“A Miracle and a Motive”
John 11:1-7, 17-19, 32-53
How many of you have read or heard the story of Jesus raising Lazarus before?
Where we stop reading the story has a lot to do with how we interpret it.
If I were to have stopped reading at verse 45, the story would have a happy ending, right?
The people see what Jesus did, so they follow Him and believe.
But, that’s not really the end of the story, because as we continue reading, we find out that some people saw what Jesus did, this power that He displayed, as being something terrible.
The miracle of the raising of Lazarus is the greatest of Jesus’ earthly miracles.
Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and a lot of people see it happen.
And some of the people respond by saying, “I believe in Him. I’m going to follow Him. He’s got something!
Something is really going on.”
But some other people see what Jesus has done and they say, “Something is going on here.
This guy has got something and we better end it; we better kill Him!”
The raising of Lazarus is a miracle and a motive.
It’s a good thing for some, exciting, riveting, life-changing…
…for others, it is VERY SCARY.
We are at the tomb of Lazarus this morning, and this is the moment when Jesus’ path leads straight for the Cross.
(pause)
The Pharisees and the chief priests, it’s easy to misunderstand them.
It’s easy to point out all the things they got wrong, but they did actually have something right—they knew that Jesus had something going on.
They knew that Jesus had some kind of power.
They knew Jesus was Someone to be feared because He had come to afflict the comfortable and it didn’t get much more comfortable than the chief priests and the religious leaders.
And we get comfortable sometimes, too, don’t we?
I know I do.
Think of all the “creature comforts” that avert our eyes.
We have so many temptations, so many things that seek our attention.
And we are so very weak.
On our own, we are terribly weak.
And so, it’s easy to be a Christian and forget about the Cross.
Have you ever done this?
Have you ever become a comfortable Christian?
Have you ever gotten to the point where you didn’t think about the Cross all that much?
Of course, if we are Christians who have forgotten about the Cross we should ask ourselves: “Are we really following Jesus?”
(pause)
Yes, the Pharisees and the chief priests knew about Jesus.
They knew what He had done.
And it can be easy for us to ask, “Why didn’t they get it then?”
“Didn’t they see that Jesus was offering life?”
“Didn’t they see that Jesus was offering love?”
“Didn’t they see that Jesus was offering a new world, a new kingdom—someplace where we can be brothers and sisters and put aside all the things that separate us?”
“Didn’t they understand that?”
And the answer is: “Yes, they did understand it!”
They knew full well what He was preaching, what He was trying to do, and when they heard about Lazarus coming out of the grave, they said, “Uh, oh.”
“He’s really got something, doesn’t He?”
They saw this, but they were comfortable where they were.
They were comfortable in their robes and their laws and their ivory towers.
They were comfortable with their prestige, their good jobs, their good wages, and their nice government jobs.
That’s right the chief priests were in power because they had submitted themselves to the greatest power that the world had ever known—the Roman Empire.
Jesus was making waves, and the last thing they wanted was for Him to rock the boat because when boats get rocked, people fall off.
And so, they were scared because Jesus had power.
Jesus was dangerous to the status quo.
Things were going to change if they didn’t stop Jesus.
And that is what they had right.
Many of us lose sight of this.
It’s easy to become a comfortable American Christian who only turns to Jesus when we want something to go our way.
It’s easy to start treating Jesus like a vending machine.
And when we think of Jesus this way Jesus never asks us to do anything really.
He never asks us to take a risk.
He never calls us to go anywhere.
What the chief priests understood was that if people started following Jesus, really started following Jesus things were going to change—people were going to change, and they would be in trouble.
(pause)
Jesus is our Friend, our Comforter, and all these things, but sometimes if we say, “Jesus I’m going to follow You,” Jesus might lead us to places we don’t really want to go.
He might lead us to people we really don’t want to meet.
He might tell us to love people we don’t really want to love.
It’s easy to love the people who love us.
Anybody can do that.
Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”
Now, that’s tougher.
Following Jesus can lead us to scary places and these places aren’t necessarily across the ocean, although He might lead us there too.
But following Jesus can also lead us to places like the Community Kitchen.
Jesus might lead us to share our faith at work or at home, or at the gym.
Jesus might lead us to befriend people we aren’t interested in befriending.
Jesus might lead us to make friends with people who don’t look like us, people from different socio-economic backgrounds, political parties, and people who don’t always smell good or say things we want to hear.
Jesus may lead us to share more of our money and material goods with those who don’t have enough.
Following Jesus is not easy, and Jesus tells us this.
Following Jesus changes us, and we might not want to be different.
But the path of Christ, that we take if we follow Him, that Cross…
…do we remember what that is?
If it was a hangman’s noose or an electric chair it might be easier for our 21st-century minds to wrap around.
The Cross isn’t just a gold chain to wear around our necks.
It’s a reminder that following Jesus is hard.
Again, we might be called to do something we don’t want to do.
Jesus calls us to transformation.
Jesus calls us to the transformation of our hearts and minds.
Jesus calls us to the transformation of our homes.
Jesus calls us to the transformation of our relationships and our workplaces.
Jesus calls us to the transformation of our church, the transformation of our community, and the transformation of the world that we live in.
And this can be scary for us.
We don’t like this much change.
And if we are the agents of change, that make it more difficult.
Yes, it can be scary.
But that’s alright.
If we are a little bit scared about following Jesus, that means we are paying attention because Jesus is calling us to do something in the world.
(pause)
So, the fear…
…That’s the one thing the chief priests got right.
Jesus was coming to change the world…
…to make the first last and the last first…
…to seek out the least and the lost.
(pause)
When Jesus got to Lazarus’ tomb, Lazarus had been dead for four days.
Martha told Jesus, “by this time, there is a bad odor….”
As we come to Lazarus’ tomb this morning can you and I smell the death in our world?
Can we smell the stench and the rot in the world?
Can we smell the poverty?
Can we smell the broken relationships and the alienation?
Can you and I smell the class warfare and the name-calling and blaming?
Can we smell the racism?
Can we smell the sin of this world?
It rots, and stinks doesn’t it?
Can we see that stone in front of the tomb and how heavy it is?
Can we feel the weight of it?
Can we hear the cries of those who mourn in our world?
We’ve come to the tomb of Lazarus and the chief priests and the Pharisees of the day had it exactly right.
This Jesus was someone to fear.
But I’ll tell you what they had wrong.
They thought those whips on His back, and beating Him and mocking Him and spitting on Him…
They thought all of that would break Him.
Were they right?
They thought that Cross that they nailed Him to and left Him to rot and die on….
….they thought that could keep Him.
Were they right?
They thought that tomb they put Him in and the big rock that they put in front of it…
…they thought that would keep Him in there and seal Him away and He’d be gone and done.
Were they right?
No.
No slashes, no Cross, no tomb could keep Him down.
And everything that He preached and everyone He healed…
…every piece of bread that He broke came out of that tomb and it spread all over the world!
And we are standing on Holy Ground!
And when we go home, we are standing on Holy Ground!
And when we go to work we are standing on Holy Ground because Jesus is here, He is alive because that tomb couldn’t keep Him in.
(pause)
Following Jesus is not easy.
I can tell you more stories than I can count about times that I have failed and I’ve nailed Him to the Cross.
It’s hard to follow Jesus, but it’s worth it because Jesus offers so much more than pain and death.
The Roman Empire, the chief priests, and all the other leaders—all they offered was death.
That’s all they knew how to offer.
And the world today, that’s all it knows how to offer…
…consume, use, produce, die, death, kill one another…
…the world always tells us, “That’s the way the world works.”
But Jesus offers something radically different.
He offers us something so good.
(pause)
So, we come to the tomb of Lazarus today, and what the Scripture shows us is Jesus’ power.
Jesus gives life.
Jesus transforms people.
Jesus takes people who are broken and people who are lost, and Jesus saves us if we allow Him.
(pause)
So, we have a few responses to all this.
We can say, “Look what this man has done. We better kill Him!”
We can say, “Look what this man has done; it’s no big deal” because that’s what most of the world tells us.
“He doesn’t really do that much anyway.”
Or we can try that other way…
…we can decide to believe and follow.
What is your response?
What is mine?
