Welcome! Today we come to our last message from the book of
John until next year. By way of a quick preview, we will be going through the
book of Titus after this, and then we will have a Christmas series. And then,
beginning in January, we will pick back up the book of John and go through the
rest of book right through Easter.
Our series for this middle section of John has been entitled “What did He Say?!” because a major theme of these chapters is not only the things Jesus did and said, but the people’s response to these things. John shows us more than any gospel how people responded to the words and actions of Jesus, and by and large, as we have seen, the way they responded was with shock, with disdain, with laughter, and even with anger and hatred. In fact, in the previous chapter they tried to stone Jesus in verse 31 and then tried to grab Him in verse 39, but as it says, He escaped their grasp. Their anger towards Jesus was for a variety of reasons, but in chapter 10 it was specifically because they understood that Jesus was claiming to be God, a claim He did not in any way deny. The chapter ends by saying that Jesus went back across theJordan to where
John the Baptist had baptized people around the time Jesus was just beginning
His ministry, and it says that there, in contrast to Jerusalem
Our series for this middle section of John has been entitled “What did He Say?!” because a major theme of these chapters is not only the things Jesus did and said, but the people’s response to these things. John shows us more than any gospel how people responded to the words and actions of Jesus, and by and large, as we have seen, the way they responded was with shock, with disdain, with laughter, and even with anger and hatred. In fact, in the previous chapter they tried to stone Jesus in verse 31 and then tried to grab Him in verse 39, but as it says, He escaped their grasp. Their anger towards Jesus was for a variety of reasons, but in chapter 10 it was specifically because they understood that Jesus was claiming to be God, a claim He did not in any way deny. The chapter ends by saying that Jesus went back across the
Now a man named
Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary
So most of you are familiar enough with the Bible that you immediately can say, “Oh, this story!” Many of you probably figured it out even before we began today by just looking at the title. Good for you. But I want to challenge you to look past your preconceptions of this passage and look at it with fresh eyes. The first thing I would point out is that we often describe this section as the one about Lazarus. But really, Lazarus is not the important thing. In the Greek, it introduces him as “a certain man;” his name comes after. The way I like to think of it is that Lazarus is just the instrument; Jesus is what this passage is about, because Jesus is the musician, the one who uses the instrument. (By the way, Lazarus was a common name back then; this was not the same Lazarus mentioned in Luke 16, the beggar; this latter Lazarus may have not even existed; the passage in Luke seems to be describing a parable.)
Anyway, this man who happened to be named Lazarus was sick, very sick. The Greek word used indicated one who close to dying. Jesus as it turned out knew Lazarus, knew him well, because he was the brother of Mary and Martha. Jesus had spent a fair amount of time with this family, and the sisters, particularly Mary, had come to really trust in Jesus and believe in Him. Led by the Spirit, she had even poured perfume on His feet and wiped them with her hair as an act of worship and repentance as well as a prophetic anointing of Jesus, something we will talk more about as we look at later chapters of John next year.
Now, I absolutely love the message the sisters send. It doesn’t even explicitly ask for help. It simply presents the problem. It doesn’t tell Him how to fix it. There is real humility here – there is trust, that if they simply let Him know what is going on, they trust Him to do what is best with the information. And they also don’t say, “The one who loves You is sick” or otherwise try to show how good he is to Jesus. They simply present the situation in light of Jesus’ love.
Listen, when you come to God in prayer, do you present yourself as one who loves Jesus, or as one who is loved by Jesus? I’m not saying there is necessarily something terribly wrong by telling Jesus you love Him; quite the contrary. But I know that in my early years as a believer, one of the reasons I struggled in prayer, is that I didn’t feel worthy to talk to Him. I felt embarrassed, I felt slimy, I felt that He had every right to smash me to dust or send out lightning bolts to strike me down. All of these things are actually true, but they are focused on self, rather than on Christ. Just as the disciple John called himself “the disciple Jesus loved,” I think there is something powerful here – something powerful in identifying yourself through the relationship Jesus has established with you rather than through your own strengths and weaknesses. We are the Lord’s. He owns us. And He loves us. This is who we are – more central to our identity than even our own names. And when you think of yourself first in this way, it makes it a lot easier to come to Jesus in prayer. If you don’t normally think of yourself in this way, I encourage you to write down, “I am the one Jesus loves.”
When He heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days. – John 11:4-6
Jesus says that what is going on is for God’s glory, for God’s Son’s glory. In this world, are you willing to suffer for God’s glory, for Jesus’ glory? Lazarus didn’t get a choice in the matter, and in some things, neither do we. But sometimes we do have a choice. We are called to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. In doing so we are doing something for God’s glory, for Jesus’ glory. Not so that other people will admire us. Not even so that other people will hear the gospel and even become saved. That latter one is a good reason, but it’s not the real reason we should pick up our cross – it is so that God gets the glory. This fits in with identifying ourselves primarily as people loved by Jesus. In John 12, we will see Jesus shout in prayer as we get closer and closer to the cross, “Father, glorify Your name!” In John 17, even closer to the cross, Jesus says, “Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.” And also, “And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence.” Lazarus, the sick man, actually had a choice part to play – he had the privilege of dying from a sickness for God. We don’t normally think this way – but this is how Jesus saw the sickness and what was to come.
Now John tells us that Jesus loved (and that’s an agape love) Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Why? Because he immediately goes on to tell us that even though Jesus was told that Lazarus was deathly ill, He didn’t go anywhere for two whole days! In this world we may also have events where it can be said, “Jesus loved us, yet…” The “yet” doesn’t mean that He doesn’t love us – it means that for reasons we may learn or may not learn, Jesus has a plan that may include things we wish we wouldn’t have to go through.
Then He said to His disciples, “Let us go back toJudea .” “But Rabbi,” they said, “a
short while ago the Jews tried to stone You, and yet You are going back there?”
Jesus answered, “Are
there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for
he sees by this world’s light.
It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no
light.” – John 11:7-10
I could have entitled this message, “Let us go back toJudea ,” because it had that “What did He say?!” effect on
His disciples. This is where the Jews in the last chapter tried to stone Him,
tried to grab Him, and so the disciples are shocked. Also, Jesus was having
“ministry success” where He was now – many were coming to faith in Him here,
unlike what had been going on in Jerusalem
What did Jesus mean about the daylight and walking by day vs. walking by night? Well, it is another way of saying that His hour has not yet come. No man, not even an army could change God’s timetable for Jesus. Until the daylight is over, man cannot make it night. Walking in daylight, walking in the time God had planned, meant that He would not stumble, not fall. Jesus used a similar kind of imagery back in John 9, where He said, “as long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
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.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but His disciples thought He meant natural sleep. – John 11:11-13
Well, as usual, our disciples don’t really know what Jesus is talking about. It would be strange for Jesus to go back into dangerous territory just to wake somebody up, but the disciples don’t get the hint. And in general, if you are sick, getting extra sleep is good for you. But that is not what Jesus meant. There is nothing “natural” about what is about to happen.
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. But let us go to him.” Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” – John 11:14-16
Now, focus on Jesus’ shocking statement. Was Jesus really glad? Yes – so that they would believe. How important is faith to Jesus? Above almost everything. What would Jesus be willing to do in your life to increase your faith? It’s actually a pretty scary question. There are plenty of people around today who can point to what the world would call a tragedy and who would say that the tragedy brought them to faith or greatly increased their faith. God loves us enough to do radical things for our good.
As for Thomas’ remark, a few commentators suggest it might refer to Lazarus, but most make what for me is a convincing case that it is speaking of Jesus. Even taken to mean of Jesus, it is easy for us to view it as pessimistic, as fatalistic, but from what I have read, I am reasonably convinced that it was not meant in that way. I think it was meant in a devotional way – that Thomas was saying let us go with Him, regardless of the dangers, regardless of what happens next. Understood in this way, it was a praiseworthy thought. Getting ahead of the story, though, we do know that when things really came to it, Thomas scattered along with the rest of the disciples. But otherwise reliable accounts outside of the Bible claim that Thomas ultimately did die a martyr’s death, that he did die “with Him” and so, ultimately, Thomas proved both prophetic and able to match his sentiment with action.
On His arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 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. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home. – John 11:17-20
Now often at a funeral, people stayed for a week. They would help with meals, provide comfort; even today there is a tradition among orthodox Jews to not let the one who has suffered the loss be alone for the first week. Martha went out to see Jesus, but Mary did not. Based on what it says in verse 28, it is possible that Mary did not even know; it is also possible she stayed behind because someone needed to. I would not read anything into it.
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” – John 11:21-24
Now, is Martha scolding Jesus? Perhaps that is a little strong, but presumably she knows how long it should have taken Jesus to arrive versus how long it did take Him. On the other hand, Jesus delayed two days, and by the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four. I think rather than thinking of this as scolding, it is more accurate to simply see this as Martha simply making a statement of faith that she knew Jesus could have healed Lazarus if He had been able to come soon enough. But such was not to be, she thought, and then, in faith, she says that God will honor whatever Jesus asks. At this point, does she have enough faith to hope that Jesus would even raise Lazarus from the dead? I don’t think so, because when Jesus goes on to say “Your brother will rise again,” the way she answers reveals that she isn’t entertaining this idea.
Perhaps a fair question to ask at this point is “Why not?” Hadn’t Jesus already done other resurrections? As a matter of fact, He had. Mark gives the account of how Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead. And Luke gives the account of raising the widow’s son. But an important difference between these resurrections and that of Lazarus is that Jairus’ daughter and the widow’s son had only just died. These resurrections came almost immediately after death. But Lazarus had been dead four days. Without getting too graphic about it, his body had gone well into the process of decomposing. There is no question (and the passage later refers to this) that he would have smelled, that the process of decay would have produced an unbearable stench by this point. To bring someone back from the dead at this point, would require restoring flesh, reversing the decay. It is another level of miracle compared to the other resurrections.
I have to point out something else here – and to me this is pretty profound. Yes, this is a bigger miracle, but how does it even begin to compare to the miracle of raising people on the last day? After all, there may be nothing left of the body by then. The reason this is profound to me is that we can do the same thing – we can see our current problems as insurmountable, yet we believe in the future events of Revelation. Now when confronted with this, we quickly would say, well, yes, God can do anything right now. But what I am talking about is our practical living, how we think when we aren’t confronted with this truth. We can live as practical atheists, living as if we are on our own. The acid test of this is whether we actually bring things to God in prayer or not. And I’m not just talking about the big things, but the little ones too. Do we think God can do anything but that the little things are too big for God? Or do we think they are too little for God? Does He love us or not? Does He want us to come to Him or not? If we don’t live as practical atheists, then we live as people who believe God is a distant unapproachable king, that He can’t be bothered with our problems. My point is that all of this is inconsistent. If we really believe God loves us enough to want to be stuck with us for all eternity, certainly He can be “bothered” with our prayers! I believe we all have inconsistencies like this, gaps between our “high” theology and our day-to-day living. Discovering them, and then, if necessary, repenting of our unbelief, helps us to actually live what we say we believe.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she told Him, “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” – John 11:25-27
These are some of the most encouraging words in Scripture. By the way, there is a neat pattern here. Recall that Jesus had said “I am the bread of life,” and then He multiplied the bread and gave food to thousands. And He had said “I am the light of the world,” and later gave physical sight to one born blind, and also, even more importantly, gave light, understanding that leads to eternal life, to those whose hearts were open to His words. And now He says “I am the resurrection and the life,” just before raising Lazarus from the dead, and more importantly, He gives all who believe in Him eternal life, life after a temporary death for some, and continuous life without ever tasting death for those who are alive at His return.
Do you notice the change in tense? Martha says “God will…” but Jesus says “I am.” God is not limited to past, present, or future. And those who believe in Him will also live, in effect, outside of time, for this is what it means to live forever. And then Jesus asks Martha – do you believe this?
What about you? Do you fear death? Are you secretly worried that maybe all this Christianity stuff is wrong, that when you die, that’s it? Or are you like Paul, who even goes so far as to mock death – read all of I Cor. 15 to see a faith-filled response to the prospect of death, but especially note how Paul quotes Hosea saying “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” To really believe is more than a mental position – it is a clinging to the person of Christ. To really believe requires relationship. We don’t just believe in Him; we believe Him and we hold on to Him, trusting Him to carry us through whatever we must go through, even if it is the “valley of the shadow of death.” Martha doesn’t just say “I believe” – she says “I believe You.”
And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. – John 11:28-31
It is interesting that Mary knew who Martha meant. The teacher, didaskalos, could have meant any teacher, religious or otherwise, but the way Martha said it, Mary knew it was Jesus. Mary’s comforters went with her, not wanting her to be alone.
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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?” He asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. – John 11:32-35
Mary expresses something similar to what Martha said. She falls at His feet, overwhelmed with sorrow, weeping for the loss of her brother. Jesus was not uncaring, far from it. Even though He had purposely delayed His coming, even though He knew what was going to happen, He cared; He grieved because she grieved. If you struggle with bringing the prayers for little things to God, if you tend to see Him as unapproachable, let this scene sink in. Do you believe Jesus grieves with you? Emotions are not a sign of weakness. Humans are emotional creatures, but we are made in the image of God. God cares, and seeing suffering brings Him pain. This is the opposite of many eastern teachings, the teachings of eastern religions, themes picked up in Star Wars and other movies, that emotions are bad. Even the ancient Greek philosophers thought this. They held apatheo was the highest, best state. We get apathy from this word. The a in front means not, and pathos means deep emotion. No emotion. We are not called to be like this, and our God is not like this either. Jesus wept. The Greek word refers not to loud wailing, by the way, but to a quiet, even silent, bursting into tears.
Why did He weep? We could probably speculate forever on this. Let me just say that I think His weeping went beyond sympathizing with the few people who grieved at this moment, that it went beyond grieving with Mary, that it went beyond grieving for Lazarus. I think this was one of those moments where He wept for the world. Another was when He enteredJerusalem
and said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “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.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” – John 11:36-40
Some of these Jews, with different words, echo the thought we have seen twice before, that if He had come sooner, couldn’t He have saved Lazarus? And then we come to the statement that is the title of the message. “Take away the stone.” You just don’t do that! There’s the smell, but there was more – who would want to see their beloved one decomposing like that!
Now look at Jesus’ response. Did He say these exact words to her earlier? Possibly, it’s not written down here. But it says something very like this if you combine some of the previous verses. But note, and this is important, Jesus is not saying, “If you believe, I will do the miracle.” What He says is “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” The miracle is going to happen. But Jesus is talking about what she will see beyond the miracle. This miracle is for God’s glory – that’s what it said back in verse 4. Jesus is saying, Martha, watch this, and you will see how God gives life through resurrection. It is a glimpse of the greater future resurrection, where those who believe go on to live with Christ forever. But it is only a glimpse – this resurrection is only back to finite life. Lazarus got old and died again. But it pointed to the greater future reality.
Do you look for God’s glory? As I have already said, it is good to pray to God about our problems. But even if we do this, as God answers prayer, what do we see? What do we say? Do we say, “Whew!” I’m glad that’s over! Or do we see the glory of God? We should be careful not to see God as what some others have described as “a cosmic vending machine.” We should seek to know and see Him in His glory; we should desire to see this even more than we see answers to our prayers. Or to express the thought here – we should desire to see God’s glory above all in the answers to our prayers. We should be more excited about seeing God’s glory than we are about God answering our prayers. Does that make sense?
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 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 sentMe.
So most of you are familiar enough with the Bible that you immediately can say, “Oh, this story!” Many of you probably figured it out even before we began today by just looking at the title. Good for you. But I want to challenge you to look past your preconceptions of this passage and look at it with fresh eyes. The first thing I would point out is that we often describe this section as the one about Lazarus. But really, Lazarus is not the important thing. In the Greek, it introduces him as “a certain man;” his name comes after. The way I like to think of it is that Lazarus is just the instrument; Jesus is what this passage is about, because Jesus is the musician, the one who uses the instrument. (By the way, Lazarus was a common name back then; this was not the same Lazarus mentioned in Luke 16, the beggar; this latter Lazarus may have not even existed; the passage in Luke seems to be describing a parable.)
Anyway, this man who happened to be named Lazarus was sick, very sick. The Greek word used indicated one who close to dying. Jesus as it turned out knew Lazarus, knew him well, because he was the brother of Mary and Martha. Jesus had spent a fair amount of time with this family, and the sisters, particularly Mary, had come to really trust in Jesus and believe in Him. Led by the Spirit, she had even poured perfume on His feet and wiped them with her hair as an act of worship and repentance as well as a prophetic anointing of Jesus, something we will talk more about as we look at later chapters of John next year.
Now, I absolutely love the message the sisters send. It doesn’t even explicitly ask for help. It simply presents the problem. It doesn’t tell Him how to fix it. There is real humility here – there is trust, that if they simply let Him know what is going on, they trust Him to do what is best with the information. And they also don’t say, “The one who loves You is sick” or otherwise try to show how good he is to Jesus. They simply present the situation in light of Jesus’ love.
Listen, when you come to God in prayer, do you present yourself as one who loves Jesus, or as one who is loved by Jesus? I’m not saying there is necessarily something terribly wrong by telling Jesus you love Him; quite the contrary. But I know that in my early years as a believer, one of the reasons I struggled in prayer, is that I didn’t feel worthy to talk to Him. I felt embarrassed, I felt slimy, I felt that He had every right to smash me to dust or send out lightning bolts to strike me down. All of these things are actually true, but they are focused on self, rather than on Christ. Just as the disciple John called himself “the disciple Jesus loved,” I think there is something powerful here – something powerful in identifying yourself through the relationship Jesus has established with you rather than through your own strengths and weaknesses. We are the Lord’s. He owns us. And He loves us. This is who we are – more central to our identity than even our own names. And when you think of yourself first in this way, it makes it a lot easier to come to Jesus in prayer. If you don’t normally think of yourself in this way, I encourage you to write down, “I am the one Jesus loves.”
When He heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days. – John 11:4-6
Jesus says that what is going on is for God’s glory, for God’s Son’s glory. In this world, are you willing to suffer for God’s glory, for Jesus’ glory? Lazarus didn’t get a choice in the matter, and in some things, neither do we. But sometimes we do have a choice. We are called to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. In doing so we are doing something for God’s glory, for Jesus’ glory. Not so that other people will admire us. Not even so that other people will hear the gospel and even become saved. That latter one is a good reason, but it’s not the real reason we should pick up our cross – it is so that God gets the glory. This fits in with identifying ourselves primarily as people loved by Jesus. In John 12, we will see Jesus shout in prayer as we get closer and closer to the cross, “Father, glorify Your name!” In John 17, even closer to the cross, Jesus says, “Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.” And also, “And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence.” Lazarus, the sick man, actually had a choice part to play – he had the privilege of dying from a sickness for God. We don’t normally think this way – but this is how Jesus saw the sickness and what was to come.
Now John tells us that Jesus loved (and that’s an agape love) Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Why? Because he immediately goes on to tell us that even though Jesus was told that Lazarus was deathly ill, He didn’t go anywhere for two whole days! In this world we may also have events where it can be said, “Jesus loved us, yet…” The “yet” doesn’t mean that He doesn’t love us – it means that for reasons we may learn or may not learn, Jesus has a plan that may include things we wish we wouldn’t have to go through.
Then He said to His disciples, “Let us go back to
I could have entitled this message, “Let us go back to
What did Jesus mean about the daylight and walking by day vs. walking by night? Well, it is another way of saying that His hour has not yet come. No man, not even an army could change God’s timetable for Jesus. Until the daylight is over, man cannot make it night. Walking in daylight, walking in the time God had planned, meant that He would not stumble, not fall. Jesus used a similar kind of imagery back in John 9, where He said, “as long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
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.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but His disciples thought He meant natural sleep. – John 11:11-13
Well, as usual, our disciples don’t really know what Jesus is talking about. It would be strange for Jesus to go back into dangerous territory just to wake somebody up, but the disciples don’t get the hint. And in general, if you are sick, getting extra sleep is good for you. But that is not what Jesus meant. There is nothing “natural” about what is about to happen.
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. But let us go to him.” Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” – John 11:14-16
Now, focus on Jesus’ shocking statement. Was Jesus really glad? Yes – so that they would believe. How important is faith to Jesus? Above almost everything. What would Jesus be willing to do in your life to increase your faith? It’s actually a pretty scary question. There are plenty of people around today who can point to what the world would call a tragedy and who would say that the tragedy brought them to faith or greatly increased their faith. God loves us enough to do radical things for our good.
As for Thomas’ remark, a few commentators suggest it might refer to Lazarus, but most make what for me is a convincing case that it is speaking of Jesus. Even taken to mean of Jesus, it is easy for us to view it as pessimistic, as fatalistic, but from what I have read, I am reasonably convinced that it was not meant in that way. I think it was meant in a devotional way – that Thomas was saying let us go with Him, regardless of the dangers, regardless of what happens next. Understood in this way, it was a praiseworthy thought. Getting ahead of the story, though, we do know that when things really came to it, Thomas scattered along with the rest of the disciples. But otherwise reliable accounts outside of the Bible claim that Thomas ultimately did die a martyr’s death, that he did die “with Him” and so, ultimately, Thomas proved both prophetic and able to match his sentiment with action.
On His arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 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. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home. – John 11:17-20
Now often at a funeral, people stayed for a week. They would help with meals, provide comfort; even today there is a tradition among orthodox Jews to not let the one who has suffered the loss be alone for the first week. Martha went out to see Jesus, but Mary did not. Based on what it says in verse 28, it is possible that Mary did not even know; it is also possible she stayed behind because someone needed to. I would not read anything into it.
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” – John 11:21-24
Now, is Martha scolding Jesus? Perhaps that is a little strong, but presumably she knows how long it should have taken Jesus to arrive versus how long it did take Him. On the other hand, Jesus delayed two days, and by the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four. I think rather than thinking of this as scolding, it is more accurate to simply see this as Martha simply making a statement of faith that she knew Jesus could have healed Lazarus if He had been able to come soon enough. But such was not to be, she thought, and then, in faith, she says that God will honor whatever Jesus asks. At this point, does she have enough faith to hope that Jesus would even raise Lazarus from the dead? I don’t think so, because when Jesus goes on to say “Your brother will rise again,” the way she answers reveals that she isn’t entertaining this idea.
Perhaps a fair question to ask at this point is “Why not?” Hadn’t Jesus already done other resurrections? As a matter of fact, He had. Mark gives the account of how Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead. And Luke gives the account of raising the widow’s son. But an important difference between these resurrections and that of Lazarus is that Jairus’ daughter and the widow’s son had only just died. These resurrections came almost immediately after death. But Lazarus had been dead four days. Without getting too graphic about it, his body had gone well into the process of decomposing. There is no question (and the passage later refers to this) that he would have smelled, that the process of decay would have produced an unbearable stench by this point. To bring someone back from the dead at this point, would require restoring flesh, reversing the decay. It is another level of miracle compared to the other resurrections.
I have to point out something else here – and to me this is pretty profound. Yes, this is a bigger miracle, but how does it even begin to compare to the miracle of raising people on the last day? After all, there may be nothing left of the body by then. The reason this is profound to me is that we can do the same thing – we can see our current problems as insurmountable, yet we believe in the future events of Revelation. Now when confronted with this, we quickly would say, well, yes, God can do anything right now. But what I am talking about is our practical living, how we think when we aren’t confronted with this truth. We can live as practical atheists, living as if we are on our own. The acid test of this is whether we actually bring things to God in prayer or not. And I’m not just talking about the big things, but the little ones too. Do we think God can do anything but that the little things are too big for God? Or do we think they are too little for God? Does He love us or not? Does He want us to come to Him or not? If we don’t live as practical atheists, then we live as people who believe God is a distant unapproachable king, that He can’t be bothered with our problems. My point is that all of this is inconsistent. If we really believe God loves us enough to want to be stuck with us for all eternity, certainly He can be “bothered” with our prayers! I believe we all have inconsistencies like this, gaps between our “high” theology and our day-to-day living. Discovering them, and then, if necessary, repenting of our unbelief, helps us to actually live what we say we believe.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she told Him, “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” – John 11:25-27
These are some of the most encouraging words in Scripture. By the way, there is a neat pattern here. Recall that Jesus had said “I am the bread of life,” and then He multiplied the bread and gave food to thousands. And He had said “I am the light of the world,” and later gave physical sight to one born blind, and also, even more importantly, gave light, understanding that leads to eternal life, to those whose hearts were open to His words. And now He says “I am the resurrection and the life,” just before raising Lazarus from the dead, and more importantly, He gives all who believe in Him eternal life, life after a temporary death for some, and continuous life without ever tasting death for those who are alive at His return.
Do you notice the change in tense? Martha says “God will…” but Jesus says “I am.” God is not limited to past, present, or future. And those who believe in Him will also live, in effect, outside of time, for this is what it means to live forever. And then Jesus asks Martha – do you believe this?
What about you? Do you fear death? Are you secretly worried that maybe all this Christianity stuff is wrong, that when you die, that’s it? Or are you like Paul, who even goes so far as to mock death – read all of I Cor. 15 to see a faith-filled response to the prospect of death, but especially note how Paul quotes Hosea saying “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” To really believe is more than a mental position – it is a clinging to the person of Christ. To really believe requires relationship. We don’t just believe in Him; we believe Him and we hold on to Him, trusting Him to carry us through whatever we must go through, even if it is the “valley of the shadow of death.” Martha doesn’t just say “I believe” – she says “I believe You.”
And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. – John 11:28-31
It is interesting that Mary knew who Martha meant. The teacher, didaskalos, could have meant any teacher, religious or otherwise, but the way Martha said it, Mary knew it was Jesus. Mary’s comforters went with her, not wanting her to be alone.
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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?” He asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. – John 11:32-35
Mary expresses something similar to what Martha said. She falls at His feet, overwhelmed with sorrow, weeping for the loss of her brother. Jesus was not uncaring, far from it. Even though He had purposely delayed His coming, even though He knew what was going to happen, He cared; He grieved because she grieved. If you struggle with bringing the prayers for little things to God, if you tend to see Him as unapproachable, let this scene sink in. Do you believe Jesus grieves with you? Emotions are not a sign of weakness. Humans are emotional creatures, but we are made in the image of God. God cares, and seeing suffering brings Him pain. This is the opposite of many eastern teachings, the teachings of eastern religions, themes picked up in Star Wars and other movies, that emotions are bad. Even the ancient Greek philosophers thought this. They held apatheo was the highest, best state. We get apathy from this word. The a in front means not, and pathos means deep emotion. No emotion. We are not called to be like this, and our God is not like this either. Jesus wept. The Greek word refers not to loud wailing, by the way, but to a quiet, even silent, bursting into tears.
Why did He weep? We could probably speculate forever on this. Let me just say that I think His weeping went beyond sympathizing with the few people who grieved at this moment, that it went beyond grieving with Mary, that it went beyond grieving for Lazarus. I think this was one of those moments where He wept for the world. Another was when He entered
Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “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.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” – John 11:36-40
Some of these Jews, with different words, echo the thought we have seen twice before, that if He had come sooner, couldn’t He have saved Lazarus? And then we come to the statement that is the title of the message. “Take away the stone.” You just don’t do that! There’s the smell, but there was more – who would want to see their beloved one decomposing like that!
Now look at Jesus’ response. Did He say these exact words to her earlier? Possibly, it’s not written down here. But it says something very like this if you combine some of the previous verses. But note, and this is important, Jesus is not saying, “If you believe, I will do the miracle.” What He says is “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” The miracle is going to happen. But Jesus is talking about what she will see beyond the miracle. This miracle is for God’s glory – that’s what it said back in verse 4. Jesus is saying, Martha, watch this, and you will see how God gives life through resurrection. It is a glimpse of the greater future resurrection, where those who believe go on to live with Christ forever. But it is only a glimpse – this resurrection is only back to finite life. Lazarus got old and died again. But it pointed to the greater future reality.
Do you look for God’s glory? As I have already said, it is good to pray to God about our problems. But even if we do this, as God answers prayer, what do we see? What do we say? Do we say, “Whew!” I’m glad that’s over! Or do we see the glory of God? We should be careful not to see God as what some others have described as “a cosmic vending machine.” We should seek to know and see Him in His glory; we should desire to see this even more than we see answers to our prayers. Or to express the thought here – we should desire to see God’s glory above all in the answers to our prayers. We should be more excited about seeing God’s glory than we are about God answering our prayers. Does that make sense?
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 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
Why does He pray this? So that even more may believe, including those who haven’t heard His teachings.
When He had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 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.” Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. – John 11:43-47a
Again, the miracle itself is understated by John. Yep, it happened. Look at how effortlessly it happened. No straining or grunting or special incantations, just three words. Imagine being there, waiting to see if anything happens. If Lazarus doesn’t come out, Jesus is a fraud – His entire ministry life would be over. But there was no risk of that. He is God, God’s Son. Lazarus comes out. Several preachers have joked that it is a good thing Jesus called Lazarus by name, because otherwise millions would have risen from their graves.
And many came to faith. But some told the Pharisees, and so they called a meeting. A meeting to discuss how maybe Jesus really is who He says He is? Well, don’t hold your breath… By the way, this meeting includes both the chief priests, almost certainly including former priests, who tended to be what we might call theological liberals (most were Sadducees), as well as what we might call the ultra-fundamentalists, the Pharisees. Normally these groups couldn’t get along, but now (and not for the last time), they came together.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” – John 11:47a-50
What is their fear? It is that Jesus will get such a big following that He will become a political Messiah figure,
Apparently they were arguing back and forth, as Sadducees and Pharisees always did, and then Caiaphas ridicules them all and says, in effect, “Let’s just murder him! Then what you fear cannot happen. This is the best solution.”
He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take His life. Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead He withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where He stayed with His disciples. – John 11:51-54
John points out the supreme irony of Caiaphas’ proclamation. Here this utterly corrupt person is used to speak prophecy despite any efforts or ability of his own. He was right: it was better for them, infinitely better, that Jesus, God’s Son die than that the whole nation, and in fact, the whole world perish. For if Christ had not died, the whole world would still be in its sins and under judgment. But on another level, Caiaphas was completely wrong.
From a human point of view, it looks like the Jewish leaders won. They hadn’t managed to kill Jesus, but almost as good, they got Him to stop causing trouble. No longer was He among the crowds. No longer was He overturning the tables or doing anything else in
But Jesus was only preparing His disciples for what was to come. All was according to plan. It is impossible to thwart the plan of God. Before long He would be going to
As we
close this series for now, I would encourage you to commit to reread John 5-11
on your own. Things come freshly to life as you “circle back” and reread these
passages. Let me just give you one example, from John 5:
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. And He has given Him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man.” – John 5:24-27
Those who hear His voice – isn’t that powerful after reading about Lazarus? He heard Jesus’ voice. And we, and you, if you believe, will hear Him too.
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. And He has given Him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man.” – John 5:24-27
Those who hear His voice – isn’t that powerful after reading about Lazarus? He heard Jesus’ voice. And we, and you, if you believe, will hear Him too.
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