Resurrection and the end of pain (John 14:1-3)

 

I am conscious that my grief is not unique.  My dad was 92 and we had a great relationship.  I am aware that most of you have lost loved ones.  Pain is an inevitable consequence of living in a fallen world.

My grief is somewhat complicated by the fact that I struggle with an anxiety disorder, but again that does not make me unique.  I am aware that many of you will struggle with mental health issues, or have people you love who do.

This morning I want us to see that Jesus speaks into our suffering at Easter time.

I have three points:

                - Easter shows us that we have no friend like Jesus.

                - Easter shows us the depths of His love.

                - Easter shows us that Jesus wants us.

1.  Easter shows us that we have no friend like Jesus

Do not let your hearts be troubled.   Trust God.  Trust also in me.’

These are the words that I feel Jesus has been challenging me with at this time.  ‘Trust me.’  But why would we trust Jesus?  Well look at the sort of friend that He is!

This is the night before the crucifixion.  On that night Jesus could have demanded that the disciples comfort Him, for he was going to go through far more than they.  But instead He comforted them.  It was almost as if He was more concerned about their suffering than His own.

Then think of who this is that He is comforting.  He knows that these men will desert him at His greatest hour of need.  But He holds no bitterness against them.

There is no friend like Jesus.

He then tells them that He will deal with our greatest fear, the fear of death.

In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so would I have told you?  We misunderstand Jesus if we think that He is reluctant to bring people to the Father’s house.  He is a God who delights to rescue people.

But how do we cope as we live in the shadow of death.  The Good Shepherd is with us.  These disciples will have many difficult days in the years ahead, but he will be with them.  Look down at verse 18, ‘I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.’  He is talking about how He wills send them Holy Spirit after He has ascended to heaven.  Somehow, where the Spirit is, there the Father and the Son are also.

One of the terms we use for the Holy Spirit is ‘comforter.’  God promises to be close to the broken hearted and to lift up those who are crushed in spirit’ (Ps. 34:18).  He is more than close to us, He is in us.

2.  Easter shows us the depths of Jesus love

‘… I am going there to prepare a room for you’ (2b). 

I don’t think that He is saying that ‘I am going to my Father’s house and when I am there I will spend my time decorating a room for you.’  I think He is saying, ‘I am going, and in my going via the cross and the resurrection, I am preparing a room for you in my Father’s house.’

It is as He takes our guilt upon Himself on the cross and as He is raised to life that we are made ready for heaven.  Through His work we are forgiven and changed.  Being a Christian is not about what we do for God, but accepting what He has done for us in Jesus.

This life is genuinely offered to all of us.  Jesus desired than none would reject it.  But if we refuse His love and will not let Him transform us by His grace then we will be excluded from His forgiveness and spend eternity apart from Him.  I wish it were not so, but that is the clear teaching of the Bible.

C. S. Lewis explained that at the end of the day there are only two types of people.  Those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’, and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’  All those in hell choose it.

Easter shows us that Jesus wants us

‘And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you may be where I am’ (3). 

There is a debate about what this coming back is referring to.  Is it Jesus’ coming back to be with them after the resurrection, or when He sends the Holy Spirit, of bring us to Himself at the end of our lives or His final return?  I don’t know.  But what I do know is that it expresses His longing.  It is almost as if He is saying to them, ‘I love you so much, that I must have you in my Father’s house with me.  The Father’s house without my people is not enough for me.  So, I will come back to bring you to where I am.’

Indeed, this longing gives us the assurance that He will never let us go.  ‘And this is the will of my Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of them that He has given me, but raise them up on the last day’ (6:39).

Conclusion

Many of you have experienced greater grief than I am going through.  Jesus suffered more than all of us.  In this life we will have many sorrows.  But He has given us the Comforter, and He has given us each other.  He has given us His Word, with promises of His presence and wisdom for our need.  And he speaks of a future day, when the risen Christ brings all our pain to an end.  Then there will be no more crying or sickness or pain or death.  Then God Himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Easter shows us that Jesus is a trustworthy friend.

Easter shows us the depths of His love.

Easter shows us that Jesus wants to be with us.      

What it mean to be a Christian (John 3:1-21)

What do your friends think you believe?

One student was doing a questionnaire on campus that contained the following question: ‘’if you had to explain what Christianity is, what would you say?’  One reply said, ‘To be good to other people.’  That is the sort of thing many people believe.  They think that you are a do-gooder who believes that you are a Christian because of all the good things you do.  In other words they think that you are an arrogant self-righteous individual who thinks that you have earned God’s acceptance.

When it comes to explaining to people what we believe we need to re-educate them to see that the gospel is actually about what God has done for us rather than we have done for God.  In other words it is about grace—God’s free, unearned and unmerited favour.  This conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus is a great way to illustrate this truth.

1. Becoming a Christian involves been born again (1-3)

The Pharisees were a religious movement that looked at the religion of their day and believed it was weak.  They were going to be proper Jews, and they were very strict.  The Pharisees are generally portrayed in a negative light in the gospels.  They try to trick Jesus; despite Jesus’ obvious goodness they accuse him of evil; and, ultimately, they seek to have him killed.  However, Nicodemus is a different sort of Pharisee.

Nicodemus is respectful towards Jesus, calling Jesus ‘Rabbi/Teacher’ (even though Jesus had not undergone the formal training rabbis were subject to).  Nicodemus is insightful (enlightened), recognising that Jesus had come from God.  He is highly respected (being a member of the Jewish ruling council, and referred to as ‘Israel’s teacher’).  He was deeply religious and undeniably sincere.  But Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again if he is going to see the kingdom of God.

What does it mean to see God’s kingdom?  Well, the Jews were waiting for God’s promised king, and to see his kingdom meant to be one of his people.  Jesus is making the startling claim that no matter how kind or pleasant people think you are you are outside of God’s kingdom and you are not one of God’s people unless you are born again.

You see your background, reputation, prayers, church-attendance, Bible-knowledge, popularity, baptism, first communion or whatever can’t get you into God’s kingdom.  You will see the kingdom of God unless you are born again.

2. Being born again involves forgiveness and change (4-8)

If you can only be a true Christian by being born again then it is really important to understand what it means to be born again.  The following verses tell us what it means.

Nicodemus hasn’t a clue what Jesus is talking about.  ‘How can a man be born when he is old?  Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!’

Jesus explains, ‘I tell you the truth no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.’

But what does it mean to be born of water and the Spirit?  It means the same thing as being born again.  While there is some debate about this passage I think it is best to look to the Old Testament for an explanation, and a passage that Nicodemus would have known well.

In the book of Ezekiel God declares that a time was coming when, ‘I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws’ (Ezek. 36:25-27).

Water is a picture of cleansing—the promise of God washing away everything that stops us enjoying fellowship with him.  The Spirit refers to the fact that through Christ the Holy Spirit can dwell with in us and enable us to become more like Jesus.  Forgiveness and transformation!

A business man went to his pastor and said, ‘my wife is glad I have become a Christian.  My kids are also glad.’  They saw the change that Jesus made in his life and they were impressed.  Forgiveness and change are the results of being born again.

A girl was always in trouble at school.  Her name was always being brought up at staff meetings.  But over the holidays she attended a Christian camp, where she was a handful for the leaders.  Yet she heard the good news about Jesus and it impacted her.  When she returned to school her name came up in the staff meeting.  However, this time the principle exclaimed, ‘what has happened to that girl?’  Forgiveness and transformation!

3. Christianity centres on the cross (9-15)

Being born again is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit, and this work is made possible because of what Jesus achieved on the cross. 

‘How can this be?’  Nicodemus still doesn’t understand.

‘You’re Israel’s teacher and you don’t understand these things.  Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.’  This is a reference to our Old Testament reading (Numbers 21:4-9). 

The Israelites were dying as judgement for their sin.  Yet god graciously gave Moses a rescue plan.  All they needed to do was look at the bronze snake lifted up by Moses and they would be forgiven.  In the same way we are commanded to look at the Son of Man lifted up on the cross.  He is God’s solution to the problem of our sin.  He is the only way that we can experience eternal life. 

4. We will face much rejection, but we trust God to do wonderful things (16-21)

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (16).  The amazing thing about this verse is that in John’s writings the term ‘world’ doesn’t mean the planet or even people in general.  For John ‘the world’ specifically refers to society in rebellion against God.  God sent his Son for rebellious people like us who had done nothing to deserve his favour. 

So what can we expect when we share this life-giving message?  People run from this truth.  ‘This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.’  By nature we are rebels, who don’t want to face up to the reality of our guilt. 

However, thankfully, there will be people who respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out by God.   People are born again because of a work ‘carried out by God.’  It was he who woke us to the fact that we were rebels in need of rescue.  It was he who pointed to the cross where Jesus died that we might have life.  It is he who is transforming our life so, though we let him down every day, we are showing the reality of being born again by being made more like Jesus.

Conclusion:

So what do your friends think you believe?  I think Gerry Adams reflects what many people believe. 

On one occasion he was being interviewed on a program called ‘The Meaning of Life.’  The interviewer asked him something like this: ‘supposing there is a God and at the end of your life you stand before him hoping to get into heaven.  What will you say?’  Adams responded, ‘I will look at him and say, “I did my best, here I am, take me in.”’

That’s just not the good news about Jesus.  Nicodemus was a respectable man, who knew his Bible and prayed.  But that won’t make him one of God’s people.  You must be born again!

Doing your best just won’t cut it with God for the good news about Jesus is that Christianity is not about what we do for God but what God has done for us.  He did not send his Son into the world to condemn that world, but to save the world through him.  In an act of unparalleled love the Father sent his Son to die that we might be forgiven.  The Holy Spirit applies this truth to us so as he awakens us to our need of his forgiveness, opens our eyes to the beauty of life with him and brings God’s forgiveness and transformation.

‘More than the Saviour of a Wedding’ (John 2:1-11)

One evening in 1991, on BBC 1’s Wogan show, a former Coventry City goalkeeper made an amazing claim.  David Icke said that he was the Son of God.  The packed studio audience responded with laughter and ridicule.  The press said that he was mentally ill.  Icke later had to qualify the sense in which he had used the term.

John makes the same declaration about Jesus.  He says that Jesus is the Son of God.  He records a number of miracles (or ‘signs’) of Jesus to demonstrate this.  But what do we make about John’s testimony and his claims about Jesus.  Do we dismiss them with the new atheists, or ignore them like so many people who refuse to make up their mind about Christ?

With regards to John’s testimony, he is adamant that he was an eye-witness to these things and that he can be trusted.  Personally, I see no reason to doubt his credibility as a witness.  After all his claims about Jesus resulted in his spending time imprisoned on the island of Patmos, and his own brother died for being a Christ-follower.  Do people allow themselves be imprisoned or are they willing to die for something that they made up?

With regards to the miracles (or ‘signs’), we will see that what we have here is more than a simple party-trick designed to get someone out of a tight corner.  What Jesus does at Cana is a massive pointer as to who he really is and what he came down from heaven to do.

The Cross is the hour when Jesus fully reveals his identity (1-3)

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee, Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  It was the end of the first week of Jesus’ public ministry.  It is two days after his encounter with Nathaniel (at the end of the last chapter) and the disciples are about to witness one of the ‘greater works’ that Jesus had spoken of.  At this stage he has called just five of the twelve disciples and has not yet preformed any miracles.

Jesus is at a wedding.  He was no killjoy.  He attended parties.  But he never forgot his mission in life.  He was a very purposeful person.  In everything he sought to bring glory to God.  When we are at parties we must not forget who we are to God, and we should always act in a way that seeks to bring God glory.

But there was a problem at this wedding.  The bridegroom had one major responsibility—to get the wine sorted!  Not only was his bride going to give him an earful about his organisational skills or lack of generosity, in that shame-culture he is going to lose credibility. In that culture there were certain obligations to the guests, and it was not unheard of for the groom’s family to end up facing legal proceedings in such a situation.

So Mary approaches her son and said to him, “They have no more wine.”

Jesus’ response is sounds surprising to our ears.  ‘Dear woman, why do you involve me? . . . My time [literally ‘my hour’] has not yet come.’

This is the first of many references in John’s Gospel to Jesus’s ‘hour’.  In John the term ‘hour’ almost always refers to the events that surround the cross.  Jesus is cautious about revealing his identity as Messiah until that hour because there were so many false-expectations about what the promised Messiah would be like.  Indeed, there is something quite private in how Jesus preforms this sign.

Christianity makes no sense without the events surrounding the cross.  Jesus knew that you could not understand his mission until you saw the events of his hour.  But not everyone understands this.  I heard a mission leader explain that his organisation did not include the cross in their logo because he felt that the cross was bad public relations in our age. 

But what do you get if you take the cross out of Christianity?  You get ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’.  ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’ is a term that was coined after a study of the beliefs of three thousand American young people.  It is the belief that being a good and moral person is central to a happy life; religion is mainly concerned with feeling good or being at peace with oneself; and that God exists to take care of human needs.  Beware that you don’t swallow a false-gospel of a God without wrath who brings a people without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministry of a Christ without a cross (H. Richard Niebuhr).

Only Jesus can give us the life that we were made for (4-10)

Before the wedding meal the servants would have poured water on the hands of every guest. This was not about hygiene, it was a religious ritual.  It was a part of the ritual associated with the Covenant made in the Old Testament.  This washing served as a reminder of the fact that we have been unclean in God’s sight and need his cleansing.

Jesus sees six stone jars—the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing—and tells the servants to fill them to the brim with water.  Then the servants draw the water and take it to the master of the banquet—who was apparently one of the guests charged with presiding over the commencements.  The master of the banquet doesn’t realise where it had come from—only the disciples, Mary and the servants know!  He is impressed with the quality of this wine.  So he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

It is surely significant that Jesus uses the jars that were for ritual purification.  The old covenant, with its ritual cleansings, was a gift from God.  However, it pointed forward to something better.  The old water would be replaced with new wine.  The ritual washings could not provide permanent relief for a conscience troubled by failure.  But the cross shows us how all our sin has been dealt with.  The old covenant had a law that should people how they should live, but didn’t enable them to do so.  The new covenant that Jesus inaugurates promises a law written on our hearts and the strength to obey.

The abundance of this wine is also significant—Jesus gave far more than was needed.  The prophet Amos had looked forward to a time of blessing when wine would flow from the mountains and hills (Amos 9:13).  Now God, in the person of God the Son, is bringing about such blessing.  Jesus’ presence saved the party and made it a much better wedding to be at and what Jesus did at that party he offers to do in our lives!  C. S. Lewis wrote, ‘… most people, if they really had learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world.  There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise’ (Mere Christianity).  We end up empty when we try to find our satisfaction in the latest purchase.  Many you people thing that the ache in their soul would disappear if they found the right partner (it won’t).  Many people put an intolerable strain on their marriages by expecting that their spouse can make them truly whole.  The truth is, we search in vain for meaning and purpose if our search does not lead us to Jesus.   

One person who grasped the cleansing, transformation and satisfaction that comes through the wine of the new covenant was a convict called Harold Morris.  He later wrote, ‘… a person in Christ becomes a new creature.  Old habits and attitudes were replaced as the Spirit of God worked in my life.  The vengeance that I had nourished for five years and the rebellious spirit that had been a driving force in my life relaxed their grip when Christ took control.  Little by little he replaced my hatred with his love.  Sometimes I lay in the prison-yard looking at the sky and relishing the joy and peace I had found in Christ.  The bars and fences were still there, as were the guards with their high-powered rifles.  But I had an inner strength I’d never known before – the very presence of Christ.’

Conclusion: This sign shows us who Jesus is so that we may believe in him and have life in all its fullness.

This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee.  He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

When David Icke claimed, on the Wogan show, that he was the Son of God people responded with laughter and ridicule, and the press claimed that he must be mentally ill.  What’s your verdict on this man who claims to be God the Son?

John recorded this sign, which is loaded with meaning, so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (the verb can be translated ‘go on believing’, and reminding ourselves of these signs is one of the ways God keeps us going in the faith).  Jesus did this so that we would do what the disciples did—put our faith in him.  For it is only through faith in Jesus that we can know life that is rescued from the pain of guilt, that is free from the voice of condemnation, that experiences the transforming power of Christ’s presence within us and has the hope of a greater banquet that awaits us when this life is through.

Finally, one Bible-commentator writes, ‘this miracle can happen again as the water of guilt, habitual failure and legalism, is transformed by the word of the risen Jesus into the wine of forgiveness, victory and joyful obedience.’

The Joy of been Sent (John 20:19-23)

A woman goes into a shop and says to the shopkeeper, 'I would like five euro worth of religion please.'

'What? Five euro of religion! How much religion is that?'

'Well,' she answers, 'I would like enough religion to easy my sense of guilt, but not so much that it would demand me to forgive other people.  I would like enough religion to make me a part of a church, but not so much that I would have to love the awkward people in that church.  I would like enough religion to convince my friends that I am respectable, but not so much that they would think I am a religious-freak.  I want comfort, but not challenge.  I want heaven when I die, but I do not want to die to myself in this life.  Oh, and I like some of the things Jesus says.  Could you throw him into the mix?'

So the shop-keeper flicks through his catalogue.  ‘Under the heading of Jesus it says that you are not meant to pick and mix.  There seems to be no part-time option.  I can't even see any retirement date or time off.  Sorry, with Jesus it's seems to be all or nothing.'

In this morning’s passage we see comfort (‘peace be with you’) and challenge (‘I am sending you’).  They go hand-in-hand.

Jesus brings people peace

The atmosphere in the room must have been tense.  The doors were locked for fear of the Jewish authorities.  There is shame—‘we deserted Jesus’.  There is confusion—‘Peter and John found the tomb empty’.  There is bewilderment—‘Mary Magdalene claims that she has seen Jesus.’

Then, amazingly, Jesus stands amongst them.  He greets them with the traditional 'Shalom!'  His first words could have been accusation, ‘where were you when I needed you most?’  Instead he offers these guilty failures a word of comfort.

Jesus would have used this greeting many times, but this is the first time John records its use.  John wants us to see the special significance here.  In the Old Testament ‘Shalom’ is associated with the blessing of God, and especially with the salvation that God would bring through his Messiah.  John records ‘peace be with you’ twice, and in between Jesus shows them his hands and side.  It is because the lamb was slain that we can experience piece with God.

This is more than the peace we feel when we walk in the woods or have the house to ourselves.  This is more like a declaration that war is over.  For without the death of Christ we would be condemned, the objects of God’s holy anger and awaiting the final judgement.  But Christ died for the ungodly, and not those who see themselves as good.  He declared, ‘it is finished’ as he took the full punishment for all the evil that is in us.  This is why he can declare, ‘peace be with you.’  This should delight our heart!

The telephone rang at about three in the morning.  It was the local hospital ringing about a man who was very ill and wanted to speak to a minister.  The minister had never met this man before, and the man wasn’t a churchgoer.  But this man knew that he was seriously ill and he was feeling troubled.  So the minister asked if he could help and the man’s eyes welled up with tears.  Seeing that the man didn’t know what to say the minister prompted him:  ‘Do you want to make your peace with God?’  The man responded that he did.  So in the dead of night, in the quiet of a hospital ward, with everyone around sleeping, the minister explained that although we all have rejected God, and although we deserve to be punished by him, Jesus took that punishment on the cross for us, so that we can have peace with God.  The minister then prayed a simple prayer with that man, who prayed along with him.  The next morning the minister called into the hospital but was told that the man had died in the night.  The nurse told the minister that he had gone to sleep after he’d left and that he had died, ‘peacefully in his sleep.’  As that minister latter explained, ‘He was troubled; he met the Lord Jesus; he understood the cross ... Peace with God.  That’s what Jesus’ death achieved, and his resurrection was that guarantee of that.’

Jesus sends us out to share this peace

With the comfort (‘peace be with you’) comes the challenge (‘I am sending you’).  Stepping out can be difficult! 

During my first term in college I was going to a Christian Union meeting when someone from my class came up and asked where I was going.  I panicked.  So I simply pointed in the direction of the building to which we were going and replied, ‘that way.’  I wouldn’t tell him that I was going to a Christian meeting because I was embarrassed about my faith.

But Christ sends us for God’s glory and our good.  One Christian leader said, ‘nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world he came to redeem.  Fame, pleasure and riches are not but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfilment of his eternal plans. The men [people] who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most precious rewards’ (J. Campbell Morgan, 1909).

The Holy Spirit equips us to share the message of peace

A couple of weeks ago Chris Harper-Mercer went into a classroom of Umpqua College in Oregon.  He secured the room and got the attention of the students.  He took his handgun and shot the professor dead at point blank range.  He then got the students to stand up and state their religion.  He was targeting the Christians.  Before shooting them he would declare, ‘because you are a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about a second.’

I don’t think that it makes you less spiritual that you find the thought of sharing your faith difficult.  Some people are wired to more outgoing than others.  If sharing you faith seems daunting I have two words of comfort for you—you are not alone and you are not alone.

You are not alone in being scared.  I assume that many of those disciples felt scared when they realised that they were being sent back into the very world that lay beyond those locked doors. True courage is not the absence of nerves but the willingness to step out and overcome them.   

You are not alone because God goes with you.  ‘In this world you will have trouble’ (it won’t be easy) ‘but take heart.  I have overcome the world.’  Then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit…’  I think this giving of the person of the Holy Spirit as a little taster of what will happen more fully when the Day of Pentecost arrives.  Since the Day of Pentecost God’s Holy Spirit has been given to all God’s people.  He will enable us to stand firm.  He will open up opportunities.  He will take of inadequate words and use them.  Read the book of Acts and see how the person of the Holy Spirit transformed these fearful disciples.

Before we finish we need to ask what Jesus means when he says, ‘if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’  I don’t think he is giving these individuals the authority to forgive people their sins or withhold God’s forgiveness from them.  I think that he is saying that as we share the good news of Jesus we are declaring that those who trust in him can be assured of being forgiven and we warn those who refuse him that there is no forgiveness apart from him.

Conclusion

‘I’d like five euro worth of religion please.’  I would like peace with God without having to hear him say to me, ‘I send you.’  Happily it doesn’t work like that!

You see, God is not inviting you to join his mission because he is in desperate need of your help.  He invites you to join him in mission so that you can share his joy.  One group of missionaries were known for ‘glad obedience’.  Another missionary was described as living the most ‘joyfully sacrificial’ life.  Do you remember the miners who were trapped underground for sixty-nine days?  One of them wrote, ‘I do not serve God out of duty but a heart full of gratitude.’  It is for your joy that Christ says both ‘peace be with you’ and ‘I am sending you.’

‘Jesus reveals his glory by overcoming death’ (John 11)

One of the questions on Vikki’s questionnaire was, ‘what happens after death, in your opinion?’  One girl replied with the word ‘peace’ and the other with ‘heaven.’  Interestingly both these girls also said that they did not believe there is a god.  Clearly they had not given the question too much thought.  I wonder do students even think about death.

A chaplain at one Ireland’s universities thinks that Christians talk about death too much.  He wrote in the college newspaper that it was a misrepresentation of the Christian faith to see it as being all about a gateway to the afterlife.  He criticises an understanding of Christianity that centres on death–the death of Jesus and death of us.  He then he states ‘the crux of Christian faith is not the death of Christ.’


I am not sure that John would agree.  John records Jesus speaking about being lifted up, departing and his time/hour.  All these ideas have the cross in view.  Jesus speaks about being a shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.  He is portrayed as the Passover lamb that dies so that his people might be spared from the coming judgement.  He declares, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live.’  We need to get people thinking about death—Jesus’ death and our death!


Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead to display his glory (1-16)


Jesus is in Galilee when he receives a message from the tiny village of Bethany in Judea, two miles from Jerusalem.  The message concerns his close friend Lazarus.  Lazarus is seriously ill.  Jesus responds, ‘This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it’ (4).


You might think that the most loving thing Jesus could have done was jump on the fastest donkey and get to Bethany, but he delays.  He delays and by the time he arrives Lazarus will have been dead for four days.  The significance of this might lie in the fact that there was a popular superstition which held that the soul hovered over the body for three days.  Jesus wants people to be sure that Lazarus really was dead!  He delays because he wants people to see that he can raise the dead, and point to the fact that he himself will raise people up on the last day.  He takes the course of action that will best reveal God’s glory and his glory.


But never think that God’s glory is ever at the expense of those he loves.  He works all things together both for his glory and the ultimate good of those who love him.  His glory and your good, if you love him, are not in competition.  There is no doubt about his affection for Lazarus, who is described as the one you love (3).  Indeed, it is a proof of his love that he goes to be with the family in Bethany, for there were people in that area who wanted to stone him to death (8).  And the events that unfold will strengthen the faith of Lazarus, Martha and Mary and centuries of God’s people ever since as we face the inevitability of our mortality.


Jesus is the giver of life (17-27)


When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him.  ‘Lord ... if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask’ (21-22).  These are words of amazing faith.  Jesus assures her that Lazarus will be raised, but Martha thinks he is referring to the future resurrection of the dead.


Jesus then speaks the memorable words, ‘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’ (25-26).  These words are exclusive words.  His claims cannot be put alongside the claims of other religious leaders.  He alone is the resurrection and life.  It is only through him that life and resurrection are experienced.  This is an offensive truth in our tolerant society.  But Jesus has always said things that people find hard to accept, which is why people avoid his hard sayings.


John says that he records the signs that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we may have life in his name (20:31).  Martha has witnessed who Jesus is and what he has been doing and has had her eyes opened.  ‘Yes, Lord … I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world’ (27).


Life in Jesus is for now and for after death (28-44)


When Jesus arrives, finding Mary and those with her weeping, ‘he was deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled’ (33).  Bible Commentaries explain that the word translated ‘deeply moved’ implies feeling something very strongly.  He was so outraged at what he saw that it made him weep.  But what exactly is it that causes him to be so upset?


His tears can’t simply be that Lazarus is dead, for he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead.  Of course he cares about Mary and Martha’s pain, but surely he should be jumping up and down with joy that he is moments away from relieving their suffering.  There is something deeper going on.  He seems to be angry at the thought of death itself.  You see death is a testimony to the awful consequences of human evil.  In Genesis we see that death is the result of God’s curse on human rebellion.  As one preacher says, ‘Death is disgusting and is a poignant reminder of the price which is paid, for our pride and rebellion against our Maker.  It makes God weep and so it should us’ (Tinker).


The stone is taken away from the entrance to the tomb and Jesus looks up saying, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me … Lazarus, come out’ (42-43).  This is the seventh sign John records so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing have life in his name.  The teaching of the New Testament is that all those who believe have already experienced resurrection—for Jesus calls the spiritually dead, condemned in evil and raises us to the new life of freedom from guilt, fellowship in his love and hope beyond death!  The great hope of Christians throughout the centuries lies in the anticipation of the great resurrection of the dead that will take place when Christ returns and establishes the New Heaven and the New Earth.


Eternal life was purchased by Jesus’ death (45-57)


That chaplain, I mentioned at the beginning, writing in his college magazine seems to think that we are wrong to put too much focus on Jesus as the key to the gateway to the afterlife.  But Jesus gives us that wonderful hope, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though they shall die, yet shall they live.’  What about his claim that the death of Jesus is not the crux of the Christian faith?  Again and again John shows that it is only because of the death of Jesus that eternal life, now and in the age to come, may be experienced by those who believe!  A little incident at the end of this story shows demonstrates this!


The raising of Lazarus caused a mixed reaction.  Many Jews who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus had done and put their faith in him.  But others went to the Pharisees and told them what had happened.  So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Jewish ruling council.  They were worried.  If the Roman authorities got wind that the Jews were getting excited about a potential messiah there might be trouble.  So Caiaphas, the High Priest, gives some advice.  ‘You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’  Jesus needs to be got rid of for the greater good.  What Caiaphas didn’t realise was that he was prophesying that Jesus would die as a substitute for his people.


Jesus died as a substitute for our guilt.  It is crucial that we see this if we are to grasp the extent of God’s love.  ‘I’ve heard it said that the Bible is the ultimate love story, this being the case Jesus’ death on the cross is a complete and full sign of God’s love for humanity’ (Ruth Kingston).


Conclusion


I asked one student, who claims to be an atheist, if he ever thinks about death.  He answered, ‘not really … I suppose it seems a long way off.’  I don’t know if all students feel that way.


However, even if those around us are denying the inevitable, we must pray that God awakens people to the realities beyond the grave.  For remembering the realities heaven and hell will add focus and urgency to our evangelism.  Pondering the beauty of what is to come will make us more effective Christians in this world.  ‘Nothing fits a person to be more useful on earth than to be more ready for heaven’ (Piper).  Finally, we want to focus on Christ’s death and the resurrection life he offers because it brings glory to the Father and the Son to speak of how Christ died to give people life now and for ever.

There awaits for God’s people a realm of unsurpassed joy, unfading glory, undiminished bliss, and unending pleasure (MacArthur).  One day we will join with the heavenly choir to praise the lamb who was slain.  There will be nothing boring or humdrum in the New Heaven and the New Earth.  We will have unbroken fellowship with all its inhabitants.  There will be no more sorrows, cares, tears and fears.  But the greatest thing of all is the fact that we will experience perfect intimacy with God who loved us and gave his Son that we might dwell with him for ever.         

‘An amazing claim that points to our purpose in life’ (John 15:1‐17)

The story is told that on one occasion Mohammad Ali, the former heavy weight-champion of the world, was on a flight when the passengers were told to put on their seat belts.  Seeing that Ali hadn’t done so, one of the air hostesses asked him to fasten.  ‘Superman don’t need no seatbelt,’ Ali replied.  To which the hostess brilliantly responded, ‘Superman don’t need no plane.’

Mohammad Ali may have claimed to be the greatest, but he was only the greatest in the boxing ring.  He certainly wasn’t Superman!  Indeed, if you had asked Mohammad Ali, who was a Muslim, if he was one with Allah, he wouldn’t have wouldn’t have laughed.  He would have considered such a claim to be utterly blasphemous.

Amazingly Jesus is comfortable to say, ‘I and the Father are one’, ‘he who has seen me has seen the Father’ and ‘I live in the Father and the Father lives in me.’  If he was not the unique Son of God then he was utterly mad.  If he is the unique Son of God then we cannot make sense of life without him!

In this passage we see that Jesus makes an amazing claim about himself, and that this is a claim that reveals our purpose in life.

The amazing claim (I am the vine)

It is the evening before the cross.  Jesus has been in the Upper Room preparing the disciples for his departure.  Now he commands them, ‘come, let us go.’

Perhaps they are on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus points to a vine hanging over a wall, or maybe he is looking at the great golden vine that decorated the temple.  ‘I am the true vine.’

This is the seventh of John’s ‘I am’ sayings.  His Jewish disciples would have been aware of the significance of words ‘I am’.  These words were God’s self-disclosure at the burning bush.  He is claiming to be no less than the Lord God.

As the shamrock is associated with the Irish and the thistle with the Scottish, the vine was associated with Israel.  Israel, as God’s Old Testament people, had been called to bear fruit.  But they had failed to live up to their calling.  So Jesus claims that he is what they refused to be.  He is the one who gives God obedience he has been looking for in his people.  Now he offers to produce in us fruit that is pleasing to God.

Many of your friends may describe themselves as being spiritual, but Jesus is claiming that we cannot be truly spiritual unless we are in a living relationship with him.

Jesus’ claim reveals our purpose (to bear fruit)

Jesus is the vine, and through abiding in him we fulfil our purpose in life.  ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit and that your fruit should last’ (16a).

But not all branches bear fruit.  As James teaches, in his epistle, ‘faith without works is dead.’  There are branches on the vine that are dead, and that will be cut off and destroyed.  You see, it is possible to be associated with Jesus but not to know him.  You may have been baptised, attend a church, even name the hour that we prayed a prayer at a meeting but if Jesus is not changing us from within then we are not born again.

What is the fruit that the Father is looking for from those who are connected to the vine?  In these verses it is primarily our love for Christ’s people.  We are to forgive as we have been forgiven.  We are to bear each other’s burdens.  We are to lift each other up in prayer.  We are to practice hospitality.  We are to watch what we say about each other.  We are to speak to each other with truth and love.

How is this fruit produced?  Partly through pruning!  The gardener not only takes the knife to the dead branches, he prunes those branches that do bear fruit, so that they might become more fruitful.  The pain that you are passing through at this time might actually be a sign of God’s loving commitment to you.  James teaches us to count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2-3, ESV).

An old Christian lady who had served Christ all her life was telling her story at a church meeting.  A young Christian man in the congregation, awestruck by her godliness, whispered a bit too loudly, to his neighbour, ‘I'd give everything to have a testimony like that!’  The old lady, whose hearing was still very sharp, overheard and replied, ‘Young man, everything is what it cost me!’

Pruning and abiding are the keys to producing fruit.  Jesus links abiding in him to obeying his words (7 and 10), praying in his name (7 and 16) and obeying his commands (10 and 17).  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you (7a)—he already (in verse 3) taught that it is through his word that he brings people into living faith, and now he says that it is his life-giving word that sustains us in the faith.  Then ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you—he teaches that we are to ask in his name (which means to ask in line with all that his name stands for).  If you keep my commands you will abide in my love (10a)—including the central command to follow the example of the one who laid down his life for his friends.  

Over the summer, as a family, we read a book about Eric Liddle.  Not only did Liddle win the gold medal in the four-hundred metres, at the 1924 Paris Olympics, he gave it all up to serve as a missionary in China, where he died of a brain tumour in a Japanese internment camp during World War Two.

People, who were in that camp with Liddle, spoke of his selfless generous warm life.  Every memoir that has been written by people who survived that camp mentions Eric Liddle.  The kids’ called him Uncle Eric.  He was the only adult that everyone trusted to be fair.  One person described him as the most outstanding person in the camp ‘in his early forties, quiet-spoken and a permanent smile.  Eric was the finest Christian man I have ever had the privilege of meeting.’

But what made him such a Christlike man?  There can be no doubt that it was the result of the time that he carved out to be alone with God in Bible study and prayer.  God certainly pruned him, and he let that pruning have its full effect.  He abided in Christ as he let the word of Christ shape him, took time to pray and sought to obey.  Even though that camp was crowded with eighteen hundred people he found the time to be alone with God.  Who we are becoming when we are alone with God, is who you will become when the pressure is on.

The blessings of abiding

So, Jesus makes amazing claims about himself.  He uses God’s self-description, ‘I am’, of himself.  He says that he is the vine, who produces the fruit that God is looking for.  He teaches that it is only as we are intimately connected with him that we can be truly spiritual.  He claims that prayer will be answered when it is asked in line with what his name stands for.  He is the one who sustains us in our Christian lives. 

These claims of Jesus enable us to achieve our purpose in life—which is to produce fruit that is pleasing to God!  Producing this fruit is actually the course of great blessing!

Producing fruit, as we abide in Christ and experience the Father’s pruning brings God glory—by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit (8a); it proves that we are true disciples of Christ (8b)—are sense of assurance grows as we see that we are being made more like Jesus; it causes us to remain in the Father’s love (10); it brings us joy—these things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (11); it means that we enjoy friendship with the one who has loved us like no other (15); it enables us to fulfil our purpose in life—we were chosen to bear fruit (16a); it is results in answered prayer—as we learn to know what Jesus would have us pray and see the Father graciously respond (16b); and, it will enable us to love one another—these things I command you, so that you will love one another (17).

Christ has chosen you not merely that you would experience the wonderful forgiveness of sins and have eternal life, but also that your life will be fruitful and productive in fulfilling God’s purposes.  Do this and you will enjoy greater blessings that anything the world has to offer.  ‘These things I have commanded,’ declares Jesus, ‘so that you will love one another.’