Sermon for CATM – February 28, 2010 – Journeying with Jesus: Lazarus (John 11:1-44)
Today we continue our Journey with Jesus to the cross. This is the second in a series on the events that lead up to Jesus’ own suffering and death on the cross.
Last week we looked at the Transfiguration. We tried to understand from the inside out what that experience would have been like for the disciples. Today we look at the story of Lazarus.
It is an intense story with a very broad range of occurrences and emotions. A number of readers will read sections of the story and we’ll look at the story a piece at a time and reflect on what is going on.
Reader 1:
John 11:1Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." 4When 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." 5Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
So first of all…who are these people? These are people who know Jesus. Luke records the famous incident in chapter 10 of his gospel. Martha had opened her home to Jesus on an earlier journey.
Her sister Mary was enthralled with Jesus and so just sat as His feet taking what He had to say in. Martha was upset that she wasn’t getting any help from Mary and appealed to Jesus to get Him to help her in her busyness.
Jesus acknowledged Martha’s anxiety said to her: “…Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
That was an important lesson in itself. Busyness is not always the highest virtue. It may not be a virtue at all because it is easy to be very busy.
Although there are times when life requires non-stop action of us (if you’re a parent you know what I mean), if we’re still busy when we don’t need to be, that usually comes from just not saying “No, thank you!” enough.
And it may come from an inner anxiety, a lack of shalom or peace in us that can keep us from finding the deep rest that is in Jesus. That was the lesson from Jesus’ earlier encounter with Mary and Martha:
Make sure you rest, and make sure you rest in the presence of God so you can hear His loving voice and receive what you need from Him.
So we also learn here along with Jesus who is sent word from the sisters that Lazarus, someone who Jesus loves, and the brother of two others who Jesus loves, is sick. And Jesus says to those around Him including the disciples, when he hears the news, something surprising: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.
So somehow Lazarus is going to be ok. What is happening here is specifically, says Jesus, for God’s glory and so that God’s Son may be glorified through it. It is all a bit strange at this point.
Lazarus is sick. He’s not going to die. God will somehow be glorified. So will Jesus. Hmm. And Jesus stays where they are for two days.
Reader 2:
7Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." 8"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" 9Jesus 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. 10It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."
Jesus then surprises His disciples by saying they should all go back to Judea, where Jesus had very recently escaped stoning. Why would He want to go back to that, they wonder? Jesus answers cryptically, apparently pragmatically, but does not address the fear of the disciples.
“We’ve got 12 hours to get to where we’ve got to go. As long as we travel during daylight we’ll be fine”. Jesus never brings us into danger unless He goes with us into it.
His presence and the knowledge of his love is always our guide and the source of our courage. Darkness for Jesus always hints at weak moral behaviour. Light always hints at good behaviour. But here Jesus speaks words of mystery.
Reader 3:
11After 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." 12His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. 14So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." 16Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
Jesus clarifies things a bit here. He knows that Lazarus is dead. Interesting that He uses the phrase: “Fallen asleep”. Of all that Jesus ever said about death, this is the most encouraging.
Sleep is a temporary thing, and so by this Jesus also reveals that death is not permanent. When we sleep, we then awake. In John chapter 5:25 Jesus says: “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”.
So sleep is a time of rest; and the dead also "shall rest from their labors". It says that in Revelation 14:13.
Interesting to note the lasting power of Jesus’ influence in the world. One little way it’s revealed is in the inscription upon millions of tombs in all ages since then these words, "Asleep in Jesus".
So Jesus says: “Lazarus is dead…But let us go to Him”. Thomas, ever the skeptic and the glass-is-half-full kind of guy, speaks to the others with resignation. “Let’s also go, so we may die with Him”.
Everyone knew tensions were rising in Judea, in Jerusalem, that it was getting more and more dangerous to be associated with Jesus.
Jesus was rattling the cages of the religious authorities in Jerusalem and even when He proved His authority and power and divinity by His miracles, the decision of the religious leaders was to identify Jesus as a problem and to plot His death.
So understandably the disciples are nervous about going to Bethany, the place where Lazarus was, because it was too close for comfort to Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the disciples go! That IS something that characterizes actual disciples of Jesus. They go where He says to go and do what He says to do.
Reader 4:
17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Bethany was less than two miles[a] from Jerusalem, 19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20When 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. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
So it looks like it was a two-day journey for Jesus and the disciples. The body of Lazarus had been in the tomb for 4 days.
According to rabbinical tradition, the soul of a deceased person hovers around the body for three days in hope of a reunion, but it takes its final departure when it notices that the body has entered a state of decomposition.
The four days of Lazarus in the tomb were significant. Jesus removed from his enemies any such possible explanation of the resurrection of his friend Lazarus, "an explanation" they doubtless would have resorted to if it had not been removed.
Martha and Mary are surrounded by friends, Jews, who tried to comfort them in the loss of their brother. Martha hears that Jesus is on his way and goes out to meet Him.
Mary remains at home, shut in with her grief. Martha is also in grief, so she expresses both blame and faith: “…If you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
She’s mystified why Jesus hadn’t come earlier, but the truth is that Lazarus had died about the time the Lord got the message. Martha was expressing the kind of thinking that always accompanies the death of a loved one. "If ..." if we could have reached a doctor, if we had known, if we had called - the million "ifs" that always torment the survivors.
‘If you had been here my brother would not have died”. If He had they would have all been spared grief upon grief, the many friends would not have had to travel the two miles from Jerusalem. T
True, of course. But Jesus had something else in mind. Martha knows Jesus. She knows His character. She knows His power. She knows that Jesus has a completely unique relationship with God. She doesn’t know yet that Jesus IS God.
But at the least she knows that whatever Jesus asks of God will be granted. Faith doesn’t need to be complete or fully mature before it benefits us. Faith that’s tiny, like a mustard seed, is all God needs to bring about massive transformation in our lives. Amen?
Reader 5:
23Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 27"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
So Jesus, acknowledging her faith, says something that appears quite common at first: “Your brother will rise again”. Martha demonstrates her knowledge of some good theology. She says: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Good for her. She allows herself some comfort by acknowledging the truth that there is such a thing as resurrection and that the dead do not stay physically dead.
But then Jesus affirms her statement with another statement that takes the theory out of the theology, that transforms good spiritual understanding into GREAT understanding. “Yes, Lazarus will rise again in the resurrection”, Jesus says, “And I AM that resurrection”.
This is massively important. Saving faith is not first belief in the afterlife. It is not first awareness of spiritual things. It is not trying to do good so we get to go to heaven. It is not even believing the right doctrine.
It is not any of these things, these things that can fall so short of an actual relationship with God. Saving faith is first and foremost trusting in Jesus. Believing in Jesus. Walking with Jesus. Committing our very lives, all of our life, to Jesus, to His purposes and to His Kingdom. Martha had little comfort from her statement: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day”.
But when Jesus makes this statement: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die”, that changes everything. Everything
This means Jesus is God in human form, a truth he promptly proved by raising Lazarus. Jesus had claimed Godhood as Light of the world, the Good Shepherd, the giver of eternal life, the door of the sheep, as existing before Abraham was born, and in numerous other ways. Here he appears as Resurrection come in the flesh.
And Jesus asks Martha: “Do you believe this?”
Let’s stop for a moment. Do YOU believe this? Have you come to that place of knowing in your spirit, in your mind, in your soul, that Jesus is the Lord. That He is God. That He came to die for your sins.
That He loves you with an everlasting love. You know, Martha, face to face with the Resurrection and the Life, face to face with Jesus, said
27"Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
Jesus affirms those of us who have come to this understanding, this belief, without seeing. He said to Thomas in John chapter 20: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” If you believe today, you know how blessed your life is as a result.
If you’ve only just started recently to believe, know that your whole life will be blessed because of your decision for Christ, and that blessing is intending to extend far beyond your life as you touch the lives of others for Jesus’ sake! Notice the passion of Martha’s confession of Jesus.
It is as strong, as powerful as that of any of the apostles. Who says there were no female disciples?
Reader 6:
28And 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." 29When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31When 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. 32When 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." 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34"Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied. 35Jesus wept. 36Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" 37But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
This is really quite a narrative and beautifully written. Mary affirms the same thing Martha had affirmed. Mary knew Jesus too. And lest we get the impression reading a tidy, well-laid out narrative like this, that Jesus was playing these folks or using the trauma of the situation for effect (as if we could do that at all without a terrible ignorance of Jesus’ character), we see that Jesus is profoundly moved by the grief around him.
The shortest verse in the Bible is right here, in the passage that was just read. “Jesus wept”. You know, volumes have been written about this verse alone. At the least we can understand that God has emotions. That God is moved by the events in our lives that shake us.
God is never distant, removed or otherwise too occupied to know what is going on in our lives and to care deeply about the struggles you are going through. You are NEVER alone in your sadness, in your grief. The God who comforts you mourns with you. It is so important to be aware of that fact.
But you know there is another layer to all this. Remember…Lazarus was dead. He had gone to his reward. Jesus was about to call back to our world of temptation and sin a valiant soldier who had already won the crown of life; and, you gotta understand….this would be a very weird and not altogether pleasant experience for Lazarus.
In such a thing there was an undeniable danger for Lazarus. The prospect of Lazarus again facing life with its inevitable dangers to the soul, and particularly with the additional burden that would be imposed by his resurrection (which did not earn him any love from the Pharisees-The next chapter in John informs us that the religious leaders made plans to kill Lazarus, AND to kill Jesus – giving weight to the saying that ‘no good deed goes unpunished’).
All of these considerations are of such profound weight that it’s understandable how they might have plunged the Son of God into tears of sadness as he thought of them.
Reader 7:
38Jesus, 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." 40Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"
41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I 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." 43When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44The 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."
This was of course, an astounding moment in the life of Mary, Martha, the entire family and all their friends gathered to mourn, and of course for Lazarus who, as I mentioned, wasn’t expecting this interruption.
They are deep into the mourning of Lazarus.
They have shed so many tears since he died. Of course before he died they had prayed so many prayers for his recovery, only to learn that he had died.
And even after Mary and Martha have confirmed their faith in Jesus, and as they see Jesus, deeply moved, approaching the tomb, they don’t yet see. “Take away the stone”, He commands with authority, the full weight of what He is about to do and its glorious and dangerous consequences bearing down on the Son of God.
They object. ‘Our brother is dead. He is SO dead he is decomposing. What is going on, Jesus?’
And Jesus, full of love and compassion and tears simply says: ‘Didn’t I tell you? That if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’
The stone is taken away. Someone has found courage to believe that Jesus is up to something amazing and they’ve acted on it. The stone is taken away. And Jesus prays. God the Son communes with God the Father in gratitude.
His desire is that everyone there have confidence in the truth, confidence in what is really going on. God the Father sent God the Son to make alive that which was dead.
And Jesus calls out in a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out of there!” If anyone of the many mourners there was thinking this was absurd, if anyone was offended at Jesus or if anyone thought He was mad, it didn’t last for long.
Their eyes panned from Jesus to the cave where Lazarus had been buried and back to Jesus. Back to the cave, back to Jesus, back to…Lazarus, who was dead, but he now stands at the entrance of the cave.
His hands and feet still bound by the grave clothes that had been wrapped tightly around his body during the ritual of burial four days earlier. A clothe still covered his face.
Jesus says to them something just very practical: “Take off the grave clothes and let him go”.
And of course among those gathered as mourners there is shock and wonder and awe which gives way to jubilation. Lazarus who was dead,
Lazarus whose passing all had gathered to mourn, now stood before them. Fully alive. Restored. Death and the symbols of death, the grave clothes were now gone. Presumably someone gave him their tunic or their cloak.
This is a powerful occurrence in the life of Jesus and of course in the lives of all those who witness these events. It was for Jesus one more step to the cross. It foreshadows Jesus’ own suffering and death. It hints strongly at what is to come for Jesus.
He who raised Lazarus from the dead, demonstrating His power over death, would soon be hanging on a cross, taunted by people, who did not understand, with these words: “Save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”
And Jesus would not use His power to save Himself. The sinless, spotless Lamb of God would use His power to die, to take upon Himself the sin of the world. He who knew no sin would become sin for us. And bearing the weight of this sin, my sin and yours, Jesus would cry: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”.
And all would be, for His disciples, as gloomy as gloomy gets. Until three days later Jesus would triumph over death and be raised to life.
And we celebrate this fact every Sunday. We come to church to connect with this most powerful of events among others who also know that these things are true. Others who have experienced, through believing in Jesus, something of the glory of God revealed in our own lives. Something of the resurrection that has occurred and is occurring in us.
Something of the grave clothes that once bound us being taken off by Jesus, liberating us to live a life less fettered by the crippling grip of sin. Freeing us to love God and to love others. Freeing us to live.
Play video: “I Raise Dead Things” (Sermonspice)
Soft Music playing: Jesus Paid it All)
What are your grave clothes? What binds you today? Where is death at work in your mortal body, in your soul? Jesus calls you this day to live.
He points you, we point you, not first to healing, not first to all the limitless benefits and challenges of following Jesus, but first to Jesus. Jesus. He who paid your ransom. He who laid it all down at the cross for you. He who loves you here, now, and calls you gently, “Come forth!”.
