The Vineyard Church of North Grand Rapids, MI

1. Hello! My name is Thomas. I’m one of Jesus’ disciples. Yeah, I see some of you snickering already, “Oh, you’re Doubting Thomas.” That’s me. Sue me. I didn’t believe Peter and John (two pranksters I might add) when they told me that the man I saw die nailed to that tree rose from the dead. So make fun if you will, but I bet many of you would have had a few doubts too! I’m here today because I heard that you all are talking about the book called The Shack.

2. The Shack tells the story of a middle aged man named Mack who lives with a Great Sadness. This is not the type of sadness that lifts when he’s around good friends. It doesn’t change when he prays. Its not the result of a chemical imbalance in his brain, so Prozac doesn’t it touch it. Mack’s sadness comes because his heart is sick with grief. You see, his youngest daughter Missy was abducted on a family camping trip and murdered in a shack like this one. This shack represents the worst of life's fear, confusion, pain, and regret-the untimely loss of a child or parent or friend, tragic accidents, criminal violence, shocking losses and reversals, the loss of a job or career, the spiral downward into an addiction, the diagnosis, cancer.

A few years after Missy’s death, Mack receives a note from God inviting him back to the very place where his Great Sadness began - the shack that they discovered Missy had been murdered. Mack was unsure about going because one he thought he was going crazy and two because he was really angry with God and wasn’t sure that he wanted to talk to him. He blamed God for not taking care of Missy. He blamed God for not letting him take care of Missy. He didn’t trust himself around God. He didn’t want to say anything inappropriate.

Mack finally relents and decides to go and see if this isn’t some sort of practical joke. When he finally meets God, he can’t hold all of his anger, hurt and frustration in and he lets God have it. He’s surprised at how understanding God is. He surprised at how approachable Jesus is and how much he seems to understand what Mack is going through.

3. The Shack is a piece of fiction and I want to tell you that the Jesus I know and you see in the bible is even more amazing than the one you see in The Shack. My prayer is that this fictional account of Jesus’ personality will send you racing back to the Bible to see what Jesus was like in real life. I believe you will find that he’s even more stunning in the Bible than he is in The Shack. Let’s take a look at one of those amazing stories now.

Today, I want to tell you my side of the story that you read about in chapter 11 of John’s book. John does a pretty good job telling it, but I think mine’s pretty good too. It all started when we were in a little village in Podunk, Nowhere just beyond the Jordan. Jesus was doing his normal thing teaching, healing the sick and casting out demons. We were helping a little bit with that too! Things were going great until one afternoon I looked up and I see a young boy running toward us. At first, I couldn’t see who it was cause the sun was behind us and he was kicking up quite a bit of dust on the street. Man it was hot that time of the year! As the boy drew nearer, my heart sank. I knew as soon as I saw him who he was. He was one of Mary and Martha’s servants.

Anyways, my heart sank when I realized who the running boy belonged to because I could tell that he had important news and important news is usually bad news. I ran over to the place where the boy was talking to Jesus and my heart sank even more at his news. He said, “The one you love is sick.” Can I just say here that I am against these little pet phrases like “the one you love”. Ok we get it! You and Jesus are really close. You’re BFFs and whatnot. You know why have names? Cause their more unique than “the one you love”. That being said, we all knew right away who the runner was talking about. Jesus had always been close to this family (we would stay at their house when we were in the neighborhood). I was sad because I really like Lazarus. He was a good guy. Funny. Told a great story. I was also sad because this news probably meant that we would have to head back to Bethany. We had just left there because the Jews tried to stone and kill Jesus (and those standing close to him). I don’t like stones especially when they are aimed at my person.

After a time, Jesus said that we were going to Bethany. We all started to protest because we didn’t like people throwing stones at us, but Jesus said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” I thought I had seen our out. We wouldn’t have to go back to the Stoners after all! I said, “Jesus, you know if he’s asleep we should let him be. You know sick people need their rest that’s how they get better when you’re not around.” I was pretty proud of myself that was some quick thinking on my feet.

Jesus responded, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I’m glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Wah, wah, wah. Thwarted again! I mumbled to the other disciples, “saddle up boys, we’re going back to die with him.” I wasn’t alone. We were all scared to go back there.

So, we started out on the one day journey back to Bethany. I usually hate traveling when its that hot out, but I can barely remember that trip. My thoughts were only on the sad fact that our friend Lazarus was dead and we were probably going to join him.

All I know is that by the end of the next day, I was hot, covered in dust and ready to rest when we turned off the main road towards little Bethany and there before us was Martha. She looked awful. Now, I know you’re not supposed to say that about a lady, but she did. She too was covered in dust, but she also looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in days. The only clean spot on her were the streaks on her face made by her tears. He face was puffy and her eyes were red. She looked like she was dying.

She ran up to Jesus and shouted, “You’re too late! He’s been dead for FOUR DAYS! Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you want.” She was half accusing, half pleading. She immediately put her hand to her mouth as if to stop the flood of emotion pouring out. She looked startled like she couldn’t believe she spoke to the teacher like that.

Jesus wasn’t startled. He was as gentle as he ever was with people with broken hearts. He simply put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Martha, my dear friend, your brother will rise again.”

Martha was trying to get back on solid, proper footing when she responded, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” As she tried to compose her self, my heart broke for her. I saw her doing the same thing I had seen so many others do. She was trying to put on a front before Jesus.

My heart broke for her. I wanted to pull her aside and explain ...

Got a BONE to pick with GOD? Jesus isn’t OFFENDED.

1. It was plain to everyone around that Martha had a lot more to say. Her face was a mixture of grief, pain and anger. She held it all in. She didn’t want to tell Jesus what she was thinking. What she was feeling. Instead, she bit her tongue and gave the expected proper, religious answers. I want to know where this idea that you can’t be honest with Jesus came from? This belief that we can’t let God see what we are feeling. Do you think that Jesus will be offended by our emotions? He’s not. I assure you that Jesus is neither shocked or offended by your anger, confusion or any other emotion that you might have.

2. Look at the people that Jesus chose to spend time with. I can’t tell you how many parties I went to with Jesus at the houses of unscrupulous business men, thieves, prostitutes. Do you think that group didn’t have strong feelings and frustrations with God? Jesus would sit and listen to their complaints. Us disciples haven’t always been a tightlipped crew either. I can’t tell you how many times, I saw Peter get mad at the Teacher. Oh and King David - boy did Jesus love King David. He would go on and on about how David was a man after his own heart. He loved how open and honest David was - when he was angry he would tell God. When he was sad, he would tell God. When he was confused, he would tell God. Jesus ate that up. Jesus was always looking for people that would trust him completely and open their hearts to him. Look at the people that he hung out with. Do you think he didn’t get a lot of angry comments from people like tax-collectors and prostitutes? Do you think that men and women who have been paralyzed for their entire lives had glowing reviews for God? Do you think mothers whose children had gone suddenly blind didn’t have sharp words for God?

3. Friends, the fact is that some of you here are mad at God. You’ve been praying for a job for so long that you can’t remember when it wasn’t at the top of your list. Some of you have been praying for years that God would give you children and it hasn’t happened. Some of you have had to watch your loved ones die of terrible diseases way before they should have gone. Some of you have suffered terribly at the hands of evil men and women. MORE. For many of you those emotions have become walls between you and God. They are the elephant in the room whenever you attempt to worship, pray, or draw close to him. You don’t want to voice it, but every time you hold it in you feel yourself drifting farther and farther away from your loving father. I want to tell you, Jesus is not afraid, offended, or off-put by your emotions. He longs for you to open up and share your heart with him. Tell him how you feel. Shout if you have to. Cry, weep, swear. If there is anything between you and him - let it out. He’s not offended. If you have to go through rage before you get to brokenness and love so be it. If you have to go wrestle through doubt before you arrive at faith - he’s game for that to. Later, I am going to give you an opportunity to get it all out on the table. To lay it all on the line. If you do not, I am afraid you will miss out on one of the greatest blessings you can find in your pain.

TRANS: Anyways, Martha didn’t understand this at the time. She bit her tongue, said all the right things, and kept Jesus at arms length. She looked embarrassed by the display that her sister Mary put on, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Martha wasn’t also a little jealous because Jesus’ reaction to Mary’s sorrow reminded me that ...

When life is at its WORST, there is nothing BETTER than Jesus by your SIDE.

1. From the moment that she arrived, you could see that Mary must have come running as soon as she heard that Jesus was here. Like her sister, she was without shoes and she was covered in dust. Her face was puffy from days of crying and when she spoke her voice was hoarse. When she saw Jesus, the tears began to roll down her face again, she uttered the same complaint that Martha had, “Jesus, if you would have been here my brother would not have died!” But unlike her sister, she did not keep a stiff upper lip, she collapsed at the Masters feet and wept. There was a murmur of disapproval by some in the crowd, but not from Jesus. Even us disciples were shocked. He told us that he was going to wake him up, but he still wept with Mary. We couldn’t believe how much he cared about how she felt in this moment.

Jesus knelt down and put his arms around her and began to weep too. It was a sight that we disciples had seen time and time again, but it was always moving. Here was God’s Anointed one in the dirt weeping - not with a King or priest - but with some poor girl in a tiny village in the middle of no where.

Mary didn’t say anything and for a long time Jesus didn’t either. He just sat there and held her and cried with her. Nothing broke his concentration on her. Not the people milling about, not the murmurs of impatience. Jesus with Mary and Mary was with Jesus. I believe it was that moment that prompted Mary to later take her life’s savings to buy perfume to pour over Jesus. 

2. I came to realize later that Jesus was so good at comforting people in their Great Sadness because of the road he was walking to the cross. He knows what it is like to have all of his dignity stripped from him. He knows what it is like to be abused. He knows what it is like to be all alone and he knows what it is like to suffer. I saw him sweat blood. I know he suffered alone because I was one of the people that deserted him. He knows what you are going through.

3. Friends, I have noticed a tendency over the years for people to pull back when they go through a personal tragedy. They pull down the blinds of their heart and they lock the door. Now, I’m not saying that you’ve stopped believing. Quite the opposite, in fact. I know that some of you have become even more ardent about your faith in Jesus and his teachings. But I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have to face this sadness by yourself. Jesus wants to be by your side. Jesus wants to enter into the heart of your sadness into the thick of your suffering. He wants to be with you. Slow down this morning. You don’t have to be right. You don’t have to take care of yourself. You don’t have to take care of this problem. Draw close to Jesus and let him comfort you.

Don’t lose HOPE. Jesus goes to BATTLES to set the world RIGHT.

1. After a long time of Jesus holding and crying with Mary, he stood up and asked “Where have you laid him.” Lazarus’ tomb was not far off. As we approached the place the people’s cries became louder and louder. Now, I saw in your bible’s earlier that that translators have done my friend John a disservice. They translated John’s words to say that Jesus was “once more deeply moved” as he approached the tomb. HA! I’ll say he was “deeply moved” he looked like a boxer right before the bell. The rage that he felt as he faced that tomb was palpable. It became clear to everyone that his tears were not simply to comfort Mary and her sister. His tears were also born of a long standing rage that the people that he created and loved still suffered. He stood there looking at this tomb - a symbol of all that he hated about this world - he let out a sound like an angry horse.

I was filled with awe as I watched him. It was clear he was not there to mourn like you or I. You and I don’t have any power over the great injustices of the world (like death), so we try to cope with it in other ways. We don’t dare say that someone died - its too painful. We say that they passed away. We don’t want to think about their bodies going into the ground to decay and be eaten by worms, so we buy them plush coffins. We try to make things appear better than they are.

Jesus didn’t do this. You could see in the way he stood, in the way his body shook that he was not downplaying anything in this moment. Suddenly I realized that every time my heart had leapt in my heart and shout “This is not fair” in the face of death - I was right. Every time I had wanted to scream in the face of injustice, “This NOT THE WAY ITS SUPPOSED TO BE.” I was right. At that moment Jesus was standing against every Great Sadness I had ever known or heard of. At that moment, he looked like one of your western cowboys at a high noon showdown.

And I loved him for it.

“Take the stone away,” he murmured so low I barely caught what he said. Martha tried to protest, “Lord, he’s been in there for four days. By this time,” she was crying again, “by this time his body has a bad odor.” She didn’t want to revisit the pain. But Jesus insisted, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? Don’t lose hope, Martha.”

The men moved the stone away and Jesus prayed out, “Father, I thank you that you hear me. You always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of all these people here afraid that you don’t love them or care about their Great Sadness.”

When he finished he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” I heard something move in the tomb, but I couldn’t see in from where I stood. Then I heard someone standing at a different angle shout and begin to cry and pray. Then I saw him. I fell to my knees. I realized I had been holding my breath for a long time and my head was swimming. There he was. Lazarus was back from the dead. Jesus had done it.

2. When we’ve been living with a Great Sadness for a long time, its easy to lose hope. Its easy to become like Martha or Mack and try to stay as far away from the source of our pain as possible. But Jesus insists. He hates that thing which has cause you pain. That sin. That injustice. Jesus existence validates all of those feelings you have. Life is NOT supposed to be this way. Your loved one was not meant to suffer with that illness. Your family was not supposed to abandoned you. You were not meant to live hand to mouth because you couldn’t find a job. But friends, don’t lose hope. Run to Jesus over and over again and ask him to heal you. Ask him to change your situation. I know that many of you have been asking Jesus to answer your prayers for years. You feel like you are at the end of your rope. Don’t lose hope. Jesus would later tell us that the most important thing was for us to remain in him. To stay close to him.

Don’t DOUBT it - Jesus LOVES you!

1. As Lazarus came out of his tomb, Mary and Martha rushed to his side. They almost knocked him over because of the strips of linen wrapped around his legs. Jesus laughed and shouted, “Take off the grave clothes! Let this man go.” I smiled because he sounded like Moses. I also couldn’t help but remember something that Jesus had said to Martha earlier in the day. He had told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

I hadn’t understood this when he first said it. I thought he was talking about the resurrection at the end of time. I’m sure that there were a few people there who now believed that he meant that people who believed in him would never go to the grave. But that wasn’t it either. I finally began to see what he meant. He is our resurrection. He is our life. All of us who live our lives with him will never be dead in hopelessness. No matter what Great Sadness we find ourselves overcome with, we don’t have to let it defeat us. Sure our hearts will be broken and we will have to recover and pick up the pieces, but with Jesus by our side that is actually possible. We can actually live in the midst of this broken world because we know (KNOW) that he loves us and we will never be alone.

Do you believe this? We’ve got a choice in all of this. We can choose to believe the story going on in our own head.

You’ve read Mack’s story and now you’ve heard my story. I want to give you an opportunity to step into your own story. Jesus is here this morning, waiting, longing, to step into your great sadness in the same way that he stepped into Mack’s. In the same way he stepped into Mary’s. Do you believe it? If you believe it, let’s put some action behind that belief. I want to ask you to stand up and ...

This is the time in our service where we invite you to make a decision or take a step to close the gap between where you and where God is inviting you to be. If you're thinking that there are some walls between you and God, it's time to turn toward him and take a couple baby steps to close that gap.

1. Turn toward him in your mind's eye. Decide to look him in the face and be completely honest about how it is. Close your eyes and make the decision.

2. Tell him what's wrong, what's eating at you, what you're angry about, confused about, so sad about. Do this silently. Talk to God like you'd talk to a counselor or trusted friend.

3. Tell him that you need him. Ask him to give you the things you can seem to find within yourself. Ask him to fill you with his love, his joy, his Spirit.

4. If you're doing more than listening to me talk to you . . . if you're actually talking to God, I'm going to invite you to stand up where you are like it might really be raining hope, love, and faith down on you. Stand up where you are, open your heart to his favor, and receive his love. Keep your eyes closed. Maybe reach out and cup your hands as though you were catching rain drops of grace.

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