Not What We Expected Why Did 2020 Have to Happen?

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Not What We Expected Why Did 2020 Have to Happen? John 11:1-6 December 27, 2020 Rev. Larry Hackman Who has had a weird Christmas? This year certainly makes me think about the traditions we’re used to. I didn’t realize until I married Megan that my family didn’t really have many traditions. It was really mostly about the presents. We’d wake up in the morning, go downstairs and have at it. I don’t know if there was even any order we would go in. The only thing I remember as a tradition of any sort was that every year we would get peanuts from my Uncle Ricky. Seriously, peanuts. A huge jar of them. Every single year. For some reason my dad would get two jars of peanuts. Then, I think I kind of rolled my eyes at my uncle for doing that. Don’t get me wrong, they were good peanuts, but I think I would kind of wish I got a toy, or maybe even just some cash, instead of a giant jar of peanuts. Now, it’s a different story. Now I’m grateful I can look back and point to that gift as a reliable part of Christmas. There was nothing reliable about Christmas this year. I’m guessing everybody can point to something that was different about Christmas for them this year. Maybe loved ones weren’t able to join you, even if only because of safety precautions. Maybe you weren’t able to go all out on Christmas presents like you’d been able to years past. Maybe it’s even just the shroud of this past year over the holiday, like a wet blanket. For us, this is the first time we’ve celebrated Christmas with just the three of us in our entire married lives. Every other Christmas we’ve celebrated with extended family. Brothers, sisters, parents. This year, it was us. There’s bittersweet parts about that, of course. But it’s just a reminder that this year has been a hard year. What do we do with that? As the year ends, how do we process this last year? As we look back on murder hornets, Kobe Bryant dying, racial discord, an incredibly divisive election season, and a global pandemic, I know a lot of us

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are asking, why? Why did 2020 have to happen? And were was God in all of that? One caveat before we begin. I want to acknowledge that the question “Why did 2020 have to happen?” really comes from the assumption that there’s a reason behind things. It’s coming from people who already may believe in God or some higher power. So really what I’m going to be talking about this morning is understanding God. I’m not trying to answer the big doubts that an atheist may have, I’m not going to try to be an apologist, and there is a place for that. But right now, I’m just a preacher who’s going to talk about Jesus. And I want to talk specifically about Jesus because what we believe is that when we see Jesus we see God. That’s really the Christmas miracle, that the God who appeared in the thunder and lightning on top of Mt. Sinai, the God who parted the Red Sea, that God became a man. In the Gospels we get to see how God would live and talk and think like if he were one of us. So I thought it would be instructive to take a look at a story of Jesus where he deals with the tragedy of a close friend dying because I think it helps us see how God deals with OUR tragedy. Turn with me to John 11. vs. 1-6 “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” This is the word of the Lord… Now weren’t those last two verses confusing? It says Jesus loved his friends. So… when he heard Lazarus was ill… he didn’t rush to comfort and heal him? Isn’t that what you or I would do if we heard someone we loved were ill? What gives? Is Jesus a sociopath? A sadist? What kind of love is that?

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I want to pause here for a moment and let those questions ring in the air. Doesn’t this situation sound remarkably similar to our own dilemma? Remember the central question we began with, Why did 2020 have to happen? We could say more specifically, if God loves us, why did 2020 have to happen? This is the big why question, right? It’s really about questioning God’s love. What I find so fascinating about this passage is that it seems that the author John is deliberately forcing the question, because he very intentionally puts these two things that seem to be in juxtaposition right next to each other. Jesus loves Lazarus, but he does not immediately rush to heal him. We have our own Lazarus dilemmas of course. We could very well say, if God loves me why did I have to lose my job? If God loves me why did I get sick? Why did my loved one die? Why does life seem so tense right now? Why are things the way they are? These may seem like scary questions to ask, because they sound doubtful, but the truth is that they are questions of faith. We are presuming on God’s love, that he is loving, and that God heals and restores and does justice. If we didn’t believe in God, if we didn’t believe he was good, we wouldn’t ask the question in the first place. We see this later on in the passage. Jesus, of course, does end up going to Lazarus eventually, but too late it would seem. At different points, both of Lazarus’ sisters come to see Jesus and they both say the same thing: Jesus if you had been here Lazarus wouldn’t have died. It’s both a statement of faith and an accusation. Jesus, you are powerful, you can heal… but you didn’t. This seems bold, to challenge God to his face, but it’s actually all over the Bible. Especially in the Psalms, the why question is everywhere. Psalm 10: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Psalm 13: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” And Psalm 22, the words Jesus quoted from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If you’re asking the big why question right now, and you’re crying out to God, know that you’re joining a chorus of Scripture. By crying out, you’re expressing faith and an expectation that God is good, and that he does heal, he does make things right, he does restore. Don’t be afraid to do that, to join Martha and Mary, and the Psalmists, to expect things from God. When we stop

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challenging God, when no lament comes to our lips, then our faith has grown cold. Let’s return to the story and see how Jesus interacts with the first of Lazarus’ sisters to meet him, Martha. Lazarus has been dead four days. A bunch of people from the surrounding community had come to mourn with Mary and Martha, so word comes to Martha and Mary that Jesus is coming. Mary stays put in her house, but Martha comes out to Jesus on his way. Here’s their conversation v. 21-24 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” The thing I wonder about when I read this passage is how Martha is coping with this. When Jesus tells her that her brother will rise again, she deflects that with a theological platitude. Do you see that? Martha, your brother will rise again. Yes Jesus, I know, I read the book of Daniel where it talks about the saints rising from the dust to everlasting life. She gives the “right answer.” Let me explain what I mean. [Dad pic] When I was 11 my dad passed away from a massive heart attack while we were on vacation at a relative’s house. Obviously, an incredibly traumatic event, much of it indelibly etched into my memory. In particular I distinctly remember my family gathered together in the hospital after my dad had been declared dead. A well-meaning minister was in the waiting room with us. I know he had said a lot of things, but I only remember one thing he said that night because it made me angry. He said something like this, “It’s okay, your dad’s in heaven now.” When I read about Martha and Jesus’ conversation, I’m reminded of this minister, because he’s giving the “right answer.” Isn’t that the right answer? Isn’t that what’s supposed to make us feel better? To think that our loved one is in heaven, that we will see them again in the resurrection? Or… is it the thing you say to deflect the pain. Is it the thing you say because you know you’re supposed to say it.

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I have to wonder if that was what was going on with this minister. Because I wonder if that’s what’s going on with Martha here too. Is she coping by deflecting to theological platitudes and niceties? But Jesus will have none of that. Look at what he says v.25-27: Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” Jesus takes her theological platitude and refocuses it on him. He took something that was abstract, and made it personal. He made it about him. It’s not about the resurrection someday out there in the by and by, I am the resurrection. I am the life. Standing right in front of you. It really boils down to that question he asks Martha: do you believe this? Or more to the point, I would say, “Do you trust me?” In other words, it’s not about hoping and believing in the resurrection, or heaven, or whatever, it’s about hoping and trusting a person. When tragedy strikes, when everything goes sour, when Christmas isn’t what you’d hoped it would be, when 2020 just plain sucks… can you trust Jesus? Ultimately, the question of Why did 2020 have to happen? Is not abstract at all. It’s incredibly personal. And it’s a question of trust. Can you trust God, who says he’s loving, after all? Can you hope in him? In my case, what the minister had said wasn’t the right thing to say. You see, I’d grown up with hellfire and brimstone preachers on the radio, and my dad didn’t go to church. I had serious doubts he was in heaven. So when this poor, well-meaning minister, said his nice “right answer” to me, with all my anger and sadness welling up I replied “No he’s not, my dad’s in hell!” That wasn’t fair of me, I know. But it’s what I was afraid of. I wish that minister had taken a page out of Jesus’ book. I wish he had told us that we could trust in Jesus. I wish he had reminded us of Jesus’ love. Of his

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fairness in judgement. I didn’t need abstract assurances about heaven. What I needed was to know more about Jesus and his goodness. Isn’t that what we need now? I hope you do believe in the resurrection. But more importantly, do you believe Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Do you trust him? Could that be more important than figuring it all out, and having the “right answer?” But there’s still more to learn about Jesus, and we come here to what I think is the most remarkable part of the story. Continuing on. v. 28-36 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. Take a moment to grasp that. These two words are often joked about as the shortest verse in the Bible, but to me they are incredibly important, incredibly profound. Remember, this is God in the flesh. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Angel Armies, the God who carved the Ten Commandments out of stone with his finger, awesome and mighty, come in the flesh as a babe, grown into a man… weeping. Weeping with Mary. Even though he knows he can resurrect Lazarus, knows he will resurrect Lazarus, he still enters into the pain, the loss. Not just Mary’s pain and loss, our pain and loss. The Resurrection and the Life, weeps with us. The question of 2020, of why it all had to happen, can be really come down to this: does God care about me? About the crap we all went through in this last year? And when I see Jesus weeping with Mary, I know definitively, the answer is yes. Yes, he certainly does care about you and your pain. He cared about it

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enough to weep with Mary. Even when the resurrection of Lazarus was imminent, within minutes, he weeps. After that first night, I didn’t cry much about my dad dying. I was, right then, learning how to deal with the hard things in life: just stuff them down. The funeral came, family members arrived from out of town. Still, I was a rock. I remember standing in the funeral parlor, not feeling much at all. But then my Aunt Diana arrived. I saw her maybe once or twice a year. She walked up to me, knelt down, and gave me a hug. The tears just started flowing. Her embrace was what I needed. In her embrace, I felt the love of God. In her embrace, my questions melted away because in the end what I needed to know was that someone saw me, someone cared. If this has been a hard year for you, can I just say, Jesus weeps with you? Jesus cares. There’s a place for right theological answers, for wrestling with the logic of evil, but what I’ve sensed is that many of us just need to know that Jesus cares. We need to have permission to cry out, to challenge God in lament, to say Why have you forsaken me? How long? If you had only been here… I pray that in the cries, in the lament, you will find the embrace of Jesus and trust him. Can I challenge you in the next week, if God was speaking to you today, to pick up your Bible and read through John 11 for yourself? And put yourself in the story. Imagine as if you were there. Maybe you’re like Martha and you’re trying to rationalize things to feel better. Or you’re like Mary and it just hurts right now. Either way, we all have our own Lazarus, something or someone in our lives that it feels like Jesus wasn’t there for. That “if only…” moment. Allow yourself to be there with Jesus in the story as he enters into your pain, your lament. I pray you find that a rewarding exercise.

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