WEBVTT
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In the name of Jesus.
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Amen.
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Dear brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Lazarus, whose sisters are Martha and Mary, is ill.
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So his sisters, ascend for Jesus, saying he whom you love is ill.
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Greater love hath no man than this man, this Jesus.
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And yet, strangely, he waits.
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He waits not for a while
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only for two days he waits.
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He waits for Lazarus to die.
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Only then is he ready.
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Only then does he say to his disciples, let us go to Judea.
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Again the disciples react with understandable alarm.
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In Judea, those opposing Jesus will no doubt attempt, as they have
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before, to kill him, to kill them all.
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Aware of their trepidation, Jesus attempts to assure them it is no
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time for stumbling.
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It is instead time for the work of Jesus to be done.
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And so he declares, Lazarus sleeps, but I go to awaken him.
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But, as before, they fail once more to comprehend him.
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So Jesus makes plain his meaning, saying Lazarus has died.
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And despite their misgivings, he says once more, let us go.
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Days later, Martha, the oldest of the two sisters, hears that Jesus
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has finally arrived.
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But their brother is now long since dead.
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His corpse has already been in the grave for a long time.
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Four days.
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Martha goes out to greet Jesus, but Mary remains in the house.
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If only Jesus had come sooner, their brother could have been saved.
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But this many days later, the time for the hope of such things is from
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the perspective of Martha anyway, now long since past, it is too late
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for her brother.
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At least as regards the now.
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But what of the not yet?
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What of the resurrection that is to come?
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The experience of their brother's death has shaken his sisters.
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Yet Martha wavers not in her understanding of the late incoming Jesus.
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Instead, rather remarkably actually, she poignantly persists in her
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confident belief that Jesus is who they have taken him to be.
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That he has come too late for her brother changes nothing.
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What ultimately matters is not the present for Martha, but the future.
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Not what is, but what will be.
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Therefore, Martha resolutely declares, even now, I know that whatever
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you ask from God, God will give you. Extraordinarily
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she continues to believe that Jesus is what they have taken him to be.
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Through Jesus, the glorious future that Israel awaits will most
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certainly come.
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And when it does, her brother will rise.
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When it comes, all the dead will rise.
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Your brother will rise, declares Jesus.
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He is thinking of the now and the not yet.
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But Martha thinks that Jesus is speaking only of the day when all the
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dead will rise.
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So Martha replies, saying, yes, Lord, I know that he will rise in the
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resurrection on the last day.
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She has heard Jesus previously say that an hour is coming and is now
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here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those
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who hear will live.
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Therefore, Martha expresses her tremendous and abiding hope that her
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brother will rise when the rest of the dead rise.
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But what she does not yet know, and so does not now expect, is that
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her brother will rise sooner than she thinks.
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I am the resurrection and the life, declares Jesus.
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He means to be this for her brother not later, but now.
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Do you believe this?
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Asks Jesus.
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Martha's response is both marvelously
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witting and unwitting. As much as she is thus far able
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she takes the word of the word made flesh to heart and believes it.
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And she speaks a truth that is profoundly greater than she can
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possibly know when she says, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the
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Christ, the Son of God, the one who is to come.
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Then Martha goes to her sister, and Martha tells Mary that the Teacher
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is calling for her.
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When Mary hears this, she goes quickly to Jesus, and Mary repeats what
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Martha has already said.
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She says the same thing.
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Lord, says Mary, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
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In other words, she shows that her understanding of the moment is the
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same as that of her sister.
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Their brother is dead and gone.
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His body awaits the resurrection, as do they.
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Her grief, her sense of loss is too much for her to bear.
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A better day seems far, far away.
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So she and others with her weep and wail.
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When Jesus sees these things, both what they see and know and what
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they don't see and don't know, he is deeply aggravated in his spirit
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and greatly troubled.
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And he says, Where have you laid him?
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They respond to him, saying, Lord, come and see.
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But the moment is no time for him to come and see.
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The moment is a time for them to come and see.
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Neither is it a time for weeping in the company of the one who is the
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resurrection and the life.
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And yet, at this moment, Jesus also weeps.
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But he does so not out of sympathy for them.
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He knows what he is there to do.
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Rather, he weeps on account of their deeply distressing inability even
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now to see who He is and what it is that He has come to be and to do.
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It breaks His heart, their dim wittedness.
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And only He sees.
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Only He knows what
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soon must be.
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When the time comes for Jesus to go to the cross, only He will know
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why He must go.
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Only He will go utterly alone, utterly unrecognized, utterly forsaken
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will He be.
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And and so Jesus weeps.
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Some of them say was this one who opened the eyes of the blind, unable
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to act so that this other one would not have died?
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This just aggravates Him all the more. Aggravated all the more
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by their incomprehension, Jesus instructs them to remove the stone
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from the mouth of the tomb.
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As before, Martha unwittingly, responds, saying lord, by now the body
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reeks, reeks with the stench of death, where again the body has
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already been in the grave for four days.
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But Jesus responds, saying did I not tell you that if you believe,
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then you will see?
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Then will they see what they have been failing to see.
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At His word
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they take away the stone that is covering the mouth of the tomb.
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And in their hearing, Jesus prays to his Father.
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He does so
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so they would hear now, and then later see what they have been failing
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to see.
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With a loud voice He cries out, saying, Lazarus, come out.
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He calls him by name.
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And what follows is, of course, extraordinary.
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The dead man has ears that hear as almost do
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the dead man heeds the voice of the good shepherd, who calls him by
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name.
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He heeds the Word of the Word made flesh and is freed from the
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bandages of death.
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I am the resurrection and the life, declares Jesus.
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Declares He who is the way, the Truth and the life.
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Friends, do you too, even now believe this?
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Do you take His word to heart and believe it? The Word of the Word made
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flesh.
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Do you take Him at his word.
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Or does the experience of this life give you pause, leave you at times
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uncertain?
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Does
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a better day even now
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seem far, far away.
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If only Jesus would come, and soon, and act before it's too late, at
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least as regards the now.
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So we find ourselves perhaps often thinking the experience of this
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life, the seemingly late incoming Jesus, can shake a person really
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shake a person, can it not?
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Beloved siblings of our Lord Jesus Christ, waver not in your
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understanding.
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Instead, doggedly persist in your confident belief that Jesus is who
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you have taken Him to be.
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That He seems late in coming changes nothing.
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What ultimately matters is not the present, but the future.
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Not what is, but what will be.
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Therefore, be resolute knowing that whatever Jesus asks of God, God
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will indeed give it, and He asks for you. Through Jesus
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the glorious future that the Israel of God awaits will most certainly
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come.
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And when it comes, all the dead will rise.
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For who Jesus is, is what Jesus does.
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And what Jesus does is who Jesus is.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.