Jesus: Our Hope Amidst Suffering and Death
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Deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. And Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by the time there, by this time, there will be an odor, for he has been dead for four days. And Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? [00:00:03] (27 seconds)
So they took away the stone and Jesus lifted up his eyes and prayed, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, Lazarus, come out. [00:00:30] (28 seconds)
And the man who died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen straps, his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. This is the word of the Lord. So Chris said to you last week, if you were here, that he was constructing a house, a house of straw and wood. [00:00:57] (29 seconds)
And it's a groan, a groan born of rage or indignation where you hear of something that's happening in the world and there is a, a deep hum that you feel in your soul that this isn't right. One of my favorite movies, I was an English teacher for a time of my life. And one of the movies I watched that motivated me to be an English teacher was a movie called Dead Poets Society. [00:03:02] (35 seconds)
And there's this one particular scene early in the movie where this young boy, Todd played by Ethan Hawke, um, where, where he's trying to get Todd to get to this place where there's a, there's a groan that's inside of him that he just wants to beckon out of him. He calls it a barbaric yelp, right? And so Todd, he asked Todd to let out his barbaric yelp, but he just, he can't muster it. [00:03:42] (27 seconds)
Garber here is, is groaning, right? Now, he, he kind of pulls back the, the lens of this story, and he, he, he, he talks about this Harper's Magazine discussion that's happening that he's reading about. And I'm going to try to connect this for us, but it's a discussion about TV and entertainment between two philosophers of, of the day, between Carmen Paglia and Neil Postman. [00:06:07] (24 seconds)
The discussion in Harper's Magazine was about the, about the effects of television on human beings. And the question was, how can we take it all in? How is it possible, uh, Postman asked, to watch the neat, the evening news and five minutes later hear about a plane crash in India, an earthquake in Chile, a rape in Central Park, and the Mets beating the Cardinals, and finally an ad for hemorrhoids medicine and somehow take it all in? [00:06:32] (30 seconds)
He argued that as human beings, we cannot do so, so we, we choose to step back, unable to respond to the torrent of information, poignant and horrific, playful and commercial as it is. And then Paglia interjects into that conversation. She's a Buddhist, and she says, but Neil, that's the way the world is. Buddha smiles at it all. [00:07:01] (23 seconds)
And Garber, when he read these words, remember his friend had been stabbed. When I read her words, I recoiled, knowing that was not an adequate response to my friend's murder. It was not an adequate response to any degree of suffering and shame. Buddha smiles on it all. And Stephen reflects, it was deeply unsatisfying. [00:07:24] (26 seconds)
And that's when he's met with this particular text in John 11. Now, B .B. Warfield is a theologian. He argues that the Gospels were written into a Stoic culture. So much like what the Buddha smiling at it all is, the Gospels are written into the Stoic culture so that the Incarnation must be seen as an alternative account of the universe. [00:07:50] (28 seconds)
He maintains that the Incarnation is a counter -argument to this Stoicism. And that's what we're seeing here in this text. What does Jesus do? He enters into Bethany. He hears the wails of the village, especially the wail of his friends at the death of Lazarus. And he is present. He weeps. And maybe we start here this morning. [00:08:18] (25 seconds)
Just that the groan of our God is one who enters into our grief and loss and sadness and death. And he weeps with us. But that weeping turns to this as well, this bellowing anger. It's the same words a Greek poet would use to describe a war horse readying himself to enter battle, readying to enter conflict as the warrior himself. That Jesus responded like this matters immensely. [00:08:43] (34 seconds)
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So they took away the stone and Jesus lifted up his eyes and prayed, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, Lazarus, come out. [00:00:30] (28 seconds)
And the man who died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen straps, his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. This is the word of the Lord. So Chris said to you last week, if you were here, that he was constructing a house, a house of straw and wood. [00:00:57] (29 seconds)
And it's a groan, a groan born of rage or indignation where you hear of something that's happening in the world and there is a, a deep hum that you feel in your soul that this isn't right. One of my favorite movies, I was an English teacher for a time of my life. And one of the movies I watched that motivated me to be an English teacher was a movie called Dead Poets Society. [00:03:02] (35 seconds)
And there's this one particular scene early in the movie where this young boy, Todd played by Ethan Hawke, um, where, where he's trying to get Todd to get to this place where there's a, there's a groan that's inside of him that he just wants to beckon out of him. He calls it a barbaric yelp, right? And so Todd, he asked Todd to let out his barbaric yelp, but he just, he can't muster it. [00:03:42] (27 seconds)
Garber here is, is groaning, right? Now, he, he kind of pulls back the, the lens of this story, and he, he, he, he talks about this Harper's Magazine discussion that's happening that he's reading about. And I'm going to try to connect this for us, but it's a discussion about TV and entertainment between two philosophers of, of the day, between Carmen Paglia and Neil Postman. [00:06:07] (24 seconds)
The discussion in Harper's Magazine was about the, about the effects of television on human beings. And the question was, how can we take it all in? How is it possible, uh, Postman asked, to watch the neat, the evening news and five minutes later hear about a plane crash in India, an earthquake in Chile, a rape in Central Park, and the Mets beating the Cardinals, and finally an ad for hemorrhoids medicine and somehow take it all in? [00:06:32] (30 seconds)
He argued that as human beings, we cannot do so, so we, we choose to step back, unable to respond to the torrent of information, poignant and horrific, playful and commercial as it is. And then Paglia interjects into that conversation. She's a Buddhist, and she says, but Neil, that's the way the world is. Buddha smiles at it all. [00:07:01] (23 seconds)
And Garber, when he read these words, remember his friend had been stabbed. When I read her words, I recoiled, knowing that was not an adequate response to my friend's murder. It was not an adequate response to any degree of suffering and shame. Buddha smiles on it all. And Stephen reflects, it was deeply unsatisfying. [00:07:24] (26 seconds)
And that's when he's met with this particular text in John 11. Now, B .B. Warfield is a theologian. He argues that the Gospels were written into a Stoic culture. So much like what the Buddha smiling at it all is, the Gospels are written into the Stoic culture so that the Incarnation must be seen as an alternative account of the universe. [00:07:50] (28 seconds)
He maintains that the Incarnation is a counter -argument to this Stoicism. And that's what we're seeing here in this text. What does Jesus do? He enters into Bethany. He hears the wails of the village, especially the wail of his friends at the death of Lazarus. And he is present. He weeps. And maybe we start here this morning. [00:08:18] (25 seconds)
Just that the groan of our God is one who enters into our grief and loss and sadness and death. And he weeps with us. But that weeping turns to this as well, this bellowing anger. It's the same words a Greek poet would use to describe a war horse readying himself to enter battle, readying to enter conflict as the warrior himself. That Jesus responded like this matters immensely. [00:08:43] (34 seconds)
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