We can be seated.

Thank you guys for leading us this morning.

I had prepared a sermon for you out of 2 Kings.

And I woke up this morning as I normally do to read through that and prepare myself to preach it. But I just didn’t feel like that’s what God wanted me to do, to preach that to you. So a certain verse came to my mind this morning. And I suppose it came to my mind because, well, I guess with Sue Ann being the way she is, and not even just Sue Ann, but even, you know, and I’ve said it so many times, this has just been, I think, a tough season for all of our families. It’s good to see the chuns back with us after many weeks of being sick. I’m smiling because Cameron waved at me. Maybe not because I’m being silly.

So many people with COVID and the flu, and I know Richard Sr.’s home with chest issues.

So much sickness, and honestly, I haven’t had the best attitude about it this semester because you want to grow, you want to build momentum as a church, you want to see God do great things. It’s so hard to do that when you feel like you’re just constantly swapping out people for sick people, you know. And it’s something that I need to surrender. And if I say I believe in the sovereignty of God, then I need to believe in the sovereignty of God and just trust how He works and what He’s doing, right?

But a certain verse came to mind this morning to show you how huge my memory is. John 11.35 came to mind this morning. And it’s the verse that when you go to a small Christian school like I did, it’s the verse that Smarelic gives us his memory verse because it’s just two little words. Jesus wept.

Jesus wept.

And that’s a very simple verse. It’s a very, very short verse. But I believe that it’s a very, very powerful verse. It’s a very mighty verse with a lot of healing, a lot of comfort, and a lot of strength in it if we consider what that means that Jesus wept. That Jesus wept. Jesus had been off doing ministry. And He gets work. And He gets word that His friend Lazarus, Lazarus is sick. And then He gets word that Lazarus dies.

And He asks in 34, where have you laid Him? They said to Him, Lord, come and see. And in 35, it says Jesus wept. Jesus wept. And you say, well, why did Jesus weep? And to me, the answer is obvious. I think it’s more obvious than we want it to be. I think some people say, well, Jesus is a bit more stoic than us. He’s not affected like we are by things. And I really have to disagree with that because Jesus, if He is what we said He was last week, and really we said it all month through Advent, Jesus is a real and full human. That means Jesus is everything we are without sin. So Jesus, Jesus wept when He heard His friend died because it’s sad when people die. I don’t think that we need to look for some theological diamond past that. It’s really sad when people we love die because death shouldn’t happen. Sickness shouldn’t happen. Suffering shouldn’t happen. And it’s amazing to think that Jesus, Jesus, who is the eternal Son of God, clothed Himself not in a costume, you know, like something that looks like a flesh, that kind of looks like a human, and I can fool these people into thinking I’m a real person. Jesus was a real person. He was a real man. And if He wasn’t a real man, then He really can’t know us, and we can’t really know Him where we are. But it’s amazing that Christ hears, and I love, Calvin said this, and I think it’s so good. He said, Jesus weeping proved His brotherhood to us. His weeping proved His brotherhood to us. You know, you think of the Stoics, and they’re very serious, and surely, surely not. Surely Christ can’t be so human. I mean, He had some form of a human, but God’s too away. God’s too separate. God’s too different. God’s too high. God’s too holy. We can’t have a God running around on two legs. That, that, that just can’t be so. That something so sacred and so wonderful could come and be near something so common and lowly and mean as us.

Yet, Hebrew 4.15 says this. It says, We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted, as we are, yet without sin. And that’s an amazing thing because it says to us that Jesus, He felt the great weight and burden of a sick friend. He felt the great weight and burden of suffering and pain, the kind that rips your heart out. And yet, He endured it exactly as you and I would endure it, but He endured it in such a way that you and I can endure our own pain because He endured it first, and He endured it fully. He’s no Stoic. He’s no serious. He’s not a Stoic. He’s not a serious person unaffected by emotions. Jesus is fully human and He came, though He was God, to have a full human perspective. And now, it doesn’t mean that God, you know, the Father was in heaven, like, Jesus, we made those humans, but we don’t really get what it means to be human. Like, what are they doing down there? I need you to go find out for me. Do some research. Not that kind of perspective. Like, compassion. You know, you can’t really have compassion on someone unless you’ve really put yourself in their shoes. You’ve really put yourself in their shoes. You’ve really driven across town and you’ve seen, you’ve lived in, you’ve been a part of their neighborhood. You know? It’s like, oh, there are poor people in Mexico and, you know, you have all these thoughts and ideas and then you fly there and you walk on their streets and you go on their home and all of a sudden you have compassion and a heart for poverty-stricken people. Not just because you’ve heard about them from afar, but you’ve been where they’ve been. And that’s God. He has come and walked. He’s walked in our shoes. He’s been in our homes. He’s walked on our streets. He’s eaten our food. He knows what it means to be a real human in a really sad world. And so it makes Jesus, then, the perfect mediator for you and I. It makes Jesus one who can go back to the Father and say, Father, I have walked with these people. I’ve seen the sadness and the burden of their life and I understand them. And so I can be, He can be a representative. To God for us, because He has identified with us. He has identified with us in our lowest state. He cares for us. He cares about Martha. He cares about Mary. He cares about what they’re suffering. You know, they say, if you had been here, if you had just been here, Jesus, my brother wouldn’t have died. You know? But they’re not really grabbing the greater thing and that’s what Jesus says is, look, I’m here and I told you, if you believe, you would see the glory of God Jesus has in His heart and coming to be among us, not to give us some band-aid or some patch, you know, or some pat on the back or just to say, oh, I’m sorry that the world’s bad and you lose your loved ones. I’m sorry that sin’s ruined everything. I’m sorry people die. Jesus has come to do a far greater thing for us in our sadness than we could ever do for ourselves.

Jesus came to heal us of the disease of sin. He came to renew and make new the earth. He came to defeat death. He came to defeat sin. And this Jesus did on the cross.

Jesus felt the full weight of sadness, the burden of sin and death as He hung there for you and I. You know? So nothing is like Christianity because no one is like Jesus. You can experience or explore other religions, and other spiritualities, but you’re never going to find someone who is fully God and fully man and so present and so able to meet you where you are and able to lift you up to a heavenly place. Nothing is like Christianity only because no one is like Jesus. Jesus comforts us in a way that no one else can comfort us. He can love us and heal us in a way that only He can. You know, and that’s such a gift to us because Paul says in 2 Corinthians in the first chapter in verses 3 and 4, he says, I bless the Father of Jesus, the Father of all mercies, the God of all… What is it? He’s the God of all comfort

because we’ve been comforted in our affliction. Why? So we can be a comfort to those in their affliction. So if I have this relationship with Jesus who comes to me and says, I have known you, I have known your life where you are, I have known your suffering, I’ve known what it is to be a human, and yet I have provided a healing for you that far surpasses the present moment. In the same way, we as the body of Christ, we can cling to and hold on to that comfort and so we can share it with one another. Because you know, I don’t always know that for me in my suffering. I don’t always know that for me in my sin. I don’t know that for me in my weaknesses. And so there’s so much power in my brother and sister saying, let me comfort you with the comfort of Christ. Let me comfort you. Let me comfort you with what is truly yours in Jesus. Remember Jesus who is sad for you. Jesus who came and wept just like you weep. Remember Jesus who came and He wept so that you and I could weep no more. That’s our Jesus, friends. He is a great comforter to us in our sadness.

In a pandemic that keeps running all the letters of the Greek alphabet, you know, it causes anxiety. Anxiety for a lot of people. You know, I keep reading those articles. More people going to see counselors because of anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. But Paul tells us, cast all your anxiety on Christ. Why? Because He cares for you. And we can know because of Christmas and we can know because of Jesus’s tears and losing his friend Lazarus. Oh, He knows. He knows what it means to experience that kind of anxiety. And He cares for you. He loves you. He is with you.

Let me say also on that, don’t let Jesus be that person you run to when you need comfort. Let Jesus be the person you walk with daily because Christ hasn’t come to give you comfort just in those big bad moments. He’s come to fortify and reshape your heart and mind to know how much He loves you, to know how much He cares for you, to know the power of the cross to heal your sadness in everyday life so that you’re comforted. He’s constantly a beacon to share that. Because if you’re constantly in like this anemic state of like, oh, life’s horrible or this bad stuff’s happening. And, oh, that’s right, Jesus, Jesus, that’s right. And you’re fine for a season and then you shrink back down to your anemic state and then something bad happens. You’re like, oh, you’re falling apart. Oh, that’s right, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus didn’t come for that. He came so we could be in a state of comfort. He came so we can grow more and more in the surety of the cross. He came so we ourselves can radiate His light and His hope to others. Others in a very broken, sad world. Walk with this great Comforter in your sadness, but in every season, friend. He is with you daily, momentarily, moment by moment in the Spirit.

But it’s interesting also

that this happens again actually in 35. Again in 38, but really actually in a more powerful way. If we go to v. 38, it says, then Jesus deeply moved again

and came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. And that deeply moved, it means inward groaning,

censuring oneself. In other words, you ever been in public and you’re really moved or something, but you don’t want to have to give your man card away, so you try not to just fall apart on the floor? This is something like that Jesus is just overwhelmed with just the emotion. The emotion of the thing. And He’s just deeply groaning inside. He’s deeply moved. He’s deeply moved. He’s deeply moved, friends, by the sadness and brokenness of the world. But He’s deeply moved I think also because Jesus is coming closer to the end of His earthly life and ministry. And Jesus is looking as He looks on that grave, He’s looking at His opponent in the eye. He sees what He’s doing. What the carnage of sin has done. How it produces suffering and death. And you always wonder how much of Jesus’ life before He became human in eternity past, how much of that can He remember? Or did He choose to have access to while He was on earth? He says, I was there when Satan fell like lightning from heaven. So He remembers some things of it from that verse I suppose. But you’ve got to wonder in looking at that grave, is He thinking back to the garden? You know, that time when Adam and Eve sinned for the first time. Is He thinking back to that serpent who foiled these two people that He loved? Is He thinking back to when God said to the serpent that He is going to the seed that comes from the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent? I wonder if He’s thinking about all those things and finally the time has come for Jesus, the seed of the woman, to crush the head of the serpent. It’s finally here. So Jesus didn’t just brush up against sin and suffering. I came to earth. I had some bad seasons. I identify with it. More than that, what has Jesus done? But He’s carried the full weight. He’s carried the weight of it on the cross. Jesus is in agony because Jesus is going to a fight. Calvin again said He looks at that grave, but He doesn’t look at it as an onlooker from the crowd. He looks at it as a champion preparing for a contest.

And what a comfort that is to you in your sin and suffering. That Jesus is more than a friend that cares. Jesus is a warrior who went to battle for you. Jesus is mighty to have already defeated everything you’re enduring right now. Jesus did carry every sin and suffering, every sadness, every tear on the cross. And Jesus, three days later, when He got up out of the grave and He walked out, He proved that just as He raised Lazarus from the dead, He had the power through His cross to resurrect your soul from spiritual death and my soul from spiritual death. And friends, if we hold on to that by faith, it will see us through every difficult season to know Christ will come and Christ will make all things new. And the Word of God tells us what? He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. He alone has done this for you. He alone has done this for me. In our current world, wading through its sinfulness, its suffering, Jesus has already defeated it as our great champion, as our warrior. We already have the victory in Christ Jesus.

C.S. Lewis said, you know, one day we’re going to just wake up from the nightmare like it never happened. And that’s such a beautiful picture, I think, of what it will mean to be in a new heaven and a new earth with Jesus someday.

So Jesus did weep. He weeps because He loves you and He intended to and He did save us from our sadness and our suffering. And He will save us when He comes back someday. So that’s our hope for pandemics. That’s our hope for mothers we love in the hospital. That’s our hope when our kids have the flu or unexpected things happen or governments fall apart or wars happen or whatever happens, Jesus wept so that we would weep no more. And that’s about, I think, as much of an encouraging Christmas sermon as talking about the manger. Amen? Well, that’s what I have for you today. That’s what I have for you this morning. But let’s go to the Lord in prayer. We’re going to take communion together.

Father,

Father, Father, the gift of Your shed blood, of Your Son Jesus, the gift of His broken body.

Lord, it is proof in our very hands

that Jesus has done all that needed to be done to give us hope for eternal life.

The bread of life, the bread in one hand and the blood in the other, it is a visible sign to us from You of the grace You have already shown us. Jesus did overcome death. Jesus did overcome suffering. Jesus did overcome every sin that wars against us, that makes us feel as though we will not make it to the end, that absolutely crushes our souls when we experience sorrow and grief. Jesus has defeated these things. It is done. It is finished.

Thank You, Jesus, that You would come so near,

that You wouldn’t only look a sinner in the eye, but You would wash our feet, that You would truly, as the Word of God says, You would consider us before Your own self.

Oh Lord, fill us with His Spirit.

Oh Lord, that we would live by it daily, that we would have the mind of Christ as we traverse this life, that we would make it home to You. Oh Lord, bond us together in Christian fellowship and love, that we would strengthen and encourage and comfort one another, that we would be a beacon of light to a world around us that has no hope, that has no real comfort.

Only we have it in Christ, Lord. So let us faithfully hold on to it, but also hold it out. Lord, that’s my hope and that’s my prayer for us this morning.