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The Story of Lazarus || SLP403 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Hello and thank you so much for downloading this episode, episode 403 of the Speak Life Podcast.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thorogood.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: I have the great pleasure of working at Speak Life.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, really, you'll know that we normally release as podcast episodes the live show called The Speakeasy, which goes out on our YouTube channel.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: We then make it available as a podcast because not everyone can watch a one-hour long video.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people like to listen.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: So that's normally what this podcast is.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: But this week, for various reasons, partly because it's the Easter break, we haven't done a speakeasy, but we have released a very special video on our YouTube channel called Easter Uprising.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a documentary that was made in Rome, and Glenn Scrivener goes around and chats about the Jesus Revolution.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's a really informative documentary, really fascinating, and it will certainly get you thinking about the impact of Christianity and the impact of the Jesus Revolution.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: So I really recommend checking that out.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: You can find our YouTube channel by uh going to YouTube and typing in Speak Life UK and Easter Uprising.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: You will see it there.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: So do go and check that out.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: As for this episode of the podcast, we have a bit of a treat for you.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: This is a sermon that Nate Morganlock, Speak Life Development Director, this is a sermon that he preached at All Souls Eastbourne on the 20th of March on John 11.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: So let me read the passage to you, and then I will hand over to Nate.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: John 11, starting at verse 1.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Now a man named Lazarus was ill.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay ill, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: So the sisters sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is ill.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: When he heard this, Jesus said, This illness will not end in death.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: No, it is for God's glory, so that God's Son may be glorified through it.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, Let us go back to Judea.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: But Rabbi, they said, a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours of daylight?
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world's light.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: After he had said this, he went on to tell them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: His disciples replied, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: So then he told them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: But let us go to him.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Then Thomas, also known as Didymus, said to the rest of the disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Lord, Martha said to Jesus, If you had been here, my brother would not have died.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe this?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, she replied.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: The teacher is here, she said, and is asking for you.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: They followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Where have you laid him?
6:00
SPEAKER_00: he asked.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Then the Jews said, See how he loved him.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: But some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Take away the stone, he said.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: But Lord said Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?
6:43
SPEAKER_00: As they took away the stone.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Take off the grave clothes and let him go.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: And with those words open in front of us, let me pray for us as we start.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, if I've not met you, my name is Nate, and if I have met you, that has not changed.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: But I'm just a member of the church family here, but in my day job, I work for Speak Life, which is just around the corner.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: And it's a Christian evangelistic ministry that exists to help people love Jesus and share Jesus.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: So I do that with uh with Peter, who was leading our prayers earlier on, and with Glenn, who was preaching here last week, and with Micah, who was playing the guitar, and lots of other members of the All Souls Church family as well.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: And it's great, and I love it.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: And the title I was given when I joined Speak Life was Director of Development.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Which doesn't mean anything, does it, really?
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Director of Development.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what could that possibly mean?
8:42
SPEAKER_01: But I took the job because I thought it would give me an opportunity to do what I really want to do.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: And to claim the title I really want to claim.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: And that title is, you ready for this, Reformed Mythologist.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: I know.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Quite remarkable, isn't it?
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Reformed mythologist, but what does that mean?
9:04
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't really mean anything.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: I've just sort of made it up and applied it to myself.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, what it basically means is it's a description of what you would find if you cut me open, is you would find my theology is reformed and my obsession is with stories.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: So when I say reformed, I basically mean that I think the Bible teaches that salvation is found through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: And that contrary to popular belief, that is the most inclusive and glorious message that the world has ever known.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: So that's my theology.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm a reformed Christian, but mythology, mythologist, what's going on there?
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, mythos is just the Greek word for story.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, when we think about myth, we're thinking about a particular kind of story.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Whereas mythos could be used for all sorts of things, fables or fairy tales or folk stories, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or Star Wars, or anything else you can find on Netflix.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Story.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: I decided that was going to be my thing.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: And the great thing about story is it's kind of everyone's thing, isn't it?
10:20
SPEAKER_01: And that's because stories allow us to live in different worlds.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: In fact, that's one of the reasons why a lot of people like going to the cinema.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Because they want to escape from this world and go and live in a different world for a short amount of time.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: And so my question for you is: what world do you like living in?
10:44
SPEAKER_01: What's your choice of world?
10:48
SPEAKER_01: If you were to come to our house on any day of the week, you would probably find all four members of the Morganlock household living in different worlds.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: If you went into our living room, you would find my wife Kat, usually leaning against the radiator, if I've allowed us to put the heating on.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: She'd be leaning against the radiator, curled up with a great big cup of tea, and she'd be listening to an Agatha Christie novel.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: She'd be listening to the detective stories of Miss Marple and Poirot.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: And she likes to live in that world because that world feels like a world in which everything's resolved.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: There's a great mystery.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
11:30
SPEAKER_01: Who done it?
11:31
SPEAKER_01: But eventually, Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot managed to tie together every thread and explain what we kind of hoped was true all along, and justice will be done.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: You go into another room and you'd find James, my son, and he would generally be on the floor with Lego.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: And he'd be living in a world that he was building.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And the figures would be moving around, and he'd be building this world, and he would be living inside this world as he moved around the characters.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: You'd go into another room, you'd find Lily, my daughter, she'd be watching Pixar movies, probably Inside Out.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: A story about a girl who's moved at a young age and has to leave all her friends behind.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And the the challenge of overcoming that big shift, she'd be sitting there watching that.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: The chances are I'd probably be watching the Pixar movie with her.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: That's probably where I would be.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: But we'd all be living in different worlds.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think the attraction of these other worlds, whether they're written by Agatha Christie or they're made by Pixar Animation Studios, or they're just what James has come up with, is because we believe that that world would be better.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: We can enter into a better world.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: What is that better world that you want to be part of?
13:08
SPEAKER_01: Now, many of us probably wouldn't claim to be great authors, right?
13:13
SPEAKER_01: We would say, Oh, we're not very good at coming up with stories, I'm not very good at world building, I can't really, you know, I couldn't make a film.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: But let me suggest to you that each and every one of us manages to build worlds every day with a two-letter word.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: If.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: We can plan for the future with an if.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: We can give ourselves an alternate timeline, an alternate reality.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: We can say, if this happens, life will be better.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: We can make plans for the future with an if.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: And not only can we make plans for the future, but we can also reflect back on the past with an if.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: And usually that's an if only.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: If only this had been different, life would be better.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Do you have points in your life?
14:24
SPEAKER_01: Regrets?
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Moments you can go back to, points of decision where you can say, if things had been different, it would be better now.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: We all live with regrets for things that we've chosen, but also there are things that are outside our control.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: And we say, if only that hadn't have happened, life would be better.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: What is that for you?
14:52
SPEAKER_01: What's the big if only in your life that suggests that the world is not as good as it could be?
15:00
SPEAKER_01: And you'd rather live in that alternate reality.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: If you're Welsh here today, if only you hadn't given away so many penalties, you wouldn't have lost to the Italians.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: Or for England fans, if only our player had been sent off in the first minute against Ireland, we could have been in with a shot of winning the Six Nations too.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: We do it with work as well.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I have a pleasure of doing with the people at Speak Life is to work on projects, work on little productions, little films.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: And almost always we have a meeting after the project and we say, now what would we do differently if we could do that again?
15:44
SPEAKER_01: The suggestion being we can improve, we can make it better.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: We want to live in better worlds.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: And so we look back at the world with if only, and we look forward and we say, if we do this, then a better world will come.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: The challenge is that if has to come in contact with what is.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: What if and what is must meet together.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: And the wonderful news is that this book is not a book of what if, but a book of what is.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: See, the world that the Bible tells us about is not a world through a wardrobe or in a galaxy far, far away.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: It's this world that contains within it Eastbourne.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Most of the events in the Bible don't take place in Eastbourne.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: Don't mishear me.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: But this is about our world.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: This book is about what happened in this world that we're sitting in right now.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: This is our history, and this is our present, and this talks about our future.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: This talks about the world that we live in.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: And as I was showing with my socks, the world that we live in is broken.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: We know that, don't we?
17:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't need to explain it to you.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: If anything, the last three years has taught us that disease and death and war are just as much a reality now as they were 50 or 100 years ago.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: That's shaken a few people up.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: We thought that we lived in a better world than back then.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe we do, but maybe we don't.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: But whatever happens, this Bible tells us that God has stepped into that world, and by stepping into this world, he has made it better.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: The Gospel of John begins with a great statement about the origins of all things.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: It says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: He was with God in the beginning.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: A few lines later it says, The Word, who was God, became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: This world, the one we're in right now, God came into this world and made it better.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: And I want to show you as we look through the story of Lazarus, some of the ways in which God did make this world better simply by being here.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you noticed that our passage, John 11, contains the shortest verse in the Bible.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: Some of you will know what that is.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: It's John 11, verse 35.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: It's right down at the bottom of page 1078.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: This is only possible because God made the world better by joining it.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: It says simply this Jesus wept.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: He wept because he was at the funeral of a dearly loved friend.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: He wept because his other dearly loved friends were weeping.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: This God meets us in our sadness.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: I've lived an incredibly pleasant life.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I have been, I think, to more baptisms than funerals.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: But it is only a matter of time before that's not the case, surely.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: When was the last time you went to a funeral?
19:42
SPEAKER_01: What funerals do you still have to go to?
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, the good news is that Jesus came to be with us so that what you experience when you're mourning the loss of a dear friend is that he knows.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: He knows what you feel.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: He's felt what you feel.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you simply need the encouragement this morning that God has first hand experience of your pain in mourning.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: This is not a distant God, but a God who entered into the world and who knows the experience of losing a loved one.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: A God who is incarnate is good.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: But actually there's better.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: You see, because we want someone to come and sit with us in our pain, we want someone to just put the kettle on and sit there quietly and mourn with us and weep with us and not talk.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: But after a while, we do need someone to talk.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: We need someone to teach.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: We need someone to give us some wisdom, a way forward.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: And this passage shows us that Jesus was someone who gave wisdom.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: When God comes into the earth, he doesn't just come to walk alongside us, but he comes to teach us.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: He came to teach his disciples.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Look back at verse 9.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered his disciples with teaching.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: Are there not twelve hours of daylight?
21:20
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they walk, see by this world's light.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: It's when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps not the easiest teaching that Jesus ever gave, but Jesus is teaching that there is a time of daylight, and that time of daylight is his incarnation.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Is when he's on the earth teaching his people, giving them wisdom, giving them direction, helping them to navigate their way through the valley of the shadow of death.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need that this morning.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need to know that.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: That you are not without purpose in the world.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: That it is not merely chaos around us, but there is teaching that you can follow.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: The words of Jesus that God has not left us in foolishness, but has spoken in wisdom to help us know how to navigate the problems we face.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: The incarnation is good, but there's better.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: The teaching is good, but there's better.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Because not only does Jesus come and sit with us in silence in our morning, not only does Jesus come and speak to us with words of wisdom.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to meet the needs of the people.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: To sort their problems out.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you're very conscious of the problems you're facing right now.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're relational, maybe they're physical, maybe they're health problems, maybe they're financial problems.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Jesus solved people's problems.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: He opened the eyes of the blind.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: He helped the lame to walk.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: He loosened the tongue of the mute person.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: He unblocked the ears of the deaf.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: And the legacy of Jesus and his work to help people with their physical needs is the legacy of the church.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: Hospitals set up, more hospitals set up in the name of Jesus than anyone else, concerned to meet the needs of the people, the poor and the vulnerable and the needy.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's you this morning.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe as a Christian you're thinking, am I meeting the needs of people around me?
24:00
SPEAKER_01: Am I serving the community in the way that Jesus shows me in the gospels?
24:09
SPEAKER_01: And this miracle.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: Is there better?
24:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, halfway through our story, both Martha and Mary give us our little word if.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: She's doing that thing we talked about, an alternate timeline.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: It would have been better if Jesus had been here whilst my brother was sick, because Jesus can heal sickness, and then my brother wouldn't have died.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: That would have been better.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: Mary says exactly the same thing.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Verse 32 Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: I've got a better plan.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: And the better plan was for Jesus to have been here whilst my brother was sick, so he could have healed him and he wouldn't have died.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: Now what's tricky for us as we're reading it through is that we don't only have the bit that Mark read for us, we also have the bit that Olive read for us.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: We know that Jesus actually delayed going to Bethany.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it says there in verse 7, sorry, verse 6.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was two more days.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: Mary said it would have been better if Jesus had turned up whilst Lazarus was ill, because then he wouldn't have died.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Jesus intentionally stayed away.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: It tells us that again, verse 15.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to his disciples, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: You see, it's good when Jesus arrives and weeps at the tomb, right?
26:24
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: That's a comfort to Mary and to Martha.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: It is good that Jesus was there.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: They say it would have been better, Jesus, if you'd been here whilst he was still sick, so he wouldn't have died.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus says, no, I don't just want to good and better, I actually want best.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that?
26:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm told that it's somewhere in Northern Ireland you can go, and there's a bit of graffiti and it says, Pele good, maradona better, George best.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Right?
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that line?
26:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where it is, but I love it.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: Good, better, best.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: I use it as a sort of priorities plan for making decisions in my own life.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: If I've got a diary class, well, that's good, that's better, but what's best?
27:11
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, No, the best thing in this scenario is for me to show you that not only do I have power over sickness, but I have power over death itself.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, This sickness will not end in death.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: It is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: Now, we might be thinking, well, that was good.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: That was better.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: And it was best for Lazarus that he was raised from the dead.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: But surely each of us is thinking, but Lord, if you had been there, my friend wouldn't have died.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Lazarus died again.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: All the people that Jesus healed from their sicknesses, their blindness or their deafness or their muteness or their lameness, whatever it was, all of those people died.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you can take up your mat and walk, but one day you will walk no more.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: You will be laid in the tomb.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: Those eyes which are open will close in death.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: There's good, there's better, there's best.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: And that takes us to Jesus saying to Martha, the very words that Mark read for us at the start of the service.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, verse 25, I am the resurrection and the life.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: Now notice he doesn't say, I'm the one who does the resurrections.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't just walk around randomly saying, Well, we'll raise that person from the dead, and we'll raise that person from the dead, and one from that row as well.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: No, Jesus says, I am the resurrection.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Because what Jesus is offering through his resurrection is something far better than simply raising one or two individual people only for them to die again.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: This is hope for everyone.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: And in this way, this story, the story of Jesus, is what Tolkien called a eukatastrophe.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard that word before?
29:51
SPEAKER_01: Eukatastrophe is the word catastrophe with the letters EU in front of it.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: It is not a comment on Brexit, okay?
29:59
SPEAKER_01: EU catastrophe.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: Eukatastrophe.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: And J.R.R.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: Tolkien, who built a world, a middle-earth, in fact, that so many people want to spend time in.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: And he gave various lectures over his life, but the one that I love more than anything, because I'm a reformed mythologist, remember, is the one he wrote on fairy stories.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: And this is what Tolkien wrote about fairy stories.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'll read it for you, it is the mark of a good fairy story of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to a child or a man that hears it, when the turn comes, a catch of the breath, a beat, and lifting of the heart, near to or indeed accompanied by tears.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: Have you read those stories?
31:01
SPEAKER_01: Have you watched those films where something seemed too good to be true?
31:08
SPEAKER_01: And it brings weeping, not weeping because of sadness, not as Jesus wept at the tomb, but tears of joy.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: What was the last story that made you feel that?
31:17
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you, for me, it was Onward, which was a Pixar film that came out a couple of years ago.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Tolkien goes on.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: In such stories, when the sudden turn comes, we get a piercing glimpse of joy and heart's desire that for a moment passes outside the frame and rends indeed the very web of story and lets a gleam come through.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Tolkien says, that's what you want in a happy ending.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: You want a happy ending that takes all the sadness that went before it, all the manicness that went before it, all the crazy stress and tension and conflict that went before it, and spins it round and says, joy is the destiny of this story.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Tolkien says they're the best fairy stories.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: But he doesn't just stop there.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: Tolkien says this story has entered history.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: The birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of man's history.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: Christmas.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Joy to the world.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the incarnation.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: The story begins and ends in joy.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: This story is supreme and it's true.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to find better worlds.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: We live in the best one.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: Because this world is a world in which Jesus Christ is risen.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: The proof of it is the fact we're in this building today.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: The church, the only evidence, the only evidence we need for the resurrection is the existence of the church.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: Not only in the West, but all around the world.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: They are meeting today.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: Why?
33:19
SPEAKER_01: Sunday?
33:19
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the day Jesus rose from the dead.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Why are the Christians in China or in Syria or in Ukraine meeting this morning?
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Because they know the eukatastrophe of Jesus Christ and his resurrection.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Why are they walking around with hope in the face of death and sadness?
33:41
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus Christ is the resurrection.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: The invitation this morning, whoever you are, is to look at Jesus.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: To be comforted by Jesus who weeps alongside you in your pain and struggle.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: To be taught by Jesus what your next steps ought to be.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: To follow the example of Jesus in meeting the needs of others.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: And of witnessing, as we've already seen in this service, to the resurrection of Jesus.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: It is the best story.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's true.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray for us.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: It seems too good to be true that this world is the world in which Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and that there is hope in the face of death.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: I pray that by your Spirit you would impress that upon our hearts so deeply that in a way it kills us and raises us up again.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: And I thank you that all these things are done through Christ for the glory of your name.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, there we go.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening, and we want to wish all our listeners a very happy Easter.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: We know that there are listeners to this podcast all over the world, and that is a great encouragement to us.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: As I say often, we make these episodes, all our content really, and release it and commit it into God's hands, and we don't really know what happens with it a lot of the time, but we're encouraged that lots of people seem to be receiving it and seem to be encouraged by it.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: What do you make of the term foundry?
36:12
SPEAKER_00: It's a place where metal is melted, and it's also the name of a room in the Street Light building where students from all over the world come to hear about Jesus and creativity and the theology of creativity together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: So we do various things in the foundry room.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: We run the foundry, which includes three different elements.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: There is the year out where the students join us in person for a year to help make our content and uh come along to all our uh training sessions.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: We also run four intensive weeks a year, and then unlocked Fridays, which happen on Fridays, and that's where you hear about theology for life and mission and stories to win the world, theology of creativity.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: So if any or all of those three things interest you, you can go to speaklifefoundry.com and the deadline to apply for the year out, so to join us as a student for a year, that's probably the most hands-on experience of Speak Life that you can possibly get.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: It's a really formative opportunity.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: I did it last year, really changed my life.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: So I would highly commend that to you.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: The deadline for that is is approaching quite fast.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh 1st of June.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: So do check out speaklifefoundry.com and if you're if you're interested at all in finding out more or applying.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: And we would love to welcome you here in person.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that's all from me.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: God bless.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Have a lovely Easter and keep looking to Christ.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: See you next time.