Would you agree that the nature of God’s work in this moment is bigger than what we can see or measure?
Our desire to get a sense for what he’s doing compels an immediate, quiet surrender to him. We must move beyond what we know in our brain to what Jesus knows is our heart’s deepest need — surrender to his working and commitment to his timing.
The John 11 story of Mary and Martha at the grave of their brother Lazarus illustrates for us that trusting God with THIS moment is an invitation for him to bring us into the good he is creating forever. In the lostness of grief Mary fell at Jesus’ feet, showing us what it means to fully surrender to God now, in this moment. Because of God’s loving heart for us, like Mary we “let go” of our need to know when, why and how things are going to work out. And in doing so we are free to trust him for the greatest possible good in all that he considers and is working out.
Their story in John 11 opens with Jesus and his disciples hearing of Lazarus’ serious illness from a word sent by his sisters, Martha and Mary…
Notice that Jesus’ love for all three is so noteworthy because it’s mentions it twice. So, right at the beginning of this story John is underlining the fact it was not for lack of love that Jesus delayed going to Bethany. It seems He very intentionally is waiting for two days for the Father’s plan to unfold.
And what was that?
The sisters had not said that Lazarus had died, but Jesus clearly anticipated that happening, and by the words of John 11:4, He gave meaning and hope to the millions who have since faced sickness and asked why. The plain statement there frames the backdrop to this story—as it does for EVERY story of death involving a believer: “This sickness will not end [result] in death but is for [purpose] the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it” (This sickness is not FOR [Gk. πρός] death, but FOR [Gk. πρός] glory!).
The reason for this sickness is not to kill Lazarus, but to both reveal the glory of God and bring glory to the Son of God!
God does not set out to kill us! He sets out with joy and power to give us life empowered by his glory. [1] Jesus sees the end result of whatever is challenging your faith today as the completion of his victorious effort to save you totally from sin and death.
Jesus’ statement about Lazarus in versus 11-16 points to two things.
First, His reference to Lazarus being asleep is a way of speaking when you know for certain that resurrection is coming.[2] This is the uniquely Christian hope…
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 NIV
Second, his reference to the death of His friend was an opportunity for the growth of their faith in His glory as the Son of God. (v. 15, “so that you may believe…”) [3]
The story has definitely taken a turn into grief when we come to v. 17.
Lazarus was already in the tomb for four days. The Jews buried their dead quickly after death, usually on the same day. So, after only four days, the sisters would have still been in a state of shock, barely able to imagine life going forward without their brother.
As the sisters, Martha and Mary, enter the story in verses 20-27, both are grieving in their own way and I think we should be forgiving of Martha if she seems to be less tender, more reserved emotionally, than her sister Mary. When Jesus came, Martha went to meet him, but left Mary behind with those who had gathered to console the sisters.
There is a contrast to note as we look more closely at these verses. Each of the sisters meets independently with the Lord. Those meetings are different in the number of words spoken, and the posture each sister assumes toward Jesus. The results of their meetings are also dramatically different.
Mary is seen at the feet of Jesus — this time not sitting as in Luke 10, but falling at Jesus’ feet in brokenness and deep need. Martha again makes a different choice. She retreats into what she knows and seems to distance herself from what Jesus might do with her grief. Mary seeks comfort by surrendering everything in that moment to him — to what he alone could do with it. But Martha seeks comfort in what she knows, not WHO he is before her – the presence of God himself.
What can we learn from Martha’s exchange with Jesus?
The nature of God’s work in this moment is bigger than what we know.[4]
Martha says, “I believe that…” — in response to Jesus’ question, “Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life and that everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die?” But is “I believe that…” the only response to Jesus’ question about His present, I AM-ministry—ministry available to her and to Mary?
Martha had gone out to meet Jesus where He had paused before entering the village. And without any apparent concern for His journey or questions about why He was pausing to come into the village, she immediately begins speaking to Him about what she KNOWS.[5] And with that, it’s hard not to hear an edge of impatience, accusation, or hint of disapproval in her words because she doesn’t wait for Jesus to say something first to her. “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give you.” (v.21)
Martha is on the right track, but she misses something critical in Jesus’ next words when He says, “Your brother will rise again.” Poor Martha, could she not grasp the incredible meaning of Christ’s words to her in that moment? She once again retreats into what she has believed before the events of this day, not what the God who speaks worlds into existence in a moment is speaking to her right now. She has retreated from the glorious opportunity of the moment in His presence, to cast Jesus’ words out of the present into the future. It’s as though she’s thinking, “Yes, I know that will happen someday, but today is too late to help my brother. You say you are the I AM, but I can only think of you as who you will be in that great Day of the Lord.”
It’s important to note the absence of a rebuke from Jesus, as there had been in the encounter earlier in their home. What Martha states is brilliant and beautiful and a sure foundation for faith. But what you know categorically as true, is just not all there is in the moment when your life is on the line… O Martha, you’ve got the theology so right, but what are you actively trusting in about Jesus in this moment?
Jesus does not give up on calling us to himself — NOW!
Jesus continually calls us into the present tense with Him. He waits for us to wait upon Him. He seeks moments in our lives in which to display the greatness of His name.
So, what can we learn from Martha’s exchange with Jesus?
JESUS IS LIFE TO US—right now!
We may cast the truth of His words about resurrection and life into the future, or into some theological principle we were taught, and that’s necessary and good. But I don’t believe He wants us to stay in the truth we knew about Him yesterday.
Jesus invites us to enter into who he is now, with us.
But just as a healthy human body is not only skeleton but also flesh and heart; just as the sun gives off not only light but warmth; just as a home not only needs framing but a hearth and a fire; just as a meal requires not only really clearly followed recipes but also to be tasted and enjoyed so also a healthy church . . . must have both belief in Christ and reality with Christ – belief in him and reality with him…”
Dane Ortlund, “Jesus” (20201011, Naperville Presbyterian Church)
It’s clear from the fact of His incarnation and His calling of disciples to come and be with Him, that He wants to meet you and me here TODAY, going on to know Him in deeply personal ways.
What can we learn from Martha’s exchange with Jesus?
A statement of belief is not the end to our desperate need in this moment — what we’re awakened to by our life experience.
God is willing to be and wants to be (Do you understand? He wants to be!!) … The Intimate Companion of the most secret place, the Consummate Lover to the desperate soul. Need is the great gift of God… Need is the screaming crisis of our core: the abject, groveling need of…God. And nothing – no attainment and no [other] person will fill that groaning cavity. There is only one principle of the Kingdom: receiving. ALL has been given. Read the Book and see. But only the hungry receive food. The sick alone take in the cure. And only the needy are filled.
Martha Kilpatrick (Adoration, pp 33, 44-46, 50)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Matthew 5:6 NAS
Now, what can we learn from Mary’s exchange with Jesus?
Our present experience of Christ in our lives requires quiet surrender to Him now. [6] Mary’s response is the part that must always accompany a statement of faith, or the believer will miss the joy God has planned for the moment. We need Martha’s statement of faith to start us looking at the Christ (it was Martha of the two sisters who went to him first), but we need Mary’s act of faith to open the moment to a display of Christ’s glory.
Mary meets Jesus and falls at His feet, starting to speak with the same words with which Martha had met Jesus. But then, having fallen at His feet, she falls silent, weeping openly there, waiting for His response to heart’s desperate need.
And what a response it is!
V. 33— Jesus is deeply moved in spirit and was troubled. What moved Him? He was not so moved when he saw Martha. What moved Jesus so deeply was seeing Mary at His feet, her heart laid bare before Him.
V.35— Jesus wept. He entered fully into Mary’s moment, unconcerned about the questions of those watching the moment. This verse has become incredibly important to me because it tells us about the character of our God and the heart of our savior, Jesus. It tells us that GOD is with us in our desperate need for saving from misery and soul-suffering, in confusion and loss.
Jesus cried!
The God of the universe, knowing all he knew, broke down and cried with his friends. Jesus, the very one who would conquer death and the grave, put His arms around her soul in way that must have steadied her and opened her heart to His shepherding care. Hardly anything else could have communicated as much to Mary’s tender heart that her Savior understood her desperate need for His help to make sense of the moment and move into the glory of His response.
The three-fold response of Jesus to Mary’s heart’s desperate need…
- He saw her in her need
- He wept with her in her need
- He walked with her through that need to glory.
Again being “deeply moved” Jesus moved toward the tomb, both Martha and Mary with him, and took command of the situation.
Remove the stone! (v. 39)
Martha, knowing what she knew, protested. What? Really? She knew her brother’s body would stink. Was Martha more worried about that fact than the fact of WHO was standing there at the grave with them – as she had testified earlier?
Then Jesus says something very interesting to her (in a question as big as the Cosmos) and brought all His followers to attention. Jesus asks her if He hadn’t said to her what He had said to the other disciples before they came to Bethany, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (v. 40) We didn’t see this earlier in the text, but it implies that after Martha had declared Him to be the Christ, Jesus continued to speak to her, repeating what He had said to the others. Despite her impatience and reticence to share her heart with Him, Jesus had spoken to her unspoken need in that moment, inviting her to wait and see what He would do with her present need. If only Martha could have moved beyond what she knew in her brain to what Jesus knew was her heart’s deepest need…
And then, Jesus prayed.
First, He wept, then He prayed, then He took a step to do what He knew the Father wanted done. This is the pattern we follow also. First, we enter the moment He’s created, then we pray, and then we watch to see what He will do with that moment. How this instructs! We feel the need. We are moved to wait upon Him, and then, only then move with confidence into what the Father has for us.
But we must give up our need to explain and control what happens!
There’s nothing our God cannot do with our impossibilities – if only we will quietly watch and wait, hope and pray. GOD NEVER BACKS DOWN FROM THE IMPOSSIBLE – YOUR IMPOSSIBILITIES. [7] Jesus didn’t back down from going toward Jerusalem under threat of death. He didn’t back down from Martha’s blindness to his person. He didn’t back down from Mary’s grief. AND HE DIDN’T BACK DOWN FROM OUR ENEMY DEATH. God moves TOWARD our need. God moves TOWARD our fallenness. God moves TOWARD our enemies – and if we’ll let him, takes us with him to glory!
When Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth speaks, the grave cannot hold Lazarus.
GLORY! What else can describe what happened at the grave of Lazarus? The John 11 story of Mary and Martha at the grave of their brother Lazarus illustrates for us that trusting God with THIS moment is an invitation for him to bring us into the good he is creating forever.
In the lostness of grief Mary fell at Jesus’ feet, showing us what it means to fully surrender to God now. Because of God’s loving heart for us, like Mary we “let go” of our need to know when, why and how things are going to work out. And in doing so we are free to trust him for the greatest possible good in all that he considers and is working out. I love how Susan Deborahs describes “the great surrender”:
Surrender is not just a one-way thing, it’s an exchange between you and God. Your surrender is an invitation for God to influence you by way of His Spirit. When you give your all to God, you give Him the opportunity to give you all that you need. Your surrender gives God access, to touch the broken and wounded parts of your soul and permission to take control, when everything seems out of control.
Susan Deborahs, “The Great Surrender”
So, here are my questions for you,
- “What is your situation that’s pleading with you to surrender in this moment to the Christ?
- What is the circumstance to which you are holding so tightly?
- What is the center of that clenched fist?
- What do you struggle the most to let go of?
Shortly after Julia died, I wrote these words into my prayer journal, sitting in a recliner where her hospital bed had been:
Here in this quiet place, I remember Julia’s end of life here in this spot a week ago. My heart is full of love for her and thankfulness to God for His presence in this sacred place. As Psalm 116:15 says, her death was precious in His sight, so this place holds a sacredness – I feel honored to read my Bible and pray here.
Here in this recliner, where her bed sat, I remember this, in the battle against this Goliath, like David the only armor needed was thankful, unconditional faith in God. The miracle was in full surrender to Him! [8]
And I remember the GLORY of God here — NOW, when we needed Him and waited before Him!
- We saw his glory in raising up our daughter Jennifer in a tender, special, special love for her mama. How I loved watching Jennifer and hearing her speak to Julia. Jennifer read scriptures, sang songs, and most importantly, was simply and completely here. Words fail me to say what grace (what glory!) her being here brought to this sacred space.
- We saw his glory in the gift of birdsong from 15 different varieties of birds outside our big bedroom windows.
- We saw his glory in these beautiful worship songs and strengthening scripture.
- We saw his glory in the purest fellowship between the two of us and with our family, free from anything dark.
The miracle we came to ask for, long for, and receive was not deliverance from the disease but the miracle of full surrender to Him. Our golden opportunity in this moment was to fully surrender to the Christ as Mary did — to not only acknowledge who he is forever, but who he is right now in the present, here with us.
My declaration of glory: “But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation,. My God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall I will rise; Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.” Micah 7:7-8 NASB95
Mary didn’t remain fallen!
Jesus raised her up in the glory of his presence. Imagine Mary raised by her feet by Jesus, walking with him, perhaps even clinging to him as he moved toward the tomb. Imagine the shouts in praise to God. Breathe in the glory of this story. Let it touch your soul as you surrender all to HIM.
The preceding sermon based on these notes was delivered on July 9, 2023 at Emmanuel Reformed Church in Castleton, NY. You can see the entire service by navigating to https://encountererc.com/sermons, or watch the YouTube video at https://youtu.be/VSZnLGX2lwI.
[1] Lamentations 3:32-34 ESV — But, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.
[2] cf. Matthew 27:52, Mark 5:39, Acts 7:60
[3] Jeremiah 31:25 ESV—”For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.” [NLT—”For I have given rest to the weary and joy to the sorrowing.”]
[4] Saturday, May 21, 2022— Here in this quiet place (Web view); Strong and courageous? (Web view); The edge of the pit (Web view)
[5] Perhaps there’s something to be learned in Martha’s use of the word “know.” “Martha used a word for ‘know’ in the Greek (oida) that meant a complete knowledge, a finished understanding. It was a word for her intellect, her mental knowledge of truth. The door of her hearing was closed for she already knew all. Paul [on the other hand didn’t use]…that word in referring to the Lord. His word for ‘know’ was ‘ginoska,’ one that meant an ongoing, unending revelation… It is possible to see who Christ is without any connection to Him… to believe without faith, to follow without surrender, to be of Him but not with Him. To recognize who He is without the comprehension of what it is you know. To know volumes and remain completely ignorant… Especially of God.” (Martha Kilpatrick, Adoration, 63-64)
[6] Exodus 9:13-35 God simply has to show up and hearts must change. Some hearts harden in unbelief and some are humbled in loving submission. “But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. 35 Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not let the sons of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses.” [cf. Exodus 4:21, 11:10: “The LORD, ‘…I will harden his heart.’ –not by forcing or shaping Pharoah’s heart to go against better judgment, but simply by being present and by word or deed making it clear that only God deserves glory as God.]
[7] GOD NEVER BACKS DOWN FROM OUR ENEMIES OF SIN AND DEATH: Isaiah 25:8, Hosea 13:14, John 5:24, Romans 6:4,9,23, 1 Corinthians 15:26, 54-55, 2 Timothy 1:10, Hebrews 2:14, 1 Peter 2:24, Revelation 1:18, 20:6, 21:4
[8] The fact that Julia came to the end of her days and could be FULLY content is truly amazing! Julia: “At times I’ve told you I wanted to go home to escape—because I was tired of suffering loss. I was hurting.” David: “the last couple days you’ve been at peace and felt contentment, yesterday and today, overnight and this morning.” Julia: “Absolute contentment. I understand that verse that says I have everything when I have Christ… There’s nothing more for me here. I want to go home, not to escape but to grow. There’s nothing better here than what I’ve got—not a thing.” David: “You, me, and Jesus… You, our daughter, and Jesus.”
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