Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem … to die … when He received word that His friend, Lazarus, was sick. Jesus’ reaction was strange. He didn’t rush off to Bethany to heal His friend. “This illness does not lead to death,” says Jesus, “rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4) … a strange thing to say. John says that Jesus stayed in the wilderness … at the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus on the Jordan River and began His ministry … for two more days … to make sure that Lazarus was good and dead.
Needless to say, this was all very confusing for the Disciples because they knew that Jesus loved Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, very much. When Jesus tries to explain to them that Lazarus was merely asleep and that He was going to Bethany to wake Lazarus up … they were relieved. “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right” … but Jesus makes it clear that Lazarus isn’t just sleeping … he’s dead. “For your sake, I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him” (John 11:14-15) … and for our sakes today, I am also glad that Jesus wasn’t there.
Just before Jesus arrives at Lazarus’ house, He is met by Lazarus’ sister, Martha. They have already had the funeral service and placed Lazarus’ body in a tomb. “Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to Him. … When Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him, she knelt at His feet and said to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Some of Lazarus’ family and friends agreed: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (John 11:21-29, 32, 36).
I believe that that last line … “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” … shows us why Jesus waited until Lazarus was dead and explains what Jesus meant when He said: “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). Jesus had, in fact, healed a man born blind just before He had heard about Lazarus’ illness. In fact, Jesus had healed many, many people. But Jesus needed to show them, He needed to show us, that His power was far, far, far greater than that.
“Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to Him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank You for having heard me. I knew that You always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that You sent me.’ When He had said this, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’” (John 11:38-44).
Before Lazarus went into that tomb, he was sick. We don’t know what he had. He could have had cancer or some kind of blood disorder … any of a great number of diseases … we don’t know. What we do know is that it was fatal. When Lazarus went into that tomb, he was dead. But when Lazarus came out of that tomb, Jesus didn’t just bring him back to life … He restored Him, amen? Lazarus didn’t stink of death … he wasn’t sick … he wasn’t incapacitated. He was restored. He was made whole again.
You see, Jesus Himself was on His way to Jerusalem where He was going to be arrested and executed. Before He went to see Martha and Mary in Bethany, the Disciples had cautioned Jesus not to go anywhere near Jerusalem. But Jesus had told them many times that He was going to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, who were going to condemn Him to death. He would be handed over to the gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified and [pause] … on the third day be raised from the dead (Matthew 20:17-19).
When Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb, it was badly beaten, literally ripped and torn. His body lay in the tomb for three days, so it was pretty obvious that He too was dead. But on the third day, Jesus, who had called Lazarus out of the tomb, stepped out of His tomb. He wasn’t ripped or torn. He wasn’t covered with the stench of death. He was restored. When Mary saw Him, she didn’t even recognize Him until He spoke her name.
Our beloved Martha Jean was sick. There was nothing we could do. We have, in a manner of speaking, placed her body in the tomb. Like Martha and Mary, we may wonder why Jesus didn’t heal her but the truth is that every one of us will one day be placed in the tomb. The question is what happens to us afterwards who, like Martha and Mary, believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that His victory over sin and death is also our victory over sin and death.
Martha mentioned that we would all be resurrected. Will we all be awaken by Jesus on the same day or will we go immediately into Heaven, like the thief on the cross, when we die? None of us will know the answer to that until our bodies have been placed in the tomb. What is clear is that once we wake up, once we pass through the veil, the moment we stand in God’s presence, we will be restored.
Martha Jean is no longer sick. She no longer has dementia. She has already been given or will one day be given what the Apostle Paul described as a new body … a spiritual body … an imperishable, immortal body … one that will no longer get sick or tired or weary … and I believe that she has been or will be given a restored mind, a new mind, a better mind.
When Lazarus stepped out of the tomb, Jesus commanded that they remove the strips of cloth that bound him and covered his face be removed. The strips of cloth were burial clothes and they were no longer needed but Jesus’ words … “Unbind him, and let him go” (John 11:44) … carried far greater meaning. Lazarus was bound by his sickness. His spirit, his soul was bound by his body … and his body was bound by death and by the tomb. But when Jesus called him out, Lazarus was truly free … free of sickness, free from death, free from this wonderful but limited body. And when Jesus called Martha Jean … He unbound her. She is no longer captive to her mind. She is no longer a captive of her failing body. She is no longer a captive of death. She has come or will come out of the other side of the tomb shouting: “Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
“Behold, I tell you a mystery,” Paul writes, “we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1st Corinthians 15:51-52). Like Paul, we don’t know what Martha’s new body or our new bodies will be like but we do know what it won’t be like … it won’t be like these bodies, as wonderful and a fearfully made as they are. God, who made these bodies, will give us even better bodies. Will we know and recognize Martha when we see her? Oh, yes! We will know her as we have never known her and we will see her as we have never seen her before … and the same will go for us.
At one point, Jesus told His Disciples: “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3). And what a place He has gone to prepare for us … a New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be fantastically huge. The New Jerusalem will be a place of unimagined blessing. The curse of the old earth will be gone. Jesus will dwell with us and we with Him and we will be His people and God Himself will wipe every tear from every eye and mourning and crying and pain and death will be no more. “And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever (Revelation 22:5).
“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25). Martha believed it. I believe it. And I hope and pray that when the New Jerusalem is ready and Jesus commands all who believe in Him to awaken from their sleep that you are there too, amen?
