Good morning, Friends! Thank you for being here. I hope you’re all well today!
Last Sunday I said we’re going to talk for a few weeks about Heaven. For a lot of people, Heaven is kind of like a life jacket on a boat out on the middle of the ocean – you don’t even think about it, until you need it, and then suddenly it’s the most important thing in the whole world.
Heaven is kind of like that. We don’t think about it very much, until suddenly we need it. Then we think about it a lot!
Actually, people have had a different ideas about Heaven over the years, and our thinking has grown and changed a lot. Back in the Old Testament, most people didn’t believe in Heaven at all. Their idea was, when you die, you’re just dead. Lights out, that’s it. It says, “So-and-so slept with their ancestors,” and that was all.
Later on, the people of Israel imagined that after death, people went to a place called Sheol. The believed that Sheol is of a grey place, an underworld. It wasn’t Heaven or Hell, it was kind of a shadow land.
There were no normal human activities – as one writer said, “Whatever your hand finds to do now, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
No work, no play, no love, no thought. No enjoyment or friendship. Everything was grey – no color at all.
So, that’s one idea people had about death in the Bible – close the door, turn the key, turn out the lights, that’s it.
But at the same time, in the Old Testament there was also this idea of Heaven. Heaven was where God lived, along with all the angels. But human beings didn’t get to go to Heaven. Heaven was God’s place, not our place.
In one famous story, Jacob had a dream one night. He dreamed that God had set up a ladder, reaching from earth all the way up to heaven. There were angels climbing down the ladder, and more angels climbing up again. (Genesis 28:10-12)
But human beings weren’t going up the ladder to Heaven. It was more like, the angels were messengers from God, bringing God’s word down to us, and carrying our prayers up to God.
Only a couple of human beings in the Old Testament actually went up to Heaven – the prophet Elijah, who was carried up to Heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings chapter 2).
And then there was this mysterious guy named Enoch, the father of Methuselah. Enoch lived for 365 years and then it says, “Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” (Genesis 5:23)
That’s it – in the whole Old Testament, only two people actually got to Heaven.
During the years before Jesus came along, people’s ideas were changing. One group of Jews stayed with the old beliefs – you die, you’re dead, that’s it.
But another group of Jews, the Pharisees, started saying, “No, that’s wrong! We die, but then we’re resurrected. Good people will be raised to eternal life, and bad people will be punished forever.
There was a lot of argument, and a lot of differences about the details, but that’s the basic outline.
Today, let’s read a new idea, and even stronger idea, an idea that Jesus shared with people.
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”
Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. It’s when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”After Jesus said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
So then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Then Thomas (also known as the Twin) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two 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. “Lord,” 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. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.”
When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “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.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
John 11:1-44
Any time I talk about Heaven, I almost feel like I ought to start by taking my shoes off. I feel like we ought to stop for a minute, and pray. Because Heaven is so important, to everyone.
It’s our hope. It’s our dream. It’s our prayer, for ourselves and for everyone we love. Heaven is too important, to talk about it lightly.
This story of Jesus, and his friends – Mary, Martha and Lazarus – is one of the most important stories of the gospel. Lazarus was sick. It was a deadly illness. We don’t know what it was, but it was something that took his life.
Jesus wasn’t around to help. Jesus was somewhere else, doing Jesus’ stuff. They sent a message to Jesus, but he didn’t get there in time. Lazarus, who was Jesus’ special friend, died.
His sisters met Jesus. One of them said, “Lord, if only you had been here!”
Jesus cared about Lazarus and all of his family. Jesus cried. Lazarus’ death hurt Jesus’ heart.
Jesus went with them to the cemetery. Everybody told Jesus, “It’s too late. It’s too late for a miracle. You can’t do anything.”
Jesus said, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” And then he told them, “Roll away the stone!”
This story keeps getting harder and harder to believe. It’s not an easy one. We believe that there’s life after death. We believe that when we die, our souls go to Heaven.
Jesus believed in something else. Jesus believed in resurrection.
I’m not saying that we’re right, and Jesus was wrong. I’m not saying anything like that. I’m only saying that Jesus believed in something else. Jesus’ belief in God was deeper, stronger and more powerful than most of us dare to believe.
I don’t know how it all works. I’ve got more questions than answers. But at every graveside service I’ve ever done – all my life, more than 40 years as a pastor – every time, I’ve read those words that Jesus said.
“I am the resurrection and the life! Whoever believes in me, even though they die, yet they shall live. And whoever believes in me, shall never die. . .”
Those aren’t my words. Those are Jesus’ words. He said them, and as long as I can, I’ll repeat them and share them.
How? I don’t know how. Why? Because Jesus said so.
For who? I hope, for all of us. Last week, Jesus said, “My Father’s house has many rooms – room for everyone. If it weren’t so, wouldn’t I have told you? I’m going ahead of you, to prepare a place for you. And I’ll come again, and take you to myself, so that where I am, you’ll be there too. . .” (John 14:1-4)
This isn’t kid stuff that we’re playing with. This is faith. This is hope. This is us, putting our trust in God and putting our trust in Jesus.
We believe that God loves us. God loves us, even before we’re born. God loves us, every day of our lives.
We believe, that the love of God never lets go of us. When we go wandering away, or even when we turn deliberately away from God, God comes after us. God chases us down. God looks everywhere for us.
God loves us, and God never lets us go. And I don’t believe, that God would love us this far, and then abandon us. I just don’t believe that.
It says that when Jesus got there, and the stone was rolled away, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
I’ve always thought that even though Lazarus was a real person, that Lazarus also stands for every one of us. Jesus calls to us, he calls us out of our own graves.
How that works – I don’t know. Like I said, I have more questions than answers. I won’t pretend.
But I have faith that death doesn’t have the last word.
I have faith that God’s love and care never end.
I believe that we don’t have less life. If what Jesus says is true, we have more life, not less. It’s deeper, higher, richer, fuller even than the life we have now.
It’s not separation, it’s being fully reunited. It’s not sorrow. It’s joy, and a life that never ends.