"the ones who you love ..."

This past weekend was our fall conference for collegiate ministries.  It's called Confluence.  I'll be honest.  It doesn't always impress me.  It was always hard for us to get UGA students to go because: a. it was often on a home ballgame weekend and b. the worship we had locally was just as good if not better, so there was very little draw to drive, pay money, and miss a ballgame for something we have at home.

This year, I was pleasantly surprised.  Maybe it was that I only had one student to worry about.  Maybe it was where I am spiritually this year.  Maybe it was that I actually made it to all of the sessions (you know CMs are good skippers!) ... but I was challenged, encouraged, and refreshed by the worship of Downhere and by the messages Michael Kelly brought!

Saturday night was especially poignant for me.  Considering our theme of: Reconciled: Where being human meets being Christian, Michael took us to the account of Lazarus's death where we had to consider the very human realities or death, disease and hurt.  And in the midst of those realities figure out how to live out a very real faith.

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.”  (John 11:1-3)

We live in a hurting world.  Just today I prayed for a friend's mom waiting to see if her retina surgery has restored her sight, for another friend's mom who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer.  I grieved for the friend of a friend whose 14 month old was tragically killed in an accident this weekend.  I grieved for my grandfather whose 90th birthday would have been Sunday.  I prayed for a friend whose brother is far from Christ and making unwise choices while I talked with a student whose life has been rocked by her parents' divorce.  We, not unlike the sisters send word to Jesus on a daily basis, "Lord, the one(s) you love are ... sick, dying, hurting, in danger, afraid ...  and we expect that He will answer.

Except ... when He waits.  When his friends were in their greatest need, Jesus didn't rush over to hold their hand or bring a casserole, He waited.  He waited until THEY thought it was too late.  He was not unaware.  He was not unaffected.  He probably wanted to run right over there.  But He waited.

Michael Kelly made the point that there is something that trumps God's concern for us.  Now, wait a minute.  I mean, we are the apple of his eye, engraved on the palm of his hands ... and there is something greater than His love for us???  Enter v. 4

When he heard this, Jesus 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.”

It's for God's glory ... If His love for us trumps His glory then we become idols.  It can't happen!

But still ... wait.  I can understand that God's glory wins.  But we are still hurting people whom God loves crying out for Him to step in and save us.  And at the end of the day, we can't help but ask, our hearts wrenching from our chest, "but what about my brother?"  "What about my mother?"  "what about my heart, my relationship, my finances, my house, my baby?"

And like Mary, we crumble at his feet with the hurt of that question.  And we wonder, could it not have been some other way??

This is the part that has parked in my life since Saturday.  Jesus' response ....

moving on to verse 33: "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled."

I have always assumed that to mean Jesus was sad, He was grieving ... I mean the infamous, "Jesus wept" quickly follows that, but Michael pointed out that that's not quite the connotation here.  It is actual the emotion of anger.  I was so surprised that I even looked it up and indeed, the Greek word used there is embrimaomai and it means "to snort with anger" ... kind of like an angry horse pawing the ground and it's only used 5 times in the whole New Testament.  So, Jesus was moved with emotion ... but not just sadness, anger.

Was he mad an Mary for coming after him and accusing him of letting her brother die?  Was He angry that they didn't trust Him to take care of it?  Seems unlikely answers here, not really his character for people who are hurting.  Michael Kelly proposed another answer ... could it be that Jesus is angry that sometimes the most effective way for the message of the gospel to go out is through the suffering of His children?  That what hurts us most, kills Him?  That He wanted to shield us from all of this in the first place ... but that He's unwilling to lose the opportunity to extend His glory to save us from hurt and disappointment and hard times??

I grieved with a sweet friend as she learned of her husband's affair.  I would have wished that she had never walked that path.  But I rejoice now with her in the marriage God has rebuilt for them and the GLORY He receives in the restoration ... and cannot imagine that He would have missed that opportunity to show out!



Jesus, the ones who you love are tired, hurting, afraid, sick ... we are asking you to make BIG your name ... but to also come alongside us and weep as we grieve.