It was 1968.
Two girls, best friends in their mid-teens, appeared out of nowhere in a church in Cronulla.
Both were invited to come along to Youth Group.
Three weeks later, at a Youth Group Camp, both came to faith in Christ.
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
One of the girls had arrived from Ireland with her family less than three years before.
Four years later we were married. That was almost half a century ago.
The other girl, Karen, later married a pastor, Graeme Hulls.
This week, Graeme died.
We all weep with Karen, for Karen, for the family who have lost a father, brother… and for ourselves.
Behold the One who is God
John sets out in his gospel to tell us that Jesus is God.
From the introduction (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”) through to the climax of Thomas’s confession (“My Lord and my God!”) John relentlessly pursues his purpose “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”… and “that believing you may have life in His name.”
In the middle of his gospel he presents the greatest evidence of all short of Jesus’ own resurrection: the raising of Lazarus.
Here is proof that (as Jesus claims): “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”
Jesus is all that God is, “without body, parts, or passions.”
“Behold THE Man”
But Jesus had a body.
And… Jesus wept (John 11:35).
Jesus felt. He felt the sense of loss.
He felt strong emotions at the tomb of Lazarus.
David Murray, in his excellent sermon on this text, observes that emotions and feelings can be sinful.
- Emotions are sinful when they arise from a sinful cause, eg. immoral sexual passion.
- Emotions are sinful when they are less than they should be, eg. forcing mourners at a funeral into celebration in order to suppress grief and the truth that sin has brought grief into the world.
- Emotions are sinful when they are more than is right, eg. throwing a fit over a minor personal offence.
But feeling and emotion themselves are proper to being human.
And grief and tears are proper to being human in a fallen world.
Jesus is fully human.
Jesus is perfect human.
And Jesus “burst into tears”.
Being fully human, Jesus was always growing, always learning (Heb 5:8).
But in John 11 Jesus has little more to learn: He is barely three months off the crucifixion.
Here is Jesus at the height of maturity.
Yes, real men do cry.
Jesus wept.
He has felt loss; He feels what it is to mourn.
He feels for those who mourn.
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”
Graeme and Karen had both faced times of incredible pain and loss at times throughout their lives, even before Graeme became sick.
Then, about the time Graeme retired, when most couples look forward to some years of leisurely enjoying the Lord and each other in reasonable health, Graeme became sick.
Yet what struck Eileen and me in our (long distance) conversations with them, was the way the Lord was upholding them in peace and good spirits.
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.
“Behold how He loved him!”
Jesus wept (John 11:35).
Jesus wept because He loved Lazarus (John 11:36).
Love brings pain when love is lost.
We weep when we lose one we love.
We are our relationships.
We are not defined by our earthly relationships: ultimately we are defined by who we are in Christ.
But our earthly life is bound up with our relationships on earth.
And, when we lose someone dear to us we lose part of who we are.
I remember feeling that even when a dear soul in our church, who was almost a hundred, died.
I was half her age. But I had visited her regularly and something of who I was, was shaped by the conversations we had had together.
Then she was gone. And so was part of me.
Jesus wept to lose Lazarus.
Normally He would have known where Lazarus would now be and could not but be happy for him. (Though, in view of what was about to take place, did God mercifully keep Lazarus from consciously entering heaven, only to have to lose it again?)
But Jesus had lost part of who He was.
He wept.
Mary and Martha wept to lose Lazarus.
They had lost part of who they were.
They at least – among all the mourners that day – were not weeping as those without hope.
Martha knew, she confessed: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
But still, she had lost part of her life on this earth.
Jesus knows that.
“We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb 4:15)
He knows what you go through.
He has promised to go through it with you.
The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
“I am the resurrection and the life”
But more than just a promise for this life, Christ gives us a promise for a life to come.
In response to Martha’s confession of her faith in the resurrection, Jesus told her:
I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.
Then Jesus asked Martha:
Do you believe this?
We don’t just believe in the resurrection.
We believe in Christ, who IS the resurrection.
Martha understood this – and in one of the few confessions in Jesus as the Christ in the gospels, responded:
Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.
There is our hope.
That is why, though we sorrow (and so we should) we “do not sorrow as others who have no hope.”
Because, “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”
Then:
The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thes 4:13-17)
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil.
A life of joy and peace.
Amazing Grace
On this very day (15th March) 21 years
ago, with the support of the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Melbourne, and after many months of prayer and preparation, Graeme and the church there commenced weekly broadcasts on a community radio station with a program titled “Amazing Grace”.
Graeme had had previous experience in broadcasting. And now, with an aim particularly to reach the unsaved he set out “to clearly and simply present the gospel message of Christ’s death for sinners.”
The program included traditional Christian hymns, a scripture reading, a short exposition and occasional interviews and news items.
“Amazing Grace” saw amazing growth.
Within 18 month the program was broadcast across six radio stations, in four states.
Three years later that had expanded to nine radio stations across five states.
In its heyday it was on 20 stations around Australia, New Zealand, Africa and South East Asia.
This all came at a cost, with Graeme in full time ministry, and other leaders in the church with full time jobs.
Even before the broadcasts got off the ground, Graeme and the church were met by refusals for air time from several local stations.
There were also constant deadlines to be met. Karen “remembers sometimes taking the program to Eastern FM at 5 minutes to midnight – the deadline being midnight.”
There were encouraging responses, but also discouragements.
“It would have been easy to give up,” said Graeme. “But we were convinced there was not only a need for a clear and simple gospel ministry on local radio, but that the Lord had given us, within our congregation, gifts and abilities that seemed so well suited to this kind of work.”
Graeme stuck at it till the end, right up till a month before he died.
Thank God for plodders
In the end it is not about “success”, but faithfulness in proclaiming God’s Word.
As Sutherland Presbyterian Reformed Church posted recently:
It seems that God is less concerned with success in terms of money and reputation than we are. In fact, those who are less successful in the world’s sight show the grace of God most clearly.
Don’t fall for the trap of seeking success above everything else…
In the end, what is far more important is that you are faithful. This means that we trust God and are obedient whatever happens. We need to be people who are consistent in prayer, striving to glorify God and serve others, people who love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Before he died, Carey told his nephew:
If after my removal any one should think it worth his while to write my life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge its correctness. If he gives me credit for being a plodder, he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much.
I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit.
To this I owe everything.
Thank God for plodders.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit”
In a talk on Matt 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”, Graeme said:
There is no doubt that all of us desire to be happy. We look for happiness. But our ideas of what happiness consists in and how we obtain it differ greatly…
The Lord Jesus Christ said that those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, that these are the blessed ones. He said they are happy.
Now, you might say, I don’t think that sounds much like happiness! This is the paradox: when it sounds like we’re going to lose — that’s when we gain real happiness and blessing…
To be poor in spirit means to have a deep sense of our own sinfulness in the sight of God. It is a realisation that we have no good within us, that there’s not even a spark deep down. We know we deserve nothing from God and that we are totally dependent upon His mercy in Jesus Christ. The poor in spirit are those who see nothing in themselves but look to Christ for everything…
God receives those who acknowledge that they are spiritually destitute and who depend upon His mercy and grace in Christ. A broken and a contrite heart He will not despise.
This spirit is essential to our salvation from sin and it’s also the way to live…
Can you say with the writer of the hymn, ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me’?
Christ says, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.
Now Graeme’s is the kingdom of heaven.
While “we eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.” (Phil 3:20-21
When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.
. – John Newton