Psalm 124
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 If the Lord had not been on our side—
    let Israel say—
2 if the Lord had not been on our side
    when people attacked us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
    when their anger flared against us;
4 the flood would have engulfed us,
    the torrent would have swept over us,
5 the raging waters
    would have swept us away.
6 Praise be to the Lord,
    who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
7 We have escaped like a bird
    from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
    and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

What if?

We’re good at asking that question. We might ask it in regret: “What if I hadn’t turned down that big job offer?” Or we might ask out of fear: “What if I lose something or someone that I love?”

Other times, the question comes up when we realize how narrowly we escaped disaster. “What if that were my car on the side of the QEII?” “What if I made a different choice and never met my spouse?” “What if the doctors hadn’t thought to test for one more thing ‘just in case’?”

In Psalm 124, David points out another close call—with a question we can ask in any of those scenarios and more: What if the Lord had not been on our side?

Maybe that’s a question you haven’t considered as much, since God has been on your side since before you can remember. Or maybe you can remember very well a time of your life when you were certainly not on God’s side. Either way, David paints a clear picture of what the only alternative would be: Disaster.

If the Lord had not been on our side—let Israel say—if the Lord had not been on our side when…[1] Fill in the blank. Here are some scenarios David came up with:

…when the people attacked us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us.[2]
The flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away.[3]

We can easily think of ways things could go horribly wrong if God weren’t watching over us. Dozens of disasters could have occurred just on your daily commute—in addition to all the close calls we actually notice. We do what we can to mitigate those risks, but we know that ultimately it’s up to God what happens.

But this psalm isn’t only talking about God watching over us—we heard that from Psalm 121 a few weeks ago. This psalm is talking about God being “on our side.” In other words: What if God were against you? What if he were your enemy?

Then things get a little more frightening. Then we read this hypothetical in a new light:

If the Lord had not been on our side… he would have swallowed us alive when his anger flared against us.

It wouldn’t be without precedent. God once did exactly that—a man named Korah led a rebellion against Moses, which was really a rebellion against God, who had put Moses in charge. So the Lord dealt swift judgment: the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households… They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned.[4] What if there were nothing to stop his righteous anger from flaring again?

If the Lord had not been on our side… the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us…

We’ve seen God do that before too, haven’t we? What if he hadn’t given Noah the rainbow as a contract, or if he had included a clause that let him sweep us away with some other natural disaster?

Natural disasters aren’t even the greatest of our concerns. Here’s another scenario that I’ll be thinking about the next few days: If the Lord had not been on our side, there would be no Holy Week. No reason for God to enter Jerusalem in the flesh on Palm Sunday. No gift of Holy Communion instituted for our forgiveness on Holy Thursday. No one to suffer hell in our place on Good Friday. No guarantee that we have anything but death to look forward to on Easter morning.

What if the Lord had not been on our side? We shudder to imagine—because there’s only one alternative.

After considering how near we were to our doom, Psalm 124 leaves us asking another question: Why? How are we even breathing? What could have caused God to take our side, to go to such great lengths to rescue us from certain death, when we rebellious sinners would have murdered his own Son if given the chance?

David doesn’t give a direct answer. He doesn’t try to rationalize God’s inexplicable, incredible love for us. He simply praises God that he did not withhold his love when we needed it most.

Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped.[5]

When we were as helpless as a lion’s lunch, God’s perfect Lamb went without complaint to be slaughtered in our place. Though we have many times stuck our heads into the devil’s snares and trapped ourselves in temptation like a bird caught in a noose, Jesus allowed himself to be bound, nailed, and entombed to free us from the bonds of sin and death forever.

God did not simply switch sides—he brought us over to his side, converting enemies into allies and placing our souls under his eternal care. So David declares what could be our battle cry: Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.[6]

As we wrap up this series of songs on the way up, nearing the peak of Jerusalem and the high point of all history, here is one more question to consider: What if the Lord is on our side? What if God did enter Jerusalem in the flesh on Palm Sunday, and offered the gift of his body and blood for our forgiveness on Holy Thursday, and suffered hell in our place on Good Friday, and rose from the dead to guarantee us eternal life on Easter morning? What if our help comes from the one who reveals not only his power, but also his unwavering commitment to his people?

Well, then nothing in heaven or on earth can take us from his side. Then we can always count on the Lord to deliver our souls from disaster. Then we can answer every “What if?” with the promise of what is in Christ.

Then we can join our hearts in an eternal song: Praise be to the Lord—our help, our Maker, our God on our side. Amen.

[1] Psalm 124:1,2

[2] Psalm 124:2,3

[3] Psalm 124:4,5

[4] Numbers 16:31-33

[5] Psalm 124:6,7

[6] Psalm 124:8

John 11:17-27,38-45

17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“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.”
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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.”
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Jesus Is the Resurrection and the Life

Throughout the season of Lent, we’ve been gifted the opportunity to observe an escalation and intensification of confrontation with Jesus.

Nicodemus was a member of the opposition – and not just a nominal member, but a member of the executive committee, i.e. the Jewish ruling council. Just his presence there that night would have raised the hackles and blood pressure of any of Jesus’ followers. And yet, in his way, Jesus de-escalated the situation while at the same time answering deeper questions than Nicodemus asked, ultimately leading to the glorious Gospel of John 3:16.

The Samaritan woman at the well was the wrong race and gender for Jesus to have a private conversation with. There was too much baggage and the optics were not good. She didn’t even seem particularly keen on having a conversation with him, but he drew her in as she drew him water and he laid bare her soul – which, in any other setting, would have been terrifying, but he offered her the living water that would more than quench the yearning that had been the driving force for so many of her misguided decisions for so long.

Nicodemus wanted answers. The Samaritan woman wanted satisfaction. The blind man just wanted to see. He wanted to live life normally, with the same fundamental physical abilities so many of us take for granted every day. So, Jesus obliged, and opened his eyes to more than just all the colours of the rainbow, but to the face of his Saviour.

If we were to chart these Gospel narratives into some sort of hierarchy of needs or spiritual food pyramid, they’d line up neatly in order. The pursuit of answers to abstract, existential questions is a luxury you can only pursue when all the rest of your needs have been met. Satisfaction (should) almost always follow the basic necessities, like your ability to provide for yourself and navigate this life. But there’s another layer. A deeper one. One that is absolutely non-negotiable and even more basic than any of your five senses. It’s life itself.

Four days is an eternity, especially when someone’s life – a loved one’s life – is on the line. Four days is an eternity, especially when you had already sent word to the one person in the world who has the power to heal disease and restore sight to the blind – who also happens to be a close family friend – and he hasn’t come yet. Four days is an eternity, to wait and to wonder and to question and to doubt and to grieve.

Martha gets a lot of grief for tidying up the house on that one day that Jesus came to visit, but you have to give her credit here. Could you have been so measured? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”[1] If it were me, there’d be a whole lot more exclamation points after that sentence. If it were me, the next words out of my mouth grammatically would have been a question, but would have sounded like an accusation. “Where were you? What took you so long? What gives? Don’t we matter? Didn’t he matter?”

But that’s not what Martha said, and we have to marvel at the measure of her faith. Four days of sitting in her grief, while many other people come to comfort her and the one person she wants there still hasn’t shown his face. Four days, and Martha says, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”[2]

She couldn’t have possibly known how right she was. She even demonstrates as much in the next exchange. Jesus literally tells her what’s about to happen – “Your brother will rise again”[3] – and she dismisses it as this far-off future promise – “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”[4]

And I can’t help but have this thought: we are Martha. Believers who put our hope in Jesus and all these magnificent promises he gives us about this eternal future that awaits us, but we have no idea how the next five minutes of our lives will unfold. “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”[5] “Amen,” we’d say. In fact, we will in a few minutes’ time as we confess our faith in the Apostles’ Creed, while at the same time barely comprehending the profound truth that Jesus proclaims.

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”[6]

Jesus is the “I am.” It’s a common enough way to start a sentence, but out of the mouth of Jesus and followed by words like this, the Jewish ear couldn’t help but hear Exodus: “I am who I am. The Lord, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.”[7]

I am is the Lord, the covenant name of God that communicates his eternal faithfulness to his promises, to his people. Martha is right to call him the Messiah. He is the fulfillment of all his promises going back to Eden.

And that I am is the resurrection and the life.

The stone that sealed the tomb and the four-day stench of death it contained, were the only sermon Jesus needed to convey the serious consequence of sin. Every cemetery you drive by, every tombstone you see, every anniversary of the day a loved one died, is a reminder of the reality that defines our life: The wages of sin is death.[8] There’d be no death if there were no sin. But there is death because there is sin, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,[9] even those precious people we’ve loved and lost.

But Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and here – on the doorstep of Holy Week and Easter – Jesus clarifies the purpose and the product of what further escalation and intensification of confrontation still lay ahead. It wasn’t all going to be glory. It wasn’t all going to be miracles. The man who is life would die. The sinless one would suffer for our sin. The one person in the whole world who should have never been placed in a grave would have a similar stone sealing him in too.

And he did it all for you, so that the one who believes in him not would live or could live but will live. There’s power in that future. There’s no doubt or question or curiosity of possibility. There’s certainty because of his sacrifice and the resurrection that he will literally embody in 2 weeks’ time, when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord at Easter.

We are Martha, because we believe in our Messiah and the picture of the eternal future that he paints for us, while still not knowing how to live the next five minutes that are before us.

Jesus is us – or at least us as we should be and can be – as he comes to the tomb of Lazarus once more deeply moved.[10] We skipped it – every confirmation student’s favourite memory work assignment, i.e. John 11:35 – Jesus wept. But even here we see Jesus’ emotions pour out on the page. And how strange! Jesus knew what he was about to do. He had promised Martha, “Your brother will rise again.”[11] And yet he cannot contain the emotions he feels standing outside his dear friend’s tomb watching even more dear friends in their fourth day of grief.

It’s sad and beautiful at the same time. Jesus is moveable and moved by the adverse effects of sin – that are no one’s fault by our own – even though he has already provided the solution for them. For us, we know that his death and resurrection are the answer. We have that perspective from history. And yet death is still sad.

It’s not wrong to mourn or weep. Jesus did it. But the all-important difference is that we do not mourn like those who have no hope. Instead, we can smile through our tears.

It was my Grandma’s funeral that drove that point home for me. She had lived into her 80s – a good, full happy life. But she was gone and she had meant so much to each of us, so we we’re sad. There was a visitation at the funeral home in Detroit. It was a big place. They had four big, almost ballroom-sized visitation rooms. Grandma’s visitation was in one on one side of the hallway. There was another happening in the other on the other side of the hallway. Without prying we had learned that the circumstances were fairly similar – a woman of roughly the same age and stage of life. But as you walked down that hallway, you couldn’t help but notice the difference. On the right side, there was audible weeping and wailing every time the door would open. On the left, there were certainly tears but there were smiles too and even some laughter.

That’s the difference Jesus makes in death. Because he is the resurrection and the life, death is still sad, but it’s not the end. It’s the doorway to eternal life with him forever in heaven. And while he does grieve with us as we grieve (you could argue that as our perfect Creator, he feels the pain of loss more acutely than we do), he also gives us hope, that we will see the glory of God.

He showed it to Martha and Mary and all those comforters on the day Lazarus was raised from the dead. But that glorious sight was just a precursor to the Easter that was days away. And even that glorious Sunday morning was just a preview of what God will still do for each and every one of you, and all who believe in him.

He is the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in him will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in him will never die. Do you believe this? I believe you do. And because you believe, you also receive the confidence of a certain future guaranteed for you by your covenant Saviour, and the comfort of shared grief made bearable by the hope that is not limited to some unknown future date, but is your right now through faith in Jesus, who not only gives life, but is life for you now and forever. Amen.

[1] John 11:21

[2] John 11:22

[3] John 11:23

[4] John 11:24

[5] John 11:27

[6] John 11:25,26

[7] Exodus 3:14,15

[8] Romans 6:23

[9] Romans 3:23

[10] John 11:38

[11] John 11:23