Why?
During the September 11 attacks in
2001, 2,996 people were killed and more than 6,000 others were injured. God was
fully capable of preventing these terrorist attacks. A few years later in 2005,
230,000 people died in one night in the South Seas off the coast of India in
that tsunami. Even today, more than 1,500 people have died from coronavirus and
about 66,000 people around the globe have been infected so far. God is sovereign.
Our God is able to prevent and to control and to set right our losses. But for
some reason, he allows pain,
suffering, and loss in our lives. And we ask, “Why?” And we question God’s
love, “Does God really care for me?”
How Can This Be “Love”?
In today’s scripture we see how
much Jesus cares for his people. But we will learn soon from this passage that God’s
care, God’s love, may not be what we think it is. Martha, Mary and Lazarus were
siblings, and they were close friends of Jesus. They were like a family to him.
So when Lazarus got sick, the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, the one
you love is sick.” There are four
types of love in Greek – storge (natural
empathy of parents and children), philia
(friendship between equals), eros (romantic
love), and agape (unconditional “God”
love). Here in verse 3 when they said, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” They used the word philia – a friendship-like love. They loved Jesus as a friend. But
Jesus’ love for them was much, much, much deeper. John 11:5 says, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”
Here the word used for love is agape.
Jesus loved these three unconditionally. Jesus loved them more than his life. So
there’s no question about his love for them.
When the sisters sent word to
Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick,” they had expectations. They had
confidence that as soon as Jesus heard the news, he would drop everything and
come running to them. But he didn’t. In verses 5 and 6 we find how Jesus’ love
is much deeper and surpasses all our understanding:
“Now Jesus loved
Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So,
when he heard that Lazarus was ill,
he stayed two days
longer in the place where he was.”
Between verses 5 and 6, there is a conjunction woon, referring result or consequence,
normally translated as “therefore,” or “so.” Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and
Lazarus, “so,” he stayed two more days (ex. ESV, NKJV, NET). Basically, Jesus
waited until Lazarus had completely died. Why? It didn’t look like love. How
can this be love? So they began to question Jesus’ love. First, Martha said to
Jesus when he arrived later, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not
have died.” (v. 21; “Where were you, Jesus, when we desperately needed you?”)
Again, Mary said the same thing, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would
not have died?” (v. 32; “Where were you, Lord, when we were grieving?”) Even
the mourners joined them in saying, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the
blind man also have kept this man from dying?” (v. 37) So the people questioned
Jesus’ love. Even today, we often question God’s love. “Does God really care
for me?”
What God’s Love Is
Now how does Jesus respond? Though
he doesn’t answer all the questions, Jesus reveals what his love is. He reveals what the goal of his love is here in verse 4:
“This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory,
so that the Son of God
may be glorified through it.”
If the purpose of God’s love is to
make us safe or happy, he could do that. He could protect us from all dangers, diseases,
sufferings, and losses. Please don’t get me wrong. God does care for our safety
and well-being. But that’s not the ultimate goal of his love. God’s love is not that we be healthy or wealthy and
live a long, comfortable life. God’s love is not God’s making much of us.
No! God’s love is God’s saving us from
self-centeredness, which is, the root of all sin, so that we may see God’s
glory, God’s beauty, and enjoy making much of him forever. God’s love is always God-centered, not self-centered. John Piper rightly said, “God’s
love is giving people God. God’s love is showing people God. God’s love is
getting people to God. God’s love is helping people be satisfied in God and be
willing to lay down their lives for God.” Yes! God’s love is helping us to see
and enjoy God’s glory forever.
John 3:16 tells us the goal of God’s
love: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not be
perish but have eternal life.” But, what is eternal life? Jesus answered
this question in his prayer in John 17, “And this is eternal life, that they
may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (v. 3).
That’s eternal life. That’s the goal of God’s love – knowing God and Jesus Christ. For this purpose, God allows pain and
loss in our lives, so that we may come to know him and Jesus Christ in deeply
personal ways. Jesus allowed Lazarus to die, though he could keep him from
dying. But through this time of pain and loss, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus came
to know who Jesus really is: Jesus is the
resurrection and the life. They came to know by heart that Jesus was not
just a friend, but he was the Son of God
indeed. Not only for them, but also for the people around them, came to know
Jesus and see his glory. “Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary
and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him” (v. 45).
The Story of Adoniram and Ann Judson
God’s love allows pain and loss in
our lives, so that we may know him, savor him, treasure him, love him, make
much of him, and glorify him. Let me give you an illustration. I think it would
be hard to find a better example than the life of Adoniram and Ann Judson, missionary
couple to Burma. At that time (in the early 19th century) Burma was
considered a closed country, such as North Korea today. No religious toleration.
All the previous missionaries had died or left. At the age of 25 Adoniram Judson
and his wife, Ann at age 23, arrived in the land of Burma. While they were
there, they bore three children, and all of them died. The first baby,
nameless, was born dead just as they sailed from India to Burma. The second
child, Roger, lived 17 months and died. The third, Maria, lived to be two, and
outlived her mother by six months and then died. When their second child died,
Ann Judson wrote in this way, “Our hearts were bound up with this child; we
felt he was our earthly all, our only source of innocent recreation in this
heathen land. But God saw it was necessary to remind us of our error, and to
strip us of our only little all. O, may it not be vain that he has done it. May
we so improve it that he will stay his hand and say ‘It is enough.’”[1]
In other words, Adoniram and Ann believed that God is sovereign and God is
good. They firmly believed that God allowed pain and loss in his goodness, so
that they might grow and set their hearts on God, not on themselves or things
on the earth.
The Invitation
For me personally, one of the most
inspiring stories in the life of Adorniram Judson was how he declared his
intention to marry Ann. Knowing that he was going to leave to Burma as a
missionary, Adoniram wrote to her father the following letter:[2]
I have now to ask, whether you can
consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in
this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the
hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her
exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern
climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution,
and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him
who left is heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of
perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you
consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of
glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise
which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from
eternal woe and despair?
Surprisingly, Ann’s father didn’t
say no. Instead, he let her daughter to make up her own mind. After much
prayers, Ann said “Yes.” In the letter to her close friend, Ann wrote as
follows:[3]
I have about, come to the
determination to give up all my comforts and enjoyments here, sacrifice my
affection to relatives and friends, and go where God, in his Providence, shall see
fit to place me.
From the life of Adoniram and Ann
Judson, and from the story of Lazarus, we hear God saying to us loud and clear:
“I love you. My love for you is not that
you be just healthy or wealthy. My love is not
sparing you suffering and hardship and distress and calamity and death. My
love is, in the midst of all this, sustaining
you, giving you myself, showing you my glory. Can you come with me?” May we
say “Yes, Lord!” and join Mary and Martha, and Adoniram and Ann on this new journey.
And we will see and enjoy the glory of God forever. Amen.
[1] Courtney
Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life
of Adoniram Judson (Zondervan, 1956), 193.
[2] Ibid.,
83.
[3] Ibid.,
84.
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