JESUS ATTENDED A FUNERAL

Let me tell you about the time that Jesus attended a funeral.  It is recorded for us in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John.

Distressing word was sent to Jesus by Mary and Martha that their brother, Lazarus, was very sick. However, Jesus was busy attending to  the needs of others so was unable to go to them right then. In fact, it was a couple of days before Jesus was ready to go to this family in Bethany.  Before Jesus was ready to go, the news came to him that Lazarus died.  Jesus told the disciples that Lazarus was sleeping and He was going to wake him up.  The disciples did not understand because if Lazarus was only sleeping, then he would wake up in due time.  Jesus to make it clear said, Lazarus was dead. Jesus uses man’s terminology, dead, so man would understand.  So, Jesus went to the cemetery where the funeral was being conducted.  Jesus was late as they had already buried the body of Lazarus.  Martha saw Jesus coming and she ran to meet Him.  Martha expresses disappointment by saying to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”  Jesus told Martha that her brother would rise again.  She knew of a general resurrection in the future which she acknowledges.  But, this is not what Jesus is talking about.  He said to her, “No Martha I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me stays alive even if he dies, every living person who believes in Me shall never  die.  DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?”

Now Mary comes and she expresses the same disappointment with Jesus being too late to save her brother.  Jesus sees all the sadness of Mary and Martha and the people grieving. What anguish and grief they are experiencing over the death of Lazarus.  All of this troubled Him.  Also, He must have been moved by the lack of faith in Him.  Here was the resurrection and life before their eyes and they did not see it.  The people were so earthbound, blinded by their grief.  It was too much for Jesus and He began to cry.   Jesus told them to remove the stone from the mouth of the tomb but Martha resisted.  She told Jesus that her brother had been dead for four days and by this time the decomposed flesh would stink.  Finally, the tomb was opened. Jesus called with a loud voice, “Lazarus come forth” and the dead man came forth alive.

Jesus promises LIFE INSTEAD OF DEATH.    Eternal life is the continuation of a lasting fellowship with God which began when a person made the commitment of love to Jesus Christ. This commitment to Jesus begins a relationship that cannot be broken by physical death.  Eternity has begun and the issue is: where will you spend the rest of it, with God or without God?
The real question is not, “shall we rise from the dead?”  Rather it is, “have we risen from the dead.” Here and now, have we been obedient to the teaching of Christ in His word so that we have the promise of the forgiveness of our sins?

Christians can declare  with the Apostle Paul,  “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”

Don’t Rob Yourself of Struggle

Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar.  He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother.  He asked his mother if he could keep it.  She said that he could if he would take good care of it.  The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat and a stick to climb on in the jar.  Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat. One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely.  The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon.  The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.

The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through.  He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small  hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.  At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned.  The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out.  It looked like it couldn’t break free.  It looked desperate.  It looked like it was making no progress.

The boy was so concerned he decided to help.  He ran to get scissors, and then walked back because he had learned not to run with scissors,  He nipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged.  As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.  He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment,  the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body.  But it did not happen.   The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

As the boy tried to figure out what had gone wrong, his mother took him to talk to a scientist from a local college.  He learned that the butterfly was SUPPOSE TO STRUGGLE.   In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings.  Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly.  The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly.

DON’T ROB YOURSELF OF STRUGGLE.  Keep on keeping on being faithful to Jesus.

 

LIFE INSTEAD OF DEATH

Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me stays alive even if he dies, every living person who believes in me shall never die, Do you believe this?”  John 11: 25-26

The Bible does not teach, life after death, rather it teaches LIFE INSTEAD OF DEATH.
We live in a culture that tries to cover up the idea of death and ignore it, as if it would go away.  We are obsessed with staying young. This is  death denying age.  We have a common denominator that draws us together.  That which is common to us all is death.  We are born to die.  I read this, “I have a friend who has cancer. He is in remission.  A nurse unaware of his condition was asking a question for his medical record.  “Are you presently ill?”   “Well yes, I have cancer,” he said.  She looked at him and asked, “Are you terminal?”  He responded: “Yes, aren’t we all?”

Behind the prayers, the tears, and the grief lurks the shadow of an unanswered question, which is, “What is next?”  What happens when a person dies?  All of us in our more serious moments want to know the answer.
In a book called, “Children’s letters to God” a little boy named Mike wrote: “Dear God what happens when you die?  Nobody will talk to me about it.  I don’t want to do it.  I just want to know.”

Physical death is difficult for us to understand, we are such earthlings.  The early followers of Jesus  didn’t understand about Jesus’ death and they questioned Him about it.  To their troubled hearts and to ours, Jesus said, as recorded in Gospel of John chapter 14, the first three verses:
“Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in Me for in My Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you shall be also.”

That is what we need, LIFE now and forever more.  I know that in the face of death, the heart cries out for answers.  It ceaselessly asks, “Why.”   We wonder why such tragedy, sorrow comes upon us. But, I do not think that God intended for man to be able to grasp the mystery of life.  God asks us to LIVE BY FAITH NOT BY SIGHT.

Draw nearer to Jesus for only He can mend the broken threads of our lives. Jesus can turn darkness into light, sorrow into joy and most of all, Jesus can turn death into life.

SHE HEARD ME PLAY

This is as true story told by Mildred Honor, a music teacher from Des Moines, Iowa.

She accepted Robby, a 11 year old, as a new student.  Robby said that it had always been his mother’s dream to hear him play the piano.  At the end of each weekly lesson, he would say, “My mom is going to hear me play some day.” But to the teacher, it seemed hopeless, Robby had no inborn ability.  Mrs. Honor only knew Robby’s mother from a distance as she dropped him off or waited in her aged car to pick him up. She always waved and smiled but never dropped in.

Then one day, Robby stopped coming for his lessons. Mrs. Honor assumed it was because of his lack of ability.
Several weeks later the music teacher sent out a flyer telling of a recital to be conducted.  It surprised Mrs. Honor when Robby showed up asking to be in the recital.  He was told that since he had dropped out of practice, that he wasn’t qualified.

But, Robby insisted, saying that his mother had been sick and unable to take him to his piano lesson, but that he had been practicing.  His insistence caused Mrs. Honor to allow him to play in the recital.
The night of the recital came and the high school gymnasium was packed with parents, relatives and friends. Robby was placed last on the program,  just in case he was not very good, it would not spoil the whole evening.
Well, the recital went off without a hitch, everyone did well.  Then Robby came to the stage. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair looked as though he had run an egg beater through it.  Why wasn’t he dressed up like the other students?  Why didn’t his mother see to it that he looked more presentable on this special night?

Robby pulled out the piano bench and announced to the teacher’s surprise that he had chosen to play Mozart’s Concerto no. 21 in C Major.  His fingers were light on the keys, they even danced nimbly on the ivories.  He went from Pianissimo to Fortissimo, rom Allegro to Virtuoso; his suspended cords that Mozart demands were magnificent. Never had a child his age played any better. After six and a half minutes, he ended in a grand crescendo, and everyone was on their feet in wild applause.   Overcome with tears, the teacher, Mrs. Honor, ran up on the stage and put her arms around Robby in joy.

She said, “I have never heard you play like that Robby, how did you do it?   Through the microphone Robby explained:  “Well, Miss Honor, remember I told you that my mom was sick?  Well, she actually had Cancer and died this morning. And well, she was born deaf, so tonight was the first time she had ever heard me play and I wanted to make it special.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house that evening.  Robby was killed years later in the senseless bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April, 1995.

This story touched me and I hope it moved you too.  In Christ, we are made whole.  The old is done away with and the new will be the order of the day.  Thank God.