The Strange, Strange, Beautiful Ways of Jesus

Text: John 11

Proposition: The ways of Jesus are strange to us not only because He is God but also because of the thing He desires is to do…to end death and terminate sin.

Introduction: You have likely heard or even said at one time or another, “The Lord moves in mysterious ways.” I heard an amazing example of the strange, strange, beautiful ways of Jesus just this week. Helen told us of a time when she was serving as a missionary to India. A woman who was illiterate and entombed by poverty, had come to faith in Christ. As she learned more and more about Jesus her prayer to God was that He would enable her to be able to read the Bible. Something happened, a miracle really, in one day she suddenly was able to read and comprehend the Bible. The effect of this was not lost on the people who knew her well. What amplifies this wonder is that it was only the Bible that she could read, nothing else was comprehendible to her eyes and mind. You find this account incredible, miraculous and it is, but there is something we are going to talk of this morning that is greater than this. In just a couple of weeks we will be celebrating Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday. In all of these we will be reflecting on and be stirred by the greatest miracle of all eternity, a miracle that truly reveals the strange, strange, beautiful ways of Jesus. The account we are going to look at took place in AD 30, likely it was about February, about a month or so before the cross. Turn to John 11.

I. To Mary and Martha Jesus Ways Were Strange Because of His Timing.

Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus lived in Bethany, just two miles from Jerusalem. When Lazarus was getting weaker and on the edge of death they sent news to Jesus about this. At that time according to the previous chapter Jesus was on the other side of the Jordan River somewhere near the area where John the Baptist had first met Him, likely just south of the Sea of Galilee. The point being that it was at least a two day walk to get to where He was. The message they sent was simple, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” It didn’t ask Him to come quickly or even to heal Lazarus, it just informed Jesus of their need but the clear assumption is that because Jesus loved these people dearly He would come and would intervene. There was at this point, still time. So Jesus makes a statement that the disciples hear and so would the messenger that would return to Mary and Martha, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Everybody breathed easier, Lazarus was going to be okay. The disciples didn’t question the fact that Jesus decided to stay where He was at the Jordan for another two days, things seemed to be taken care of. The problem was that even before those two days that it would take for the messenger to get back to Mary and Martha , Lazarus would die. You can imagine the effect of the messenger’s words on Mary and Martha as they prepared to bury their brother, ‘Why, if only, You could have but you didn’t….’. These are the words that built up inside of them for the next four days like steam in a pressure cooker. The strange, strange, beautiful ways of Jesus are just so because of His timing. But it isn’t just His timing is it? It really is about what He purposes in that timing. Let’s leave Mary and Martha for a moment and see how the disciples wrestled with the strange, strange, beautiful ways of Jesus.

II. To the Disciples the Purposes of Jesus Were Strange and Even Risky.

In their minds Lazarus was going to get better so when Jesus tells them it’s time to go to Bethany, just two miles from Jerusalem and all the might of the Pharisees, their response is, ‘Why would You do that, it’s dangerous up there, what could we possibly gain from such a dangerous trip?’ So Jesus answers them with a two point response: 1. If we walk in the day we won’t stumble. The day refers to the day of Christ’s presence and its purpose with the disciples. Nothing could interrupt that day or cause it to be derailed or to stumble. It’s a statement about the sovereign protection of the Father that is wedded to the sovereign purposes of the Father. It’s that understanding that Jesus refers to as light and therefore He is not afraid of the risk in going to Judea. 2. If we go I will overcome death. You hear the response of the disciples to this, they take the term of sleep literally until Jesus explains rather bluntly that what He means is Lazarus is dead! One moment the purpose is silly, Lazarus is just asleep and will awake naturally, the next moment the purpose is impossible, to reverse death. And yet we know that as the story plays out that even this wasn’t the end purpose of Jesus in all this risky, strange, beautiful way. Certainly the things that Jesus calls people to do can at one moment seem so small that they are either insignificant or not even really necessary at all and then in just a breath the things that He calls us to follow Him into are like walking into a box canyon of impossibility. Either way, the ways of Jesus to us are strange and yet ultimately beautiful. Have a look at how this is emphasized in the next verses.

III. Jesus Ways Have the Purpose of Establishing Faith and Revealing Glory.

Jesus tells the disciples that Lazarus is dead and then He says, “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.” Note that belief or faith is what He wants to deepen in these men and women and the means to do it will be through something as impossible as reversing death, that’s what the term ‘nevertheless’ refers to. It means despite the odds or probability or likelihood, I will deepen your faith through this strange way. But even before this He had given a greater hint of what was about to happen when He spoke to the messenger sent by Mary and Martha, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”Glory, what Jesus was about to do was to reveal the glory of the Father and the glory of the Son. Let’s go to Bethany and see how this strange, strange, beautiful way of Jesus did exactly this.

It’s now four days since Lazarus died. Martha, likely the older sister of the two, hears Jesus is near and she takes charge, she goes to get some answers, to set Jesus straight about what should have happened. She still believes that Jesus is wonderfully used of God but death has been here and it has left its dominant stamp upon them. So Jesus says to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha thinks Jesus is giving her a lesson in theology, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”Now comes the revealing of the strange, strange, beautiful ways of Jesus, this is the pivotal moment greater even than the events of what took place just minutes later at the sealed tomb of Lazarus. That is anti climax, this is the moment, this is the main event. Jesus looks into her heart and into her eyes and says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Note that Jesus didn’t say ‘I cause the resurrection, or I do the work of resurrecting’ which in fact He would do in just moments with the body of Lazarus. No, Jesus says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. The word resurrection is ‘anastasis’ and it comes from a root word meaning, ‘to raise up, cause to be born, to cause to appear, to bring forward’. Jesus Himself, Who He is and what he is about to do will cause people for all the history of mankind to be raised up, born again in the Spirit, caused to appear righteous before the Father, brought forward from the grip of sin and the sting and curse of death. The strange, strange, beautiful ways of Jesus have this as their target.

There’s something I want you to see that we don’t often associate with this story of the raising of Lazarus. It happens twice and it’s a statement NOT about the specific people but rather about the very thing Jesus came to undo. The first time you see this is in verse 33. Mary has just come to Jesus and was torn by grief for her brother and wonders why Jesus has allowed this occur. Then verse 33 describes Jesus response, “Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” Hang onto that for a moment and look at verse 38, the people accompanying Mary grieve with her and also wonder at the strange absence of Jesus, if He could open the eyes of the blind could He not also have perhaps healed Lazarus? Verse 38 describes Jesus response, “Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.” The word I want you to see is that term, ‘groaning’, we would tend think of it as a moan or a deep sigh yet what it actually means is something quite different. The Greek word is ‘embrimaomai’, it means to sternly charge or respond, literally it means ‘to snort with anger’. So what is that Jesus is responding to? It’s the cause behind the people’s grief, it’s death itself that He is snorting at, and He intends to end it! How will He that? Jesus is going to end sin and by that end death itself. This is the faith that He invites us into, this is the glory that He reveals, this is the purpose behind the strange, strange, beautiful ways of Jesus.