JOHN 11: 1-10
HE WHOM YOU LOVE
We learn from verse 17 of this chapter that Lazarus had been dead four days when Christ reached Bethany. The distance from Bethany to the place Christ probably resided when He received the message was about a day’s journey. If we added to the two days on which He remained after the receipt of the news and the day which the messengers took to reach Him and the day He used in traveling, we get the four days since Lazarus had been laid in his grave. Consequently the probability is that, when our Lord received the message, the man was already dead.
Christ remained still therefore not in order to work a greater miracle by raising Lazarus from the dead but He stayed — strange as it would appear — because He loved them and desired the eternal best for these three He loved so. This delay because of love is significant and full of illumination in regard to the ways of God’s providence.
How these two sisters must have looked down the rocky road that led up from Jericho during those four weary days, to see if there were any signs of His coming. How strange it must have appeared to the disciples that Jesus made no movement, in spite of the urgent message. John thus carefully points out that Christ’s love was His reason for remaining. It may reflect a remembrance of the doubts that had crept over him and his brethren’s minds during those two long days of strange inaction.
God would have us learn a lesson, which reaches far beyond the instance at hand, and casts light on many dark places. God’s delays are delays of love (CIM).
I. THE GREAT NEED OF THE BELOVED, 1-4.
II. THE DELAYS OF LOVE, 5-6.
III. WALKING IN THE LIGHT, 7-10.
The signal that it was time for Jesus to leave His evangelistic crusade in the trans-Jordan region was not long in coming. It took the form of a message from dear friends living in Bethany. The event begins in verse 1 with the sickness of Lazarus. Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
Bethany is about two miles from Jerusalem and even nearer to the Mt. of Olives.
The identification and devotion of Mary is given in verse 2. It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
From the other Gospels it is implied that Jesus was a frequent guest in their home (Lk. 10:38-42; Mt. 26:6-12; Mk 14:3-9).
Knowing Jesus’ love for them and His power to heal the sisters sent for Him in verse 3. Which reads, So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."
The malady was serious for in alarmed they had sent for Jesus to return to the area where He had a price on His head. The sufficient identification for Lazarus was he whom You love. They must have been very close indeed. In their serious need they look to Him whom they knew could help.
When a godly Christian became SERIOUSLY ILL, several friends gathered around his bedside to ask God to restore him. The last one to pray spoke of the faithful service of this man, and concluded his petition by saying, "Lord, You know how he loves You." After a moment of silence, the sick believer said to him, "I know you meant well, but please don’t plead for my recovery on that basis. When Lazarus was ill, Mary and Martha sent for Jesus, but their request was not based on his affection for Christ. They said, ’Lord, he whom You love is sick.’ It’s not my weak and faltering allegiance to Him that calls forth His attention but His perfect love for me that is my constant strength and hope."
The same thought was forcefully impressed on hymn writer Philip Bliss one day after he finished singing, "Oh, How I Love Jesus." He said,"These words are true. Yet I feel guilty for having sung so much about my poor love for Christ and so little about His endless love for me." As a result, he wrote a song that is well-known today. It reads, "I am so glad that our Father in heaven/ Tells of His love in the Book He has given;/ Wonderful things in the Bible I see-/ This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me."
Yes, our greatest comfort in life or in death is not that we love Him, but that "He loved us" (1 John 4:10). God loves His children not because of who they are, but because of who He is. ["Our Daily Bread"]
O love of God, how rich and pure! / How measureless and strong;
It shall forevermore endure / The saints’ and angels’ song. -Lehman (Hymn # )
As with the man born blind (9:3) Jesus declares in verse 4 that the reason for the sickness is so the glory of God could be displayed. But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
This verse would answer all those who would state that sickness is never the will of God for a believer, that it is wrong to be sick, that is due to a lack of faith, some hidden sin or the judgment of God. But the words of Jesus about Lazarus are unmistakable. Not all sickness is a sign of unbelief or lack of faith. Such a position is not only unscriptural, but hurtful and dangerous.
Lazarus’ illness was not related to sin in his life or unbelief in Jesus’ power to heal. Jesus said his sickness was, "for the glory of God." Lazarus was allowed to suffer and die, that Christ might have the opportunity to call him forth from the tomb. In this way Jesus’ deity was exhibited to all.
Any trial a believer faces can ultimately bring glory to God because God can bring good out of any situation, even a bad situation (Gen. 50:20; Rom. 8:28). When trouble comes, do you grumble, complain or blame God, or do you see your problems as opportunities to honor Him?
F. B. Meyer wrote, "The child of God is often called to suffer because there is nothing that will convince onlookers of the reality and power of true religion as suffering will do, when it is borne with Christian fortitude.’ Notice that the important thing is how we respond to suffering.
Have you ever heard THE LEGEND OF THE MIGNONETTE and the gravel walk? (Now the mignonette is a plant that has greenish yellow spikes of perfumed flowers.)
"How fragrant you are this morning!" said the gravel walk. "Yes," said the mignonette, "I have recently been trodden upon and bruised, and it has brought forth all my sweetness." But," said the gravel walk, "I am trodden on every day and I only grow harder."
The life lesson is obvious. Some who suffer send forth a sweetness that blesses all who come in contact with them, while others become hard and bitter under adverse circumstances.
How do you respond to suffering? God may choose what we go through; we choose how we go through it.
The sweetest fragrance surely flows
From those who feel life’s pain
Yet trust themselves to God’s great love,
And in that love remain. - D.J.D "Our Daily Bread"
[Humankind is tired of being sick. Hereditary diseases and unexpected maladies continue to plague the people of the world. So the fields of science and medicine have joined forces to help free us from sickness. Genetic engineering is attempting to eliminate our tendencies toward illness.
While we can be thankful for medical advances, it is helpful to recognize God purposefully did not create us to be immune from disease. We are vulnerable for a reason. Whenever a believer is miraculous healed God’s might is revealed and His name is glorified. But even when people are not delivered from illness in this life; their deaths and home going can evoke praise to the Lord. They have been totally healed and given new lives with no handicaps.]
[ Whether through life on death, may His name be glorified through us. Lord, I am weak and You are strong. May Your name be praised as I lean on Your greatness.]
II. THE DELAYS OF LOVE, 5-6.
Not only do God’s people get sick even, those Jesus loves get sick. As we wait on God’s deliverance its also good to realize that God’s timing is frequently different than ours!
So that Jesus’ delayed reaction in verse 6 is not misunderstood we are again told of His love for them in verse 5. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. (6) So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.
After hearing the news of their desperate need Jesus stayed where He was for two more days. The stating that Jesus loved all three members of the family is intended to show that it was not lack of love or concern that cause Him to act as He did. Christ’s delays are the delays of love.
All of us, I suppose, have experienced a desire for the removal of a bitterness or a sorrow, or for the fulfilment of expectations and wishes, which we believed, on the best evidence that we could find, to be in accordance with God’s will. We have prayed in true faith and submission and have requested them over and over and over again, and no answer has come. It is part of the method of Providence that the lifting away of the burden and the coming of the desire should at times be a hope deferred. And instead of stumbling at the mystery, or feeling as if it makes a great demand on our faith, would it not be wiser for us to lay hold of the word of the Apostle’s here, and to see through the window it opens to glimpse into the very heart of the divine motives of God’s dealings with us?
If we could come to a certain conviction in our hearts that God’s delays are delays of love, how much more peacefully we could go about our life! What steadfast patience would grow in us, if we felt that the only reason which triggers God’s providential timing in fulfilling our desires and lifting away our bitterness is our own good! Nothing but the purest and noblest love, transparent and without stain directs all that He does.
Why is it so difficult for us to believe this- that God acts in love for our best? If we did so look at life, with all its often unwelcome duty, and its arrows of pain and sorrow, and all the disappointments and other ills that come to us, we would find them less unpleasantness, and more meaningful, granted for the purpose of loving discipline and learning. Then in all that befalls us we would understanding that His delay is born of love and we should find far less difficulty in it.
Sorrow is prolonged for the same reason as it was sent. It is of little use to send it for a little while. In the majority of cases, time is an element in its working its right effect upon us. If the weight is lifted and we spring back to the way we were again, what benefit has come of our afflictions and sorrows. Foul or stained things must be steep in water for a good while before the pure liquid washes out the stains. And so time is an element in all the good that we get out of the discipline of life.
Therefore, the same love which sends must necessarily extend, beyond what we desire if it is to have its intended result. If we thought of it more frequently as discipline and schooling, and less frequently as pain and a burden, we should understand the meaning of things a great deal better than we do, and should be able to face them with braver hearts, and fortified endurance.
If we think of some of the purposes for our sorrows and burdens, we would discern still more clearly that time is needed for accomplishing them, and that, therefore, love must delay its coming to take them away. For example, the object of them all, and the highest blessing that any of us can obtain, is that our wills should be bent until they coincide with God’s will, and that takes time. The sailboat builder, when he wants to bend a plank, he knows that to mold it into the right form is not the work of a day. A will may be broken at a blow, but it will take a while to bend it. And because swiftly passing disasters have little permanent effect in molding our wills, it is a blessing, and not an evil, to have some in our lives, which will make a constant demand upon us for continually bowing ourselves beneath His sweet, though it may seem severe, will. God’s love in Jesus Christ can give us nothing better than the opportunity of bowing our wills to His, and saying, ‘Not mine, but Thine be done.’ Because what eternally lies on the other side of life is far more important than what happens in this life. Therefore God brings His good and perfect love in often painful form.
So, dear friends, if you carry a lifelong sorrow, do not think that it is a mystery why it should lie upon your shoulders when there is a wise loving caretaker in heaven. Allow it to bend you to His purpose, for it is the truest token of His loving care that He can send. Remember all these sufferings will one pass away but the overcoming faith, hope and love that you have learned will remain (1 Cor. 13: ).
Not only are God’s delays the stretchings of love; God’s seemingly delayed help always comes at the right time. Do not let us forget that Heaven’s clock is different from ours. In our day there are twelve hours, and in God’s a thousand years. What seems long to us is to Him ‘a little while.’ Let us not in our shortsightedness become impatient with God. The time of separation that looks so long to us, is to Him but a moment. For two days, eight-forty hours, He delayed His answer to Mary and Martha, and they thought it an eternity. While the heavy hours crept by, they only said, ‘Where is He?" Yet how long did His delay seem to them when they had received Lazarus back?
The longest protraction of fulfilling our most longed for hope and unfulfilled desire will seem but as a short moment when we estimate its duration by the same scale by which God estimates it, the scale of Eternity. Do not commit the absurdity of regulating the march of His providence by the swift beating of our timepieces. God works patiently because God has a greater purpose than ease and expediency in His work.
The answer always comes at the right time, and is punctual though delayed. [For instance, Peter is in prison. The Church keeps praying for him; prays on, day after day. No answer. The week of the feast comes. Prayer is made intensely and fervently and continuously. No answer. The slow hours pass away. The last day of his life, as it would appear, comes and goes. No answer. The night gathers; prayer rises to heaven. The last hour of the last watch of the last night that he had to live has come, and as the veil of darkness is thinning, and the day is beginning to break, ‘the angel of the
Lord shone round about him.’ But there is no haste in his deliverance. All is done leisurely, as in the confidence of ample time to spare, and perfect security. He is bidden to arise quickly, but there is no hurry in the stages of his liberation. ‘Gird thyself and bind on thy sandals.’ He is to take time to lace them. There is no fear of the quaternion of soldiers waking, or of there not being time to do all. We can fancy the half-sleeping and wholly bewildered Apostle fumbling at the sandal-strings, in dread of some movement rousing his guards, and the calm angel face looking on. The sandals fastened, he is bidden to put on his garments and follow. With equal leisure and orderliness he is conducted through the first and the second guard of sleeping soldiers, and then through the prison gate. He might have been lifted at once clean out of his dungeon, and set down in the house where many were gathered praying for him. But more signal was the demonstration of power which a deliverance so gradual gave, when it led him slowly past all obstacles and paralyzed their power. God is never in
haste. He never comes too soon nor too late.
Sennacherib’s army is round the city, famine is within the walls. To-morrow will be too late. But to-night the angel strikes, and the enemies are all dead men. So God’s delay makes the deliverance the more signal and joyous when it is granted. And though hope deferred may sometimes make the heart sick, the desire, when it comes, is a tree of life (Prov. ). ] [ adapted, Maclaren, Vol. 10, 75-79]
III. WALKING IN THE LIGHT, 7-10.
Verse 7 indicates that two days later Jesus proposes to the disciples to return to Judea. Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." Then and after this put more emphasis on the delay. Verse 8 reveals that the idea of returning was not what the disciples wanted to hear. The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?"
The travel plans evoke immediate protest. The disciples remembered the previous conflicts with the rulers and how they had continued to escalate. They feared for Jesus’ life and possibly for their own as well. The emphatic position of the adverb there (at the end of the sentence) gives the impression that they would be more will to go with Him if His destination were not Judea. [Expositor’s Bible Com. 115].
Why would Jesus even contemplate entering into the lion’s den again? If He had to cure Lazarus could He not heal him in some other way?
In verse 9 Jesus countered the objection of His disciples. Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
The present words have an obvious surface meaning: those who walk in the daytime do not stumble against obstacles because the light of the sun shows them where they are going. People who go out in the dark are liable to stumble because they cannot see obstacles in their path. But there is a deeper meaning. Day symbolizes the presence and knowledge of God. One who shuts his eyes to the true Light of the World not only ’has no light’ but ’the light is not in him’. The light of the sun shines from the sky; the true light shines from God’s indwelling or dwelling within the believer (1 John 2:8). Men must make the most of the presence of Christ, the Light of the World (8:12; 9:5). To walk with Christ is to live in the Light. To walk with Christ is to live in submission and harmony with His will. In the present context Jesus indicates that He must follow the path the Father has given Him as long as He has physical life (12:35).
In verse 10 Jesus tell us when we stumble. "But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him."
This is a corollary to the previous truth. The man who walks in the night stumbles. The metaphor is plain. The light of Christ is not in Him so he is in darkness when he walks thought life and he will stumble over what is not reveal to him. The Light of Life reveals the many pit falls and one must have it if he would walk the straight and narrow way. When darkness is in the soul, how great is the darkness (Mt. 7:22f). Yet those who have never known the light of life will never realize it.
CONCLUSION
To stray from God’s purpose is to walk in darkness. To abide in Christ, to remain in fellowship with God, is to walk in the light (1 Jn. 1:6). Are you walking in the purpose of God or have you strayed into a life of walking in the darkness of you own purposes?
God asks us to live by faith and not by sight if we would have the Light of Life shine. Without the light of Christ within when confronted by disease, disappointment, delay, and even death we might see our situation as hopeless. Only the knowledge of God and His love for us will sustain us and see us through. Trust in Him and walk in the light of His Word (Ps. 119:105), even when you don’t understand His way.
