Easter Never Gets Old Series

Listen to some of these crazy Easter traditions from different places around the world. In Australia, it’s become very popular to replace chocolate bunnies with chocolate marsupials called Biblys (I guess nothing says Happy Easter like chewing on a chocolate hamster ear). In the town of Haux, France, they celebrate Easter by making the world’s largest omelette with 4500 eggs and feeding over 1000 people. In Papua New Guinea, chocolate doesn’t fare well in the heat and humidity so instead churches are known to hand out tobacco and cigarettes to guests after the Easter service. In Norway, they celebrate Easter by showing crime shows on television and commissioning detective novels to be written. And in New Zealand, instead of EATING chocolate bunnies, they grab their guns for the annual “Great Easter Bunny Hunt” with the intention of ridding their farmlands of these “invasive pets.” And so on Easter Sunday, in the small little town of Otago, over 10,000 rabbits will meet their maker as part of a weird Easter tradition.

My guess is that all of us have some really weird holiday traditions…but of ALL the weird traditions…here’s a tradition that I hope is NEVER weird – celebrating the empty tomb year after year every Easter. And so today, we want to focus on Jesus by focusing on another resurrection that we don’t typically celebrate with its own special holiday. But I think it’s special nonetheless, because it shows us some incredible truths about Jesus, while pointing us to THE resurrection that will later take place on Easter morning. So take your Bible or phone this morning and find your way to John 11. And in this gospel narrative this morning, not only are we going to encounter a resurrection before THE resurrection, we’re also going to encounter a Jesus who sees not only the brokenness of the world, but does something about it. Since we are dropping into the middle of the book of John, and in the middle of chapter 11, let me set the stage of what’s going on:

Scene #1 (1-4) - Lazarus is Sick | There are these two sisters, Mary and Martha, and they have a brother named Lazarus…in fact, the three of them are best friends with Jesus. They live in a city called Bethany, which is about two miles away from where Jesus is in Jerusalem. Lazarus becomes very ill and so the sisters send word to Jesus about their brother’s condition. When Jesus heard this he sent word back to them essentially saying that Lazarus would be okay and that what is about to happen “is for the glory of God, so that the son of God may be glorified through it.” I’m sure this struck them as odd because their brother was lying there on his deathbed.

Scene #2 (5-16) - Lazarus Dies | After hearing about Lazarus’ illness, Jesus doesn’t make immediate plans to go see him. In fact, a few more days pass and Jesus tells his disciples that their friend Lazarus has “fallen asleep” and that he needs to go wake him up. His friends are confused so Jesus explains that Lazarus has actually died but that he’s happy because something so incredible is going to happen when he gets to Bethany, that it will cause some of Jesus’ friends to finally believe. Again, a puzzling statement I’m sure, but it was a hint that Jesus was about to do something incredible.

Scene #3 (17-27) - Jesus Shows Up | Jesus arrives on the scene four days after Lazarus’ death. And if you’ve ever had a loved one die, you can imagine the scene. Everyone was so sad…especially because it looked like Jesus was nonchalant about getting there on time. And Mary and Martha both make this statement: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” I’m not sure if that statement was an indictment or a statement of faith…maybe it was both.

So Jesus is on the scene with his disciples, with Mary and Martha, with a deceased friend, and with some onlookers…and that’s where we’ll pick up in verse 32.

John 11:32-44

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” 38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”