John 11:3-6

When disappointments come your way in life, it is easy to blame yourself or others—or even both. Frequently it is difficult to know what to say or do because you cannot quite identify the real cause or purpose of the letdown.

Disappointment is often an emotional response to our own failure—or someone else’s—to achieve a desire, hope, dream, or goal. This can lead to losing faith in someone on whom we were depending—perhaps even a person we love.

The gospel of John tells us that Jesus loved Martha, her sister Mary, and their brother Lazarus. Because of this, they didn’t sense the need to tell the Lord anything more than “He whom You love is sick” (John 11:3). Their expectation was that as soon as Jesus heard this, He would come and heal their brother. But He didn’t set out for two more days.

When He arrived, Martha came out to meet Him and said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died”(v. 21). She’d had the expectation that He would come right away, thereby saving Lazarus’s life. She didn’t see His purpose, which was to perform a greater miracle.

God has reasons for permitting us to experience disappointments. He could prevent them, but He wants to show us His purpose. His desire is that we will trust and believe—and let our circumstance bring glory to Him (vv. 4, 25).

When disappointments come, will you be stalled and derailed from God’s plans for your life? Or will you find yourself open to what He wants to show you and eager to understand His purpose and lesson in those situations? The right response is simply to trust Him.

John 14:1-6

In My Father’s house are many mansions; . . . I go to prepare a place for you. —John 14:2

Once, during my tenure as a human resource officer for a construction company, we took some jobs in a neighboring state. This meant our workers were faced with a 2-hour commute each way, plus a full workday. To ease the burden, we booked motel rooms for the week, but we also arranged vans and drivers to transport those who decided to commute. Almost every worker took the vans!

One of our grumpiest workers discarded his usual demeanor as he described the thrill and surprise of his wife and four boys on the first night. He hadn’t told them he had an option to come home, so he showed up unexpectedly to surprise them. Later his wife called to thank the company owner, telling him their family was “loyal for life” to anyone who understood how important home was to workers.

Anyone who has been deprived of home, even for a short time, will understand the comfort Jesus’ disciples drew from His words when He promised that an eternal home awaited them (John 14:2). Then, to make their joy complete, Jesus told them He would prepare and guide them to that home, and, joy of joys, He would be there too (v.3).

Remember the greatest comfort of this life: Jesus promised that one day we will go home to be with Him. —Randy Kilgore

Heavenly Father, we praise You for these words

from Jesus that touch the deepest longing in

our soul—the hope and comfort of home. We

want to be with You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

There is no place like home— especially when home is heaven.

On May 6, 1937, radio commentator Herbert Morrison sat at the Naval airbase in Lakehurst, New Jersey waiting for the arrival of the Zeppelin Hindenburg, the largest airship that had ever flown. It was twelve hours behind schedule and, doubtless, Morrison was glad to begin recording: “Toward us, like a great feather … is the Hindenburg. The members of the crew are looking down on the field ahead of them getting their glimpses of the mooring mast…”(1)

 But three hundred feet over its intended landing spot, the Hindenburg shockingly burst into flames. It was destroyed in precisely 32 seconds, all before the unbelieving eyes of 1,000 spectators. Morrison’s breathless account of the tragedy remains a sad and recognized piece of American journalism, particularly his cry “Oh the humanity!” which resonated with the impact of the disaster.

 This phrase is now synonymous with any expression of surprise or strong emotion, but it was originally uttered by Morrison as a lament for the human vulnerability so brazenly materializing before him. As burning wreckage came crashing onto the ground and the crowd underneath did not seem to have time to escape, humanity appeared small and susceptible, and his was a cry of lament. The symbol of German grandeur, the aircraft deemed the largest and the safest, was suddenly an image of the fragility of human life.

 Often reclaimed in times of despair or calamity, the image of human life as vulnerable comes as a shock, even though we know it to be an accurate picture. We are not the towering pillars of strength we sometimes believe, but clay at best, which breaks and falls into pieces before our eyes. It is an image we receive with disbelief, if not indignation. Consequently, because we are so often reminded of human weakness in the midst of tragedy, it is easy—and often valid—to associate vulnerability with lament. Sitting beside a cancer patient who has fought the disease with everything she has and is still losing the battle, fragility is something to bemoan. Standing within a refugee camp, where disease is rampant and the death rate unthinkable, human frailty is not only lamentable, it is infuriating. The same jumbled mix of lament and fury fit the violent and despairing scenes of Boston this week as well. Human vulnerability can be heartbreaking. We might ask, is it justifiable to see the inherent weakness of humanity as anything other than something to bemoan?

 Not unlike the tragedies that jar us awake, the gospel and the cross within it remind us that human life is not invincible. Jesus spoke readily of his own death and wept at the grave of a friend. He crumbled in Gethsemane under the weight of the coming cross, sweating blood and praying in anguish. In reality, at the very heart of Christianity is one who reminds us that humanity, like grass and flowers, withers and falls. The apostle Paul, too, racked with persecution, shipwrecks, and beatings, wrote of our bodies as clay jars, hastening back the image of David who lamented that he had become like “broken pottery.” Scripture clearly puts forth the story of a fleeting and afflicted humanity.

 And yet importantly, this image is not always put forth as a lament. Far from this, Christ calls to us within our weakness and within his own weakness, demonstrating that suffering is not unfamiliar to him and beckoning us to live as he lived. In the cruciform image of Jesus on the cross, we find the staggering hope of redemption in tragedy, healing in brokenness, even the possibility of meaning in affliction. Further, the broken and yet standing Christ himself is reason for strength in weakness. As Paul writes, “[W]e have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:7-10).

 The Christian story does not merely tell of the life to come, of resurrection and restoration, certainty and comfort; Christ is not an escape raft for the hard realities of this world. On the contrary, the gospel must figure into what we think about our humanity in the midst of it all. Jesus extends an example of what it means to be human here and now, through suffering, in tragedy, when vulnerability and helplessness lay us low. Here, lamentation is so often befitting, but its counterpart is not out of reach. For quite thankfully, Jesus is not only familiar with the tragic sense of human frailty, he also willingly embraced weakness, that he could carry us through our own.

 Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

 (1) “Oh, the Humanity!” Time Magazine, Monday, May 17, 1937.

You have come…To the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:22,24

Reader, have you come to “the sprinkled blood”? The question is not whether you have come to a knowledge of doctrine or an observance of ceremonies or to a certain form of experience, but have you come to the blood of Jesus?

The blood of Jesus is the life of all vital godliness. If you have truly come to Jesus, we know how you came–the Holy Spirit kindly brought you there. You came to the sprinkled blood with no merits of your own. Guilty, lost, and helpless, you came to take that blood, and that blood alone, as your everlasting hope. You came to the cross of Christ with a trembling and an aching heart; and what a precious sound it was to you to hear the voice of the blood of Jesus!

The dropping of His blood is as the music of heaven to the penitents of earth. We are full of sin, but the Savior bids us lift our eyes to Him; and as we gaze upon His streaming wounds, each drop of blood, as it falls, cries, “It is finished; I have made an end of sin; I have brought in everlasting righteousness.”

Sweet language of the precious blood of Jesus! If you have come to that blood once, you will come to it constantly. Your life will be “looking to Jesus.” Your whole conduct will be epitomized in this–“to whom coming.” Not to whom I have come, but to whom I am always coming. If you have ever come to the sprinkled blood, you will feel your need of coming to it every day. He who does not desire to wash in it every day has never washed in it at all. Believers constantly feel it to be their joy and privilege that there is still a fountain opened. Past experiences are doubtful food for Christians; a present coming to Christ alone can give us joy and comfort. This morning let us sprinkle our doorpost fresh with blood, and then feast upon the Lamb, assured that the destroying angel must pass us by.

“Is it not a little one?” Genesis 19:20

Suggested Further Reading: Romans 2:1-11

There is a deep pit, and the soul is falling down,—oh how fast it is falling! There! The last ray of light at the top has disappeared, and it falls on and on and on, and so it goes on falling—on and on and on—for a thousand years! “Is it not getting near the bottom yet? No, you are no nearer the bottom yet: it is the “bottomless pit;” it is on and on and on, and so the soul goes on falling, perpetually, into a deeper depth still, falling for ever into the “bottomless pit” and on and on and on, into the pit that has no bottom! Woe without termination, without hope of coming to a conclusion. The same dreadful idea is contained in those words, “The wrath to come.” Notice, hell is always “the wrath to come.” If a man has been in hell a thousand years, it is still “to come.” What you have suffered in the past is as nothing, in the dread account, for still the wrath is “to come.” And when the world has grown grey with age, and the fires of the sun are quenched in darkness, it is still “the wrath to come.” And when other worlds have sprung up, and have turned into their palsied age, it is still “the wrath to come.” And when your soul, burnt through and through with anguish, sighs at last to be annihilated, even then this awful thunder shall be heard, “the wrath to come—to come—to come.” Oh, what an idea! I know not how to utter it! And yet for little sins, remember you incur “the wrath to come.”

For meditation: This shocking description can give only a faint idea of the just punishment of our sins. Are you trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver you from the wrath to come? He is able to do it because he suffered the wrath of his loving heavenly Father on the cross (Romans 5:9;

1 Thessalonians 1:10).

“We may not know, we cannot tell, What pains He had to bear;

But we believe it was for us, He hung and suffered there.”

Do you?

Sermon no. 248

17 April (1859)

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).

By the time Jesus arrived, Israel was in a desperate condition spiritually. The Jewish people were in bondage to the oppressive legalism of the Pharisees, who had developed a system of laws that were impossible to keep. Consequently, the people lacked security and were longing for a savior to free them from guilt and frustration. They knew God had promised a redeemer who would forgive their sins and cleanse their hearts (Ezek. 36:25-27), but they weren’t sure when He was coming or how to identify Him when He arrived.

The enormous response to John the Baptist’s ministry illustrates the level of expectancy among the people. Matthew 3:5-6 says, “Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.” The uppermost question in everyone’s mind seemed to be, “How can I enter the kingdom of heaven?”

Jesus Himself was asked that question by many people in different ways. In Luke 10:25 a lawyer asks, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” In Luke 18:18 a rich young ruler asks exactly the same thing. In John 6:28 a multitude asks, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Nicodemus, a prominent Jewish religious leader, came to Jesus at night with the same question, but before he could ask it, Jesus read his thoughts and said, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

As devoutly religious as those people might have been, they would remain spiritually lost unless they placed their faith in Christ. That’s the only way to enter the kingdom.

Still today many people look for relief from sin and guilt. God can use you to share Christ with some of them. Ask Him for that privilege and be prepared when it comes.

Suggestions for Prayer:

Pray for those enslaved to legalistic religious systems.

Be sure there is no sin in your life to hinder God’s work through you.

For Further Study:

Read Galatians 3.

Why did Paul rebuke the Galatians?

What was the purpose of the Old Testament law?