Life's questions are hard to answer.
On Good Friday, the Pope fielded questions on Italian television. Thousands of questions were submitted, but only seven were selected. One question was submitted by a 7-year-old girl who survived Japan's earthquake. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110422/ap_on_re_eu/good_friday
"Why do children have to be sad?" she asked. "I'm asking the Pope, who speaks with God, to explain it to me."
Why do children have to be sad? She's asked a pretty good question! And it's an appropriate question to ask as we celebrate Easter. Fortunately, we don't have to go to the Pope with our questions.
In the gospels, it is God who comes near to us. It is God who speaks directly to us. John 1:14 (NIV) says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Every week, I pray through the connection cards. Two basic truths leap off the cards.
First, our world is broken.
I hardly need to explain this point. Our world is broken in every way imaginable. Our world is filled with natural calamity. Hurricanes, tsunami waves, tornados, flooding, drought, fires, disease, cancers, and suffering occur with regularity.
Our world is filled with man-made calamity. Consider all the wars, the unrest in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Darfur. We've got nuclear reactors melting in Japan, oil spills destroying the Gulf of Mexico, and millions of tons of trash floating around in our oceans.
Our world is filled with violence. A woman was brutally attacked at a McDonalds. A man was murdered at a baseball game for wearing the wrong team's jersey. Two Brits were brutally murdered in Florida when they walked down the wrong street on their way to IHOP for pancakes!
Second, our lives are troubled.
Because we live in a broken world, our lives are troubled. Like the girl from Japan, we're sad. But we're sad for many different reasons. And we have our own questions-- questions we'll be exploring over the next few weeks. "Why is this happening to me? What does my future hold? What is my path forward? Where is my help for today?" Our lives are filled with sad news, with tragedy. We experience real pain, real sadness, real anxiety, and real fear.
In a word, we feel troubled by the things we see and experience. But this is where the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh, intersects with our lives. Allow me to share a few surprising facts that leap off the pages of scripture.
Our Lord is troubled along with us.
Some levy the charge that God mustn't love us, because we suffer so much. But this isn't the picture of God that is presented in the gospels. Here are a couple of quick examples. In John 9 Jesus' disciples encounter a man who was born blind. The disciples' assumption was the man was born blind either because he sinned, or because his parents sinned. They assumed that God was bringing calamity into this man's life. When asking the question, "Why me?", we're often trying to correlate some sin with the trouble we're facing. But what Jesus says in John 9:3 is that neither this man nor his parents sinned. Sin was not the reason that this man was born blind. Instead, his blindness happened, "so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."
Later in John 11 one of Jesus' beloved friends, Lazarus, lay sick. When Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, tell Jesus that Lazarus is ill, he promises them in John 11:4 (NIV), "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."
Well, Lazarus dies anyway. They have a funeral. Lazarus is put in a tomb. The family grieves. God doesn't seem to care. But then Jesus finds Mary at Lazarus' tomb. John 11:33 (NIV) tells us, "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled." And John 11:35 (NIV) says, "Jesus wept."
Whenever we're troubled, the Lord is troubled right along with us. Whenever we shed a tear, the Lord sheds a tear right along with us. God isn't calloused, nor indifferent. In John 12:27 Jesus is troubled over the eternal plight of men. When we're troubled, God is troubled right along with us. When we cry, God cries with us.
Our Lord became broken for us.
One of my favorite television shows is "Undercover Boss". In this show, CEO's leave their plush offices in order to serve alongside their average rank and file employee. This is what the gospel teaches us. It teaches that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
What does it say about God that he descended into our suffering? This is how Isaiah the prophet describes Jesus in Isaiah 53:3 (NIV). "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not."
Isaiah 53:4 (NIV) continues, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted."
Isaiah 53:5 (NIV) tells us, "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."
The charge is often leveled that God isn't loving. There are others who say God may be loving, but he sure isn't powerful! But God is indeed loving. He is a God who weeps with us, who suffers with us, who shares in our trouble, and who takes our violence and brokenness and punishment on himself. When we're troubled, he's troubled. When we're broken, he's broken with us.
Our Lord has overcome.
Consider what Jesus taught his disciples shortly before his death, burial, and resurrection. In John 14:1 (NIV) he tells his disciples, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." In John 14:27 (NIV) Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." Not to be outdone, in John 16:33 (NIV) Jesus says, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
At first, none of Jesus' words made any sense to his disciples. On the one hand, Jesus would tell his disciples not to be troubled or afraid. But then in the same breath he would tell them how we was going to Jerusalem to be handed over to the chief priests, to suffer and die.
When Jesus told Mary and Martha that Lazarus' sickness wouldn't end in death, and Lazarus died anyway, they were confused. "Lord, if only you had been here my brother would not have died." Mary pleaded in John 11:21 (NIV).
When Jesus suggested that the man in John 9 was born blind not because he sinned but, "...that the work of God might be displayed in his life", no one had a clue what was about to happen! In Luke 8 when Jesus announced that Jairus' little girl was not really dead, but only asleep, those who were mourning began laughing.
On Friday, many were disillusioned as Jesus was arrested, flogged, crucified, and buried. If that was all that happened in these stories, we would conclude that God is quite loving, but not all that powerful. But on the third day, Jesus rose from the grave and was declared with power by the Holy Spirit to be the Son of the Living God! See Romans 1:4.
In John 9 the blind man didn't have any question about God's love or power when his sight was restored. In Luke 8 Jairus didn't have any doubt about God's love or power after Jesus took the hand of his little girl and raised her from the dead. In John 11 Mary and Martha didn't have any doubt about God's love or power when Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come out!" and Lazarus came bounding out of the tomb in his grave clothes.
There is a good chance this morning that you are sitting here asking, "Why is this happening to me? Why is this world so broken? Why am I so troubled? Is God loving? Is God powerful? Why am I sad? Anxious? Afraid?" All of this brings us to a final saving fact.
We can overcome in Christ.
John 14:1 (NIV) says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." In John 16:33 (NIV) Jesus says, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
None of us want a bandage. We want power. On the third day, when Jesus rose from that grave, he demonstrated his power over sin and death, over brokenness and trouble. God has done something loving, something powerful, about our predicament. And in the gospel, Jesus is inviting us to trust him in everything, no matter what. In Christ, God promises us victory.
I love what Mary says to Jesus in John 11:21-22 (NIV). "Lord, if you have been here my brother wouldn't have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever your ask." And Jesus says in John 11:23 (NIV), "Your brother will rise again! And Jesus continues in John 11:25 (NIV), I am the resurrection 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?"
I want to end with Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 (NIV). "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many."
This morning, we must ask ourselves if we're living on Friday, in the shadow of the cross, or whether we're living on Sunday, in the glory and power of the resurrection. When it's all said and done, it doesn't matter how much health, strength, life, charisma, money, fame, job, power, or house we've built. In this world there will be trouble. Everything we've built for ourselves crumbles beneath our feet. What matters for eternity is whether we've set our feet on the firm foundation of Christ.