"Jesus vs. Everything Sad" (John 11: 17-44)

Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This year, we're examining the Gospel of John to learn about the words and work of Jesus. What kind of story are we living in? It is a tragedy or a comedy? The difference between tragedy and comedy is not the presence of death. It’s the placement of death.  A tragedy (like Romeo + Juliet or Hamlet) ends with everyone dying. A comedy contains death but ends with rejoicing.  In this climactic sign that closes first half of John’s gospel, Jesus tells us what kind of story his people are living in. Though our stories contain death, death does not get the final word.  John 11 shows us that true hope comes, not by avoiding suffering but by passing through suffering. And the only way we can endure suffering with hope, courage, and even peace– is by placing our story of suffering inside of Jesus’ gospel story.   “When you know how the story ends, you can face the most difficult part of your story, the hard and sad parts in the middle with hope and courage and peace …. specifically, my friends, when we know that death will not be the end of our stories, we can face the worst things that life in this world slings at us with hope and courage and peace”— Nancy Guthrie “All ancient myths and legends that deal with death depict it as an intrusion, an aberration, and a monstrosity. It always appears because something has gone wrong You will not find the accumulated wisdom of the ages insisting that death is perfectly natural. Death is not the way it is supposed to be … To insist that death is nothing to be frightened of is simply another illusion muffling the obscenity of death. We live in denial of it, but like all repressed facts, it keeps disturbing us, haunting us, and quietly (or not so quietly) draining our hope.” - Tim Keller  “After each of Jesus' great "I Am's" I can hear him turning to someone nearby in his entourage and asking, with genuine hope, "Do you believe this, friend?" This question is Jesus' unspoken appeal at the end of his every remark. I find Jesus' question of Martha, therefore, a poignant sentence. Martha doesn't say she believes "this" (which was Jesus' question), but she does say, more honestly, she believes him: "Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One Who Is Coming into the World." Who can believe something they can barely understand (like Jesus' just pronounced "I Am" with its mysteriously doubled promise…)? Believing Jesus, on the other hand, is something else - and is enough. Martha can do that.”— F. Dale Bruner “A God who never wept could never wipe away my tears”. – C.H. Spurgeon