dead.
Speaker 2:All of this tells us that Jesus knows what he's there in Bethany to do. He, all along, has had the intention that he is going to Bethany, where Lazarus is dead, in order to raise the dead. So why then? Why, if Jesus knows exactly what he's about to do, why does he waste his time weeping? He weeps because his friends are overcome with grief. He weeps because of what sin and death have wrought upon the goodness of the creation that God pronounced good. He weeps because we were made to eat from the tree of life that is, his very life, but life has instead fed us a bread of tears. He weeps because he is the God-man who has embraced the whole of our life, the whole of our nature. He is not a heavenly magician waiting to unveil the prestige. Watch this, watch the trick I do.
Speaker 2:Next, he is our high priest, and we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses. He is God with us. And it would be a beautiful thing. It would challenge every one of our paradigms about glory and God. You think of how the ancients depicted God. They projected their ambitions upon Him strong Zeus hurling lightning bolts, muscular, authoritative figures. And here we have God weeping, overcome with emotion, and that would be enough to shake our paradigms about what God looks like. But he's not just God with us. He enters into our pain and yet is not overcome by it. Verse 38 tells us.
Speaker 2:Then, when Jesus again came to the tomb, he was again greatly disturbed. It was a cave and a stone was lying against it. Again, jesus deeply moved in spirit, deeply upset, wrathful, furious, not at the people that are weeping, but at all that has been done to the goodness of God's good world. The wrath of God is not the emotional flights of the Almighty. God is not like us, vacillating from joy to anger, to sorrow, to boredom. The wrath of God is God's action against all that is wrong. So who is Jesus angry at here? Who is he angry at? As he arrives at the tomb, we see the object of Jesus's anger, we see what has deeply moved him in spirit it is death itself. It is the site of that tomb At Bethany. The author of life confronts death and in staring at that tomb hewn into the side of that hill, that heavy stone of finality rolled over the opening, jesus sees a glimpse into the future that awaits him and he demonstrates his power over it by the absolute sovereignty of his word.
Speaker 2:Lazarus, come out. Jesus looked upward verse 41, and said Father, I thank you for having heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I've said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice Lazarus, come out. And the dead man came out. His hands and his feet were bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them unbind him and let him go.
Speaker 2:And this, we would suppose, is the ultimate display of God's glory, the climax of the signs that point to the heavenly reality. What power could be greater than to call one back from the grave? Signs and glory. A story like this in John 11 would lead us to believe that the events of Holy Week would be a route of glory, triumph, jesus' unmatched power, laying waste to all that would stand in the way of God's purposes in the world. It's why the crowds welcome him on Palm Sunday, because they believe that he is about to enact a revolution. To enact a revolution. So, then, if we read this story with absolutely fresh eyes, we would be surprised, as we arrive at this Good Friday, to see this glorious one with the power over the grave, lazarus, come out to be arrested, tried by the religious leaders and Pontius Pilate to be beaten, tried by the religious leaders and Pontius Pilate to be beaten, mocked, cursed and ultimately executed, crucified on an instrument of Roman torture and erasure. Why, why doesn't he simply snap his fingers and say death be defeated, sin be forgiven? He's demonstrated he has power over the grave.
Speaker 2:During Jesus's interrogation with Pilate, jesus tells Pilate my kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from here. Pilate asked him so you are a king. Jesus answered him. It's you who say I'm a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. And Pilate asked him what is truth?
Speaker 2:Here is the contest between the ultimate claim to power, that being, the pretensions of Rome with its power of the sword, its legions, its crucifixions, and the power of Jesus standing before Pilate, arrested on trial and yet unmoved by Pilate's threats, pilate asks the question what is truth? That Jesus will answer with the very whole of his person on the cross. If truth were merely power, as Pilate and his successors, like Nietzsche, have claimed, then yes, god should simply demonstrate his unrivaled power. But, as the cross of Jesus reveals to us, truth is God himself Father, spirit and Son. And the moment where we see Jesus' glory fully is looking at the cross, the moment where it seems that he is the most broken. It is at the cross of the Savior that reveals the truth.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, a church father, athanasius, wrote in a treatise called On the Incarnation that God in the beginning decreed that humanity will share in the divine life, that we will be invited to share in the life of God, and that the penalty for all those who transgress the holy laws of God is death. God does not merely forgive sins by snapping his fingers, by pronouncement, because that would be a violation of God's very word, his very righteousness. This does not divide God against himself, but it means that every word that God speaks is holy and true. It is spoken with integrity, there is follow-through. Everything God says is fully transparent. He does, and humanity's guilt, unaccounted for, would mean a violation of God's very person. If his decree that sin shall lead to death would prove false, repentance would not fully satisfy the divine law and would do nothing to heal our wounded nature. But just as God is infinite justice, at one and the same time he is infinite mercy and his decree that humanity will take place in the divine life is enmeshed in his holy law. So what is God to do? We see this in Jesus that God takes on flesh, the Word that brought the world to life, takes on the whole of our nature and takes the judgment upon Himself. A harmonious giving of Father, spirit and Son.
Speaker 2:David Bentley Hart says that Christ takes up the human story and tells it correctly. By giving the correct answers that God summons in His life and death, he re-narrates humanity according to its true pattern of loving obedience, humility and charity, and thus showing all human stories of righteousness, honor and justice to be tales of violence, falsehood and death. And in allowing all of humanity to be resituated through his death, within the retelling of their story, christ restores them to communion with the God of infinite love who created us for his pleasure. John's gospel there are seven signs, and as we behold the cross of Jesus, we see all of those signs brought to full attention Water turned to wine as the side of the Savior is pierced and blood and water flow, we see that God has truly saved the best for last. God goes to the utmost to heal His children, just as the father pleaded with Jesus for His son. As Jesus carries the cross, he carries us, he feeds us, as he says that those who will inherit eternal life will feed on his very life, the life given for us that we will share in just a moment. His body broken for us, his blood shed for us. He triumphs over the chaos that threatens us. He shines as the light of the world and we see a glimmer on this Good Friday that Jesus is indeed the resurrection and the life and what we were powerless to do, christ did for us in taking on the whole of our nature, in offering his self-obedience throughout his life and his death back to God through the power of the Holy Spirit. This does nothing to affect God's attitude towards us. His desire was always that all of humanity and that all of creation should know him, should find salvation, should find eternal life.
Speaker 2:There's a movie I watch often during the season of Lent. It's called A Hidden Life by the director Terence Malick, and in the story he describes the life of an Austrian farmer who was conscripted into Hitler's army named Franz Jägerstey, and Jägerstier increasingly experiences the conflicts of trying to resist the pull into the army and eventually is arrested for refusing to serve. Before Jägerstier's arrest he is talking to a local artist in the church where he attends. Jägerstier is the only male left in the village because all of the eligible men have been pulled into Hitler's army, except for a few older men. One of these older men is an artist and he paints icons for the church, and we see a conversation between Franz and this local artist, and the artist laments. He says I paint a comfortable Christ, a Christ who's completely sovereign and removed from the pains of this world, or a Christ who is so gentle that he's beyond harmless, because people want a comfortable Christ.
Speaker 2:But when we contemplate the cross, when we gather around this story on this Good Friday, what we find is not comfort, we find conflict, we find judgment, we find wrath. But it is not God's wrath poured out on us. It is God taking that wrath upon himself Father, spirit and Son to disarm all that spoils, all that ruins, all that wastes, all that steals, kills and destroys. He has taken it all upon his shoulders, which means the shame that we walked in here with. He has taken, which means those things that we keep in the darkest recesses of our hearts. He has taken the cross reveals what humanity truly looks like and in the face of our worst, god gives His best and restores us to life with Him.
Speaker 2:Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that God comes into the midst of evil and death to judge the evil in the world and in us. And while he judges us, he loves us, he purifies us, he saves us and he comes to us with gifts of grace and love. He makes us happy as only children know. He is and always will be now with us in our sin, in our suffering and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. A piece of the eternal home has been grafted into us, jesus, jesus, jesus, with the power of your Spirit that you commended into the hands of the Father on that first Good Friday, be present here, lord.
Speaker 2:Would you proclaim the forgiveness that you offer to each one of us? God, would you help us to overcome the ways that we cynically try to distance ourselves from even needing forgiveness? God, if we're honest, there is much that is broken within us, god, but in that honesty, lord, we see you, we see your glory. Would you show us your glory here tonight, the power of what you've done in giving yourself for us? Would you undo the lies of shame, the lies of the deceiver? Lord, would you have your way in this place? Jesus, we pray these things in your name and the power of your gospel. We pray in the name of the Father and the Spirit and the Son. We pray Amen.