Good morning. Well, if you weren’t with us last week we began a new series called Healing Your Hurts. Lat week we started by looking at the question that Jesus asked a man that was hurting in John 5:6, “Do you want to get well?” In order to begin the journey of healing your hurts, you have to admit that you are hurting, and you have to choose healing over hurt.
This week we move our attention to another story of hurting people from the Bible, and Jesus teaches us the next thing we need to know when it comes to healing our hurts.
Today’s story comes to us from John 11:1-45. Now, because of fear of loosing you if I tried to read 45 verses to you, I will give you a shorter version of the story.
It had happened suddenly. Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Mary and Martha and friend of Jesus, fell sick. His strength faded as his fever went up. He took to his bed,
and Martha prepared and brought his meals while Mary sat at his bedside, wiping his brow and whispering loving words to him.
Soon his condition grew worse, and the sisters agreed to send for Jesus. They sent out a friend of the family to find Jesus and deliver a message, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” Then the sisters waited, and continued to worry about their brother Lazarus.
Within a few days, their brother died. Almost immediately the sisters began the mourning process. Friends and neighbors surrounded them day and night, sitting with them, eating with them, sometimes speaking, but usually silent. Within hours after his death, Mary and Martha’s women friends helped them prepare their brother for burial, hair and nails were trimmed, and his body was washed, anointed, and wrapped in the most expensive linens the 2 sisters could find.
And then began their time of mourning and lamenting prior to the funeral. The sisters sat on the floor in a room with their brother’s body. Martha ate sparingly, shunning meat and wine; when she did eat, it was always in another room. Mary refused all food. When the funeral began, Lazarus was carried toward his tomb by a group of neighbors.
A group of professional mourners, flute-players and sobbing women, followed the body, pausing frequently on the path to the grave to moan and to wail for the departed loved one.
Behind the mourners, Mary and Martha were supported by a large crowd of relatives,
friends, and neighbors from their own village as well as from Jerusalem, 2 miles up the road. After the funeral, the crowds all went home, while a handful of relatives and friends remained.
And then the news came, “The Teacher is coming,” someone told Martha breathlessly, pointing up the road.
Martha hurriedly wiped her hands, dashed from the house, and met Jesus just outside the village. “Lord,” she said, practically falling into His arms, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Then, realizing her words might have sounded reproachful, she added. “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus gently gripped Martha’s shoulders in His large hands. “Your brother will rise again,” He said. “I know,” Martha answered. “He will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
“I am the resurrection,” Jesus said, still gripping her shoulders in His hands, “and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she answered. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Then Jesus lifted His gaze and looked beyond Martha, toward her house. “Where is your sister?” He asked. Martha’s eyes widened. Without another word, she turned and ran away. She went back and whispered to Mary, “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.”
Mary jumped up and left the room so quickly, that the others who had been with Mary in the house followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there, as she had done several times in the past few days.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus waited for her, she threw herself at His feet. “Lord,” she said through her tears, unknowingly echoing her sister’s words, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus looked from Mary’s weeping face to the others who had come along with her, who were also weeping. His own eyes began to tear up. “Where have you laid him?” He asked. The mourners offered to show Him the tomb, while Mary stood, clinging tearfully to His side. Jesus and Mary looked at each other. His own tears mirrored hers, trailing down His cheek, as He let her see Him hurting too for the pain she had been feeling.
Then, after a long moment of sharing in her sorrow, He nodded to Mary’s friends to lead the way to the tomb. “See how he loved him!” whispered one of the mourners to another as they walked. But another shook her head. “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Moments later, when they arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone laid across the entrance, Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” “But, Lord,” Martha protested, “what about the odor? He has been in the tomb for four days.”
“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Jesus answered. Then, as the men in the group rolled the stone away from the mouth of the cave, Jesus lifted His eyes toward the sky.
“Father,” He said, “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.”
Then He lowered His gaze and, in a loud voice, cried, “Lazarus, come out!” After a few moments, Lazarus appeared in the entrance of the tomb, still bound in the burial clothes. Then Jesus, in a calm voice, instructed the onlookers, who still stared at the strange sight, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Now, before we go any further, let’s have a word of prayer. Let’s Pray!
Well, that story, from the 11 chapter of John’s Gospel records one of the many miracles that Jesus performed while He was here on earth. And I believe as we look at that story that we have much to learn from those verses.
Whether your hurt is the result of ridicule or rejection, or abuse, a dysfunctional family, a toxic church, a romance that went sour, or the betrayal of a friend. Whether it’s recent or ancient, clear-cut or confusing. Whether it is temporary or permanent, I think we can all learn something from that story.
If you have your Bibles with you, go ahead and turn with me to John chapter 11. I want to point you to John, chapter 11, because I want you to notice something.
I want you to notice that before Jesus raised Lazarus, before He prayed aloud in front of the crowd, before He told the men in the group to roll away the stone, He did something else. Kids always choose this verse as the verse that they memorize first on a list. We all probably know it as the shortest verse in the Bible. In John 11:35 it says, “Jesus wept.”
Now, I want you to take a minute to consider with me this question. Why did Jesus weep? What was it that prompted His tears?
After all, He knew what He was about to do, right? He knew that He had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that He would soon correct the cause of Mary and Martha’s grief. He knew, as He told Martha, that Lazarus would rise again. He knew that He would soon turn their mourning into dancing. He knew the story would have a happy ending.
So, why then did He cry?
The answer, often overlooked, is found in John’s Gospel account. Look at verse 33, “When Jesus saw her,” talking about Mary, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”
You see, it was Mary’s tears, and the tears of her friends and relatives that prompted Jesus to cry.
He knew what He was about to do, but He cried anyway, because when He saw Mary hurting, He hurt too. When He saw her grieving, He grieved too. And when Jesus saw her crying, He cried too.
And I want to suggest to you today, that if you’re hurting this morning, for any reason, a crucial step to healing will be for you to experience what Mary experienced that day outside her brother’s tomb, and that is to…
Number One, Let God Comfort You
John 11:35 may be just 2 words long, but I believe it’s one of the biggest verses in the Bible. Why? Because it shows a God who cries. It shows a God who cares. And not only that, it reveals that your tears bring tears to God’s eyes. When we hurt, He hurts, when we cry, He cries.
Whatever hurts you’re struggling with right now, your loving God is hurting right along with you. Just as He was by the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus is “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” by your pains and by your sorrows and by your hurts.
Just as He cried over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37, He is even now gazing into your heart and crying over your hurts, over your burdens, and over your sorrows.
Can you understand that? Can you believe in a God who cares? Can you believe that the things that are hurting you at this very moment, bring tears to His eyes as well?
Don’t just nod your head. Take a minute to let yourself grasp that truth. Let God use it to touch your heart with His care today. Let me ask you those questions again. Can you understand that? Can you believe in a God who cares? Can you believe that the things that are hurting you at this very moment, bring tears to His eyes as well?
Whether your pain is the result, like that of Mary at the tomb of Lazarus, of life’s unexplainable losses and disappointments, or whether you are hurting, as Jesus himself did, as the result of someone else’s sin. Even if, like the people of Jerusalem, you are suffering because of your own sin, the same Jesus who cried for Mary, who mourned over Jerusalem, hurts for you right now as well.
John’s Gospel reveals to us that our God is a God who cries, and He is crying for you, for the pain you feel, for the trouble you are going through.
So please, if you’re hurting this morning, if you have any wounds that haven’t healed, any lingering hurts in your heart, God is with you right now, sharing your hurt, bearing your sorrow right along with you.
If you can let yourself feel that, if you can begin to realize it, if you can begin to thank Him for it, then you have started to experience the healing power of God’s comfort.
But wait, there’s more. God, through His Holy Spirit working in your body, has the power to heal the hurts that you have, but God has another step in the process, and that is to…
Number Two, Allow Others To Comfort You
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me to II Corinthians 1:3-5. In that verse we learn about letting others comfort us in times of need as well. Listen to this passage with me, II Corinthians 1:3-5 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”
You see, if we truly want to experience healing, we need to let others extend true comfort to us. But you see, most of us don’t really know what comfort is. But once again, we can learn from Jesus’ example.
Keep in mind the things Jesus did NOT do at the tomb of Lazarus.
• He didn’t dismiss Mary’s pain and tell her that she shouldn’t feel so bad.
• He didn’t offer advice.
• He didn’t try to cheer her up.
• He didn’t even spiritualize the situation and quote Scripture to her or ask her if she had prayed enough.
No, He simply shared in her pain. He hurt with her, and He cried with her. You see, that is what real comfort looks like and feels like.
And that’s what we need when we’re hurting. We don’t need to hear, “I know exactly how you feel.” We don’t need to hear, “You think you’ve got problems? Let me tell you what happened to me.” We don’t need to hear, “You know what you need? A double fudge brownie sundae.” Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, but we don’t need advice, we don’t need guilt, and we don’t need someone to cheer us up.
We need comfort, we need real comfort. Real comfort says, “I’m so sorry you’re in such pain.” Real comfort says, “It hurts me to see you hurt.” Real comfort communicates, in word and in deed. “I’m sad because you’re sad,” and “It makes me cry to see you cry,” and “I’m willing to share your hurt, right here, right now.”
That’s what was happening when in John 11:35 when, “Jesus wept.” And believe it or not, that kind of comfort has a remarkable healing power that comes from God through another person to your hurting heart.
In fact, I will go so far as to say that if you haven’t let God and others extend comfort to you by crying with you and hurting with you, then you can do a lot of things with your hurt.
You can swallow it, you can stuff it down, you can ignore it, you can try to forget about it, you can get revenge, you can maybe even get some relief from time to time. But you will never be healed f it.
But if you let God comfort you and cry with you, and also let others around you comfort you, you’ll not only feel the healing power of God working in your heart, but you’ll find, just like the Bible says, that comfort will overflow, and as you experience more and more healing and freedom from the pain that plagues you, you’ll be able to comfort those around you in the same way that God and others have comforted you.
I invite you to do that this morning. I invite you to call out to God in prayer and let your heart receive His comfort. I invite you to reach out to someone close to you, a friend or a family member, and pour out your heart, and your hurt, to that person, and let him or her hurt with you, cry with you, comfort you.
I invite you, during our invitation time, or even after the service, to come and meet with me or one of our leaders, and let one of us pray with you, and hurt with you, and cry with you, and as II Corinthians 1:5 says “comfort you in your trouble with the comfort we have received from God.”
The first step to healing your hurt is to admit that you are hurting and to choose healing over hurt. Then, just as important, is to receive comfort from God, and comfort from those around you. Let’s Pray!
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