Well, at the end of this Easter day, I want to ask you this question: what will you do with Easter? Maybe it sounds like a strange question. Maybe you're thinking, "I'm not sure I understand the question. I think what I'm going to do is, I'm going to put it away and get it out next spring." What will you do with Easter when a particular area of sin looks attractive to you, and you feel weak and unable? What will you do with Easter when you have been betrayed by someone and thoughts of vengeance enter your head, you're able to think of what you'd like to say and what you'd like to do?
What Will You Do With Easter?
What will you do with Easter when you're struggling in your marriage, and it doesn't seem possible for you to love one another as God has designed for you to love? What will you do with Easter when you're facing another situation with a rebellious child, and you feel like you have nothing left, and you want to shake that child and say, "Can't you get your act together?" What will you do with Easter when you lay in your bed at night, all alone, wondering how you will face the next day? What will you do with Easter?
Maybe I should ask this question: what is it that God wants to do with Easter in you? I'd like you to turn back there to page 10 in your order of worship. I want to read for you from the account of the raising of Lazarus. On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than 2 miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
Martha said to Jesus, 'If you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.' Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha answered, 'I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.' Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?' 'Yes, Lord;' she told him, 'I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who has come into the world.' Now, you know the story; God raises Lazarus, this man who has been dead for four days, actually exits the tomb in a demonstration of resurrection power by the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you don't really understand this encounter that I have read between Martha and Jesus unless you see some things that are earlier in the passage. I'd like you to get your church Bibles out, if you would, and turn to page 897 there in John 11. The report comes that Lazarus is very ill, and there are three responses of Christ that seem almost the exact opposite of the way that you would respond in a moment where you have heard that a loved one of someone who is dear to you has been taken very sick.
You find the first of those responses in verse four: "But when Jesus heard the report of his illness he says, "This illness does not lead to death." It almost sounds like the kind of thing that you would tell a person never to say, "Don't worry, it will be okay. This probably isn't as serious as you're making it out to be. I don't think this is actually going to lead to death." Notice a second response in verse five, very interesting: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was."
Now you can imagine getting the phone call: "Lazarus is gravely ill." And you would say, "I'm on my way." You wouldn't say, "I love you and Mary and Lazarus so much, I'm not coming." If you got that phone call, you would say, "What? You love me? You're not coming?" It doesn't seem to make any sense. Look at verse 14; Jesus has been talking to his disciples about Lazarus and they ask if he's fallen asleep? He says, "If he has fallen asleep, he will recover." ..." Then Jesus told them plainly, 'Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there.'"
Glad I Wasn't There
Now, if you get the report of someone's death, you would say, "Oh, I wish I had been there. I wish I'd been there before he died." Why would Jesus say, "Lazarus died, and I'm so glad I wasn't there?" Now if you look at those three responses of Christ: "This illness does not lead to death; I love you so, I'm not coming; Lazarus has died, and I'm glad I was not there," you would have to conclude that Jesus is incredibly insensitive, or there's something going on in this moment that we need to understand and need to pay attention to.
Look, if you would, at verse four where I didn't complete the reading there: "But when Jesus heard this, he said, 'This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.'" Now, think with me. Look at your Bibles: "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God." What is the 'it' there? The 'it' isn't the resurrection; the 'it' is the sickness. God says, "I am in control of this circumstance;" Jesus says, "and the very fact that this man is sick at this point is under my plan so that, through this man's sickness and what will follow, the glory of the resurrected power of the son of God will be seen.
Wow! "I know exactly what I'm doing;" that's why Jesus says, "I'm going to stay longer," because it was His intention that this sickness would be terminal, and that, in this moment, He would demonstrate His Almighty power, that He really is the resurrection and the life, and that He has power over death, that He is, in fact, the Almighty Creator Son of God. Listen! Why do we need that demonstration of that kind of glory? Why do we need God to put us in situations where we have no strength left and no wisdom left and no power left, where we have nothing left but His power?
Because we are so skilled at being glory amnesiac's. We're so skilled at forgetting the glory of God; we're so skilled at forgetting that Emanuel has come, and He has made us the place where He dwells. We're so skilled at forgetting that we're never ever alone because grace has connected resurrection power to us forever. And so in that way, Jesus says to His disciples (it's not a mean thing to say, it's a glorious thing to say), "I'm glad I wasn't there, because I'm going to take you beyond your wisdom and beyond your strength and beyond your ability to figure it out because I want you to rely on this one thing - the glory of Christ and Christ alone!"
Now Martha meets Jesus, and she says what all of us would say, "Oh, Lord, if You would have been here, my brother would not have died." She had experienced His miracle power. Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Notice Martha's answer, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Amazing theological confession! It's a beautiful confession; it's absolutely true; it's good theology. And then Jesus says, "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?
Do you believe this?" "Do you believe that you have met the Giver of Life? I am the resurrection and life. And when you believe in Me, I come, and I live inside of you, and resurrection life bubbles inside of you, and you will live now, and you will live then because I am the resurrection and the life." Oh, I believe that God wants to do more in us than just to get us to make a theological confession of the resurrection. He wants more for us than we would recognize the historical fact of the resurrection.
He wants more for us than that we would celebrate the resurrection. Oh, those are all very good things, but they're means to this end: that we would live in resurrection faith. You say, "Paul, I'm not sure what that means." I love Galatians 2:20; this verse is a friend to me. "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live," (Can you say what's next?) "Christ lives in me, and the life I live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." "I no longer live but Christ lives in me."
It's not just me against that parental or marriage or work or temptation difficulty, because I no longer live in my power and my power alone because the resurrected King Christ now lives inside of me, and resurrection power is available to me. And I am marching toward that final resurrection where all the effects of the fall in me and outside of me will be defeated forever. And the resurrected Christ will not be defeated along the way. Do you live in resurrected faith? Do you live in resurrection faith?
Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, that those who believe in Him will live both now and eternally? Do you? Does Easter energize the way you get up in the morning to face your day, and you say to yourself, "Christ lives in me; the resurrected Christ lives in me. Do you face that difficulty, and do you get worried and anxious and tell yourself you don't have what it takes, or do you say, "For this, I have Christ. Christ lives in me." Do you stand with resurrection faith and say, "No!" to that temptation?
"I will not go there." I say, "No, in the power of the resurrected Jesus Christ?" Do you believe this? Now this means that Jesus loves you so much that He will put you in situations where you have nothing left but that glory, so that your eyes would be opened to the glory of His resurrection power. In those moments of difficulty, He names as love, because how quickly we forget, how quickly we give way to fear and doubt and temptation, failing to remember that the resurrection is not just a historical event, the resurrection is not just a theology, the resurrection is not just a day of celebration.
Please hear what I am about to say. If you have placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection is your identity. You have been raised to life, and you will be raised to life. Do you live like you believe this?" Let's pray: Lord, we are so thankful for this picture of Your intentional, rescuing, redemptive grace, that You will take us beyond what we're able to think or imagine so that, in that moment, our eyes and our hearts would be open to Your glory. And when we remember, once again, who You are and who we are as those who have placed our trust in You, may we live in the hope and the rest and the comfort and the courage of resurrection faith. In Jesus name, Amen.
