Beeson podcast, Episode 467
Dr. Frank Thielman
October 22, 2019

Announcer:          Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla.

Doug Sweeney:       Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I'm your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my cohost Kristen Padilla. Today we're concluding our mini series on grief and ministry in the midst of grief, not with an interview, but with a sermon, a very powerful sermon preached in our chapel by our colleague Dr. Frank Thielman, the Presbyterian chair of divinity here at Beeson who teaches New Testament.

Doug Sweeney:       Before we tell you more about what we're going to hear from Dr. Thielman, let me remind you that our Reformation Heritage Lectures take place next week, October 29 and 30, with Dr. Kelly Kapic of Covenant College. Dr. Kapic was a guest on the podcast on episode number 421, and I encourage you to go to our archives and listen to that podcast. I also hope you'll join us next week to hear Dr. Kapic lecture in person. His lectures are free. They are open to all of you. You can find more information on our website, beesondivinity.com/events.

Doug Sweeney:       Now, Kristen, would you please tell us a little bit more about today's podcast episode?

Kristen Padilla:    Thank you, Doug, and welcome everyone to today's podcast episode. If you are a regular listener, then you will know that we focused, as Doug has already said, our last two episodes on the theme of grief and ministry in the midst of grief. Every one of us will, at one time or another, experience a loss that will produce grief, but how does Jesus Christ help us in our grief? That is a question we have been exploring, so we want to end this series with a sermon preached by Beeson professor Dr. Frank Thielman in Hodges Chapel during community worship this past March as part of our chapel series called Jesus Christ Abundant Life. The text of his sermon was John 11, which tells a story about the death of Lazarus, the grief that followed, and Jesus raising him from the dead. We hope and pray that you will be strengthened and encouraged by the preaching of this text. Dr. Theilman has served as the Presbyterian Chair of Divinity since 1989, teaching in the areas of New Testament and Greek.

Doug Sweeney:       Thanks, Kristen. Of course, my wife Wilma and I were not yet here at Beeson when this sermon was first preached in our chapel. We did take the opportunity, though, to listen to it on the Beeson website, and both of us were so helped by the powerful testimony Dr. Thielman offers in this sermon about the reliability of our Lord Jesus in times of grief. Let's go now to Hodges Chapel and listen to Dr. Frank Thielman preach on John chapter 11: Do You Believe This?

Frank Thielman:     So good to be with you here this morning, and let's turn together in our Bibles to John chapter 11. If you don't have a Bible with you, there should be one in front of you there in the pew rack. And before we study this passage together, let's turn to the Lord in a word of prayer and ask his blessing on our time in his word.

Frank Thielman:     Gracious, heavenly father, we thank you so much for your word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts might be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Frank Thielman:     William Tyndale was the first person to translate the New Testament from the original Greek into English. He not only oversaw that translation, but he also oversaw the wide distribution of his translation throughout England in the early 16th century. He wanted every man, woman, and reading child in England to have access to the word of God and to the gospel so that they could understand it themselves in their own language. He wanted them to be able to have access to the New Testament. Although he was a godly, kind, and decent, good person about whom even his enemies spoke well, he certainly had enemies. Powerful figures in the church and government of England hated what he was doing. hated his efforts to put the word of God into the hands of every English speaker.

Frank Thielman:     In the spring of 1535, he was in the middle of mastering Hebrew and translating the Old Testament while he lived in Antwerp, Belgium. Antwerp was a center for their production of high quality books. There were good printers there, there were good bookbinders there, and there were lots of bookstores for these books to be sold in. There was also a large colony of English merchants who lived in Antwerp, many of them sympathetic with the Reformation. They loved Martin Luther. Some of them did, and they liked William Tyndale very much, so they gave Tyndale a home among them so that he could be protected as he studied Hebrew and worked hard on translating the Old Testament into English.

Frank Thielman:     Someone, however, back in England, nobody knows quite who, back in London, paid a desperate young man who needed money to find Tyndale in Antwerp and to betray him to the authorities there. This man came to the community of Englishmen where Tyndale was living and he knew that Tyndale was a kind and generous person, somewhat guileless, and so he got to know and befriended Tyndale, and told him he needed money, and that he would like to have dinner with Tyndale, but that he couldn't pay the bill for the dinner at the restaurant that he wanted to go to. And Tyndale very kindly went with him to this eating establishment, and after the bill was paid, this man led Tyndale out the back door, and there were two officers there of the Antwerp city government. They laid hands on Tyndale and arrested him.

Frank Thielman:     The last document that we have from Tyndale's pen is a letter from prison, in which he asked to be given a few pieces of his own confiscated clothing so that he might be warmer as the winter approaches, and a lamp so that he wouldn't have to sit in the dark in the evening. And then he says this. "Kindly permit me to have the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew dictionary, that I may pass the time in that study." He desperately wanted to be released from prison so that he could finish his translation of the Bible, and that all Englishmen could read the whole Bible from beginning to end in their native language. But this was not to be. He languished in prison for 16 months, and in the early days of October, 1536, he was publicly executed as a heretic.

Frank Thielman:     Why did God allow that to happen? We don't know. Have you ever questioned God's timing? Has something really bad ever happened to you that seemed totally out of your control and seemed to happen at the worst possible time? If you're a Christian, and you believe in the sovereignty of God and you've lived for more than a few years, you've probably asked God in prayer, "God, why now? Why am I sick now? Why did I lose my job now? Why did I have a car wreck today of all days? Why did I lose the person I loved so much now of all times, oh Lord?"

Frank Thielman:     John, in his gospel, is very interested in the timing of God. The word "hour" appears countless times in John's gospel. The first sign that Jesus works in John's gospel is that wonderful miracle of changing water to wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, but when Jesus' mother asks him to tend to this need, you remember his answer? It was, "Woman, my time has not yet come." 17 times after that story of the wedding in Cana, Jesus speaks of a particular hour that is coming or has already come, or that is both here now and will come. "My time has not yet come." He tells his unbelieving brothers in chapter seven, "But your time is always here." He tells his disciples, before healing the man born blind, "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming, when no one can work." Timing. God's timing is really important to Jesus.

Frank Thielman:     Well, in the account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, we see John describing for us the conflict that sometimes happens between Jesus' disciples and the timing of Jesus. At the end of chapter 10, some of the leadership in Judea were trying to arrest Jesus. He had been claiming to be equal with God, something they thought was blasphemy, so he deserved the death penalty. And because they were trying to arrest him, Jesus fled east a few miles across the Jordan River to Perea out of their jurisdiction and under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas where he and his disciples would be safer, and they were ministering there, and many people were coming to faith in Jesus, we read at the end of chapter 10.

Frank Thielman:     But while all that was going on, back across the river, a few miles to the west, a dear friend of Jesus became seriously sick. In verses one to three, John tells us that his name was Lazarus, and he tells us that Jesus loved Lazarus. Lazarus was a dear friend, we read in verse three. So Lazarus' two sisters, Martha and Mary, sent a message across the Jordan to Jesus to let him know that Lazarus was sick. They assumed that Jesus, who had healed many others, would immediately come back across the river and heal this, his beloved friend and the brother that they loved so much.

Frank Thielman:     Jesus replies. He apparently sends a messenger back. "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." That's in verse four. How do we know that that message got back to Martha and Mary? Well, look for a minute at verse 40. Jesus said to her, this is to Martha, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" The only place in the narrative where Jesus has said anything like that is here in verse four, when he says, "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God." Those are the only two places in the passage where the phrase "the glory of God" appears. So apparently Martha got the message, the message that Lazarus' illness would not lead to death, and that Lazarus' illness would bring glory both to God and to Jesus.

Frank Thielman:     So at this point, in verse four in the narrative, we naturally think when we hear Jesus say this that he's going to cross the Jordan river immediately, head straight to Bethany, and heal Lazarus. Or better yet, do what he did with the official's son in chapter four, just say the word, and that official's son got well, even though he was on the point of death. Maybe Lazarus has already been healed at this point in the narrative, through this preliminary word of Jesus.

Frank Thielman:     But what comes next is a real surprise in verses five and six. In verse five, John wants to emphasize Jesus's love for this little family. He's already emphasized in verse three Jesus's love for Lazarus. Now he wants to get across very clearly to us that Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. He loves them, all three. And then we read this in verse six. "So." That word "so" is very important. It is because he loves Lazarus, Martha and Mary that he stays two days longer in the place where he was, and only after two days, we read in verse seven, does he announce his plan to return to Judea.

Frank Thielman:     Verses eight to 16 make it really clear that the disciples didn't understand anything about Jesus's timing here. They just don't get the timing. They didn't see the need to go to Judea at all. If Lazarus was not going to die, I mean, Jesus had said, "This illness is not unto death," and Jesus and they had just fled across the Jordan river to escape arrest, then why go back to the very place where the authorities were trying to arrest them? Jesus' timing was just really bad.

Frank Thielman:     And then in verses nine to 10, Jesus tells them that his idea of correct timing doesn't match the way most people think of correct timing. Look at verse nine. Jesus answered, "Are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him." The 12 hours in the day correspond to God's timing. God's timing is filled with the light that only God can give to the course of our lives, and it's important to walk in the light that God has provided for us. Otherwise, Jesus says, we're going to be walking in the night with its lack of light, and we will inevitably stumble.

Frank Thielman:     Next, Jesus tells his disciples something that confuses them even more. He had said earlier that Lazarus' illness would not lead to death, but now they learn that Lazarus has actually died. Look at verses 11 to 15. There is now even less need than before to go back across the Jordan river to Bethany. What would the purpose be if Lazarus had already died? Was it really worth risking their own death to mourn with Lazarus's disappointed family over the death of their brother?

Frank Thielman:     I think that was behind Thomas's words in verse 16. So Thomas, called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go that we may die with him." One thing you can say for Thomas is that he was going to go. He didn't understand it. He did not get Jesus's timing. He was convinced he and the others were probably going to be arrested and die, but he was willing to go. Willing to go though he was, he did not understand. Jesus' timing.

Frank Thielman:     Have you ever wondered, like the disciples here, what the Lord was doing in the timing he has chosen for your own life, or the lives of those whom you love? Perhaps as with the disciples, it seems like God has been very inefficient with your life. Why would God bring you to divinity school only to make the courses too hard or the finances too much of a stretch, or a valued friendship end in such disappointment? Why, Lord? Why now? What's what's going on with the timing? What about the bigger issues? We can perhaps understand an illness that leads to some obvious good. Someone gets sick, but it leads them to understand the gospel better and they come to faith in Christ, or we might be able to understand a little bit better the death of an elderly person at the end of a life well lived, but what about serious illness that seems to have no clear purpose? What about the death of a much loved young person in the prime of life, in the prime perhaps of service to God and to others?

Frank Thielman:     My wife Abby and I have spent a lot of time this year on the pediatric oncology floor of the Colorado Hospital, where our seven month old grandson is receiving wonderful treatment by skilled and compassionate doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and social workers. Much that is good goes on in that place. There is much to give thanks to God for. Much love is shown there. But the question of timing remains. Lord, these children ought to be learning to walk. They should be riding their bikes. They ought to be snowboarding up in the Colorado mountains, doing their first chemistry experiment in ninth grade. They should be getting ready for prom, but instead they're in a battle for their lives with cancer.

Frank Thielman:     We could say the same, of course, of children in lots of other places. Children in Syrian refugee camps in Turkey, Christian children in small towns in rural Egypt who were persecuted by the dominant population, children in the persistently oppressed sections of Birmingham. "These are children," we want to say to the Lord. "They're not aid workers and soldiers and brave martyrs. The timing just seems so bad."

Frank Thielman:     This is exactly Martha's question to Jesus. Martha formulates her question not really as a question with a question mark at the end, but in the form of two statements. And Martha's question for Jesus is really burning. You can tell how much it burns for Martha, because in verse 20 she leaves her sister Mary behind, and before Jesus has even gotten to Bethany, she meets him on the road apparently outside the town. She couldn't wait to get to him, and her question really comes first of all in the form of a rebuke. "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. What bad timing, Lord."

Frank Thielman:     Imagine Martha's disappointment. Jesus had sent a message apparently to Martha promising that Lazarus's illness would not lead to death, but Lazarus had died anyway, the first part of Martha's statement then is really a rebuke to Jesus for his apparently bad sense of timing, but then Martha has a request. This is the second part of her question to Jesus. You see in verse 22 that little phrase, "even now"? "But even now," she says, "I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." Behind Martha's "even now" I think lies the implication that Jesus could make up for his bad timing by raising Lazarus from the dead. "Even now, Lord."

Frank Thielman:     Jesus's answer to Martha comes right in the middle of this narrative, and there's a reason it's sitting right there in the middle, I think. It's because it's the focal point. It's the point John wants us to get. If we don't get anything else about this story, he wants us to get this, this principle that Jesus articulated to Martha right here in the middle. Jesus says in verse 23, "Your brother will rise again." I think Martha takes this answer as a no to her request. She had asked Jesus even now to raise Lazarus from the dead, and I think she takes what Jesus has said as a big fat no. Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again on the final day, and that should be enough for her. And I think Martha was disappointed in that answer, so she repeats in verse 24 the orthodox belief that she does hold. "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. I didn't need you to tell me that, Jesus."

Frank Thielman:     I think behind her repetition of that Orthodox doctrine probably lies the plea, "Jesus, I want you to solve the massive pain of the loss of my brother in the present, and to solve the pain of knowing that you could have been here and prevented my brother's illness, but you didn't come. You didn't prevent it." It's tempting to say that Martha completely misunderstood Jesus' talk of Lazarus resurrection. Jesus, we might think, was actually informing her that he intended to do as she asked, he would raise Lazarus from the dead right now, in just a few minutes. He was going to do it here in the present, but I think it's a lot more likely that Jesus meant exactly what Martha took him to mean. Lazarus would rise again at the resurrection on the last day.

Frank Thielman:     Although Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, of course we all know that, he does this at the end of the passage, I think John's readers knew he had done this too. I think John knew that he was retelling the story to them, and everyone knew that even though Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus eventually would face death again on another day. Every believer who God miraculously heals of any dread disease will one day get sick again and die. Every test we pray that we'll pass is going to be replaced eventually by another test. Every bout of flu that we get over because we prayed that we would get over it is going to be replaced by another round of illness. In this life, every problem that Jesus solves for us in answer to prayer, and don't get me wrong, he does solve those problems in answer to prayer. He's a gracious and good God, but in this life, every problem, immediate problem that is solved in answer to prayer will be replaced by the chaos of life in a world where things have been going wrong ever since Eve and Adam rebelled against God.

Frank Thielman:     Everyone needs a deeper solution to the problem of sickness, and death, and sorrow, and pain than momentary relief in the present, and one part of God's answer to that need is the promise of the final resurrection. One day, God will restore the earth to what he created it to be. As John says elsewhere, "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." It's a wonderful truth, and it will occur, but everyone also needs a deeper solution to the problem of sickness and death than merely the hope of a better future.

Frank Thielman:     That's the reason for Jesus's next statement in verses 25 and 26. "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." Jesus is calling on Martha here to continue to trust him in the face of her great loss, the sickness and death of her brother Lazarus. The greatest loss for Martha would not be the loss of her brother Lazarus. The greatest loss for Martha would be the loss of her trust in Jesus because of the loss of her brother Lazarus. He is the resurrection and the life in the present, and those who believe in him will never die.

Frank Thielman:     The most crucial question any of us will ever face is the question that Jesus asks Martha next. "Do you believe this?" In Greek, the word believe is a present. It has continuous aspect. "Martha, I know you've believed this in the past, but now your faith has met a dire challenge, the death of your brother, Lazarus. Do you continue to believe this?" And the answer that Martha gives, when we sincerely make it to ourselves when we're faced with dire trials, indicates that we have eternal life. You know, in John 20, verses 30 and 31, John says that this very confession that Martha makes here, he repeats almost not quite verbatim, but almost the confession Martha makes here in chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, and he says, "This is what gives people eternal life." "Yes, Lord," she says. "I believe." That's a perfect tense in Greek. "I came to belief at one point in the past, and I continue to believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who is coming into the world." Martha here looks at death full in the face, and she says to Jesus in the face of her great loss, "I believe. I trust you, Lord."

Frank Thielman:     When God's timing is not our timing, and this leads to a sense of loss, confusion, and even futility, we need to go back to two basic principles. God will make what is wrong with this world right one day, and in the meantime, he calls on us to trust him with our disappointments. His son, Jesus, is the resurrection and the life. He will one day reverse the curse that rests on creation. And when life breaks down, he calls on us to continue to trust that he loves us and is sufficient to meet our deepest needs.

Frank Thielman:     But John isn't finished with this story. There's another person who has a question for Jesus, and Jesus wants to answer her question too. This is Mary. In verses 26 to 37, she asks exactly the same question that Martha asked. "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." It's that rebuke that formulates the question we all have about the timing of God. But here, Jesus doesn't answer Mary. He doesn't answer her at least with words, but he answers her by being deeply moved. Look at verse 33. Second half of verse 33, "being greatly troubled." And then in verses 35 and 36 he answers her by weeping. The Bauer, Danker, Arndt and Gingrich Greek lexicon translates, "Jesus wept. Jesus burst into tears."

Frank Thielman:     When shown the tomb of Lazarus. He weeps so clearly that Mary's Judean neighbors comment on his great love for Lazarus. Why is Jesus so upset? He knows he's going to heal Lazarus here in a few minutes. Well, he's upset because he recognizes the great sorrow that sickness and loss and death have brought to these dear friends. He sympathizes with them just as he sympathizes with our condition too.

Frank Thielman:     You know, Jesus still has the nail scars in his hands, and he still has the wound in his side. This is something John makes clear. At the end of his gospel when he appears to Thomas, he says, "Put your finger in the nail prints in my hand and put your hand in my side." This is the resurrected, immortal Jesus speaking. He's in his immortal body. He's resurrected from the dead, and he still has human wounds of suffering on his body. John, in Revelation chapter five, when he sees the vision of the lamb of God sitting on the throne of God in the midst of God's throne, it is a lamb who appears as though he has been slain. This is a slaughtered lamb on the throne of God. The ascended Jesus. Not just the resurrected, immortal Jesus, but the ascended Jesus, ever interceding for us, according to Romans eight, has in his body the scars of human suffering. He continues to sympathize with us in our sorrow. When we experience great sorrow and loss at God's timing, we not only need to trust him that he knows what he's doing and we not only need to trust him with our future, but we need to remember that he walks with us through our pain.

Frank Thielman:     And of course, at the end of the story, Jesus intervenes, verses 38 to 44. The truth that Jesus is the resurrection and the life in the present, even when his timing is a puzzle, and the truth that Jesus sympathizes with the sorrow and loss that his timing sometimes brings, those truths will carry us through life's difficulties if we trust Jesus in faith. There is no temptation that we have encountered, paul tells us in First Corinthians 10, but such as is common to human beings, and God will, with the temptation, make a way of escape that we may be able to bear it.

Frank Thielman:     Those principles are enough, but despite this, Jesus sometimes in his glorious mercy intervenes on our behalf and asserts in the present he has power over sickness, disease, and death. You know, we find this pattern in that first of Jesus's miracles in John's gospel, in the turning of water to wine. "Woman, my hour has not yet come." But then what does Jesus do? He turns the water into wine, and supplies the need at this wedding. And so it is here Jesus has taught Martha and Mary the most important lessons that they needed to learn, but then in his mercy he asserts his power over death, and he brings the future into the present, and he wages a tiny scale model of his final battle with death before these amazed people. "Lazarus, come forth." And the dead man came forth, wrapped in strips of linen with a cloth over his face. And Jesus said, "Loose him and let him go."

Frank Thielman:     Sometimes in answer to our pleas and prayers, Jesus will intervene. He'll bring the future into the present and powerfully heal and help in a way that anticipates the final day. But the experience of many and probably most of us will match the experience of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus before this point in the narrative. We will wonder at God's timing, "Lord, why now?" And Jesus still answers us this way. "I love you, just as I loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, but waited two days to respond to their request for healing. One day I will put everything that is wrong with this world right, including all that is wrong with illness and death." And Jesus says, "I stand with you, troubled right alongside you, and weeping with you in your sorrow."

Frank Thielman:     William Tyndale closes the letter I referred to a few moments ago by acknowledging, after all, he's writing to his captors who have put him in prison, by acknowledging that his request to ease his imprisonment may not be granted. Here's what he says toward the end of that letter. "I will be patient, abiding the will of God to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ." May we all face the hardships that come into our lives with that kind of peace, a peace that arises from trust in the grace and goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Kristen Padilla:    You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquerello. Our cohosts are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at beesondivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.