God’s Unique Design in Suffering: A Portrait in the
Lives of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (Part 1)
John 11:1-16
This morning we come to examine the last of seven miracles performed by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John. Each miracle reminds us that Jesus is God, sovereign in power, and that he is sent by his Father on a rescue mission to save those who are imprisoned by sin and death. In many ways, these seven miracles depict various aspects of salvation.
In turning the water into wine, Jesus demonstrates that He can radically alter the nature of things by transforming water from a common, tasteless drink into a refreshing and extraordinary beverage. He does this in the miracle of salvation: changing us from slaves of sin to slaves of righteousness, making us new creatures by His power, granting complete and radical transformation, transferring our allegiance from Satan and the powers of darkness to sons of God who live in the light.
When Jesus healed the nobleman’s son, he did so from a distance to show that his power to heal is not limited by physical proximity. At this moment, the Bible says that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, interceding for those he came to save. He can save you right where you sit, by the exercise of his powerful will from heaven’s throne. The Spirit of God can bring life and healing to your sin-sick soul by the hearing or reading of the Word of God. The Holy Scriptures are “able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15b).
The third miracle, healing the invalid at the pool of Bethesda, demonstrates the sovereignty of God in salvation. The Lord Jesus chose to demonstrate his power to heal in the life of one man out of a multitude who waited for the stirring of the waters. No one appealed to Jesus to have mercy on this poor, lonely man, yet for thirty-eight years he had struggled alone against the hope that he might one day be healed. No one brought him to Jesus, no one prayed for his healing, no one cared that he waited without anyone to help him into the water, no one felt the sorrow and hopelessness and pain and despair—except the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Believe me, dear friend: when Jesus chooses to show his mercy to you, it does not matter who you are or what you have done.
When Jesus fed the five thousand, he demonstrated that he is able to satisfy our deepest hunger for the “food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you” (6:27). He later spoke to the multitudes, some of whom had eaten the multiplied loaves and fishes, and he said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” (6:35). Are you hungry for something more? Is there a deep longing in your soul for something that you can’t quite define or put your finger on? May you learn this morning that Christ alone can fill the void in your life. Will you believe in him and trust that he is able to save you from your sins and grant you life in abundance? What’s the catch, you may be thinking; there’s no such thing as a free lunch. And you are right. He wants everything you have, everything you are; he demands your full allegiance, and he will not share the rightful place he deserves in your heart with all of the other pitiful substitutes you have tried and found unfulfilling and shallow.
The fifth miracle displayed the power of Jesus over the laws of nature, as he walked on the water in the midst of the storm. Again, the Lord of glory makes it abundantly clear that he can come alongside you in the time of deepest distress and amidst the pressures of life. No storm is too fierce, no situation too impossible, no hardship so great that the Lord Jesus cannot intervene and bring to a glorious conclusion. The power of sin and darkness are little more than a platform to display his glory and power! In salvation, he is able to deliver you from those things that will ultimately demand your very life.
Miracle number six showed our Lord’s power over the seemingly irreversible effects of congenital blindness. A man was born blind, but Jesus created sight within him. As we talked about the nature of this miracle, it became obvious that Jesus did more than heal this man of an illness; he literally created a visual recognition system in a man that had never seen anything and he worked miracles in the man’s brain so that he could process the images that he saw with his newly created sight. You may remember my comment last time that John seems to relish the communication of this miracle, since he gives great detail (41 verses in John 9) and even captures the reaction of the Jews and their interrogation of the man and his parents. It’s as if the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is building to a crescendo through the pen of John.
Well, the climax of these sign miracles is found in raising Lazarus from the dead (in John, chapter 11), which released such a flood of persecution from the chief priests of the Jews and the Pharisees (the ultra-conservatives of their day) that it is recorded, “so from that day on they planned together to kill Him” (11:53). Why? For political reasons. When it was reported that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, they called a council meeting and one of them said, “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” They were worried about losing political clout with the Roman government! They wanted Roman recognition. And not satisfied with killing Jesus, these same wicked men “planned to put Lazarus to death also; because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus” (12:10-11).
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Let’s begin reading in John 11:1-3, “1Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”
This was a very special family to Jesus, for several reasons. According to these and other verses (11:5, 36), Jesus loved Lazarus, and his sisters felt that their brother would be made well if only he could be notified of his condition. It was a reasonable assumption or expectation that, if Jesus healed total strangers, He would certainly heal Lazarus. However, the Lord had other plans for this dear friend.
Except for John’s narrative here and a brief mention by Luke, we really know very little about Martha. In Luke 10:38-42, we learn that Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. Her sister, Mary, was so intent on sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to his teaching that Martha got a little upset and complained that she was doing all the serving. The Lord gave a mild rebuke, saying, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42).
Mary’s significance is revealed in verse 2, as the one “who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair.” John is the only gospel writer who identifies the woman who performed this act of worship to the Lord Jesus (see also Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9), but it is recorded that Jesus said regarding her sacrifice of worship that “wherever this good news may be proclaimed in the whole world, what also this woman did shall be spoken of—for a memorial of her” (Matt. 26:13; Mark 14:9). At this point in John’s narrative, this event has not happened, at least not until chapter 12, verse 3, but he makes it clear that this is the very same Mary whose brother was sick. While John does not record Jesus’ words about Mary’s actions being remembered as a memorial, he does mention her devotion in advance.
Keep this in mind, as we move further into the text, that these friends are precious in Jesus’ sight: one is dying and his two sisters are praying that their messenger will find the Lord in time to do their brother good. Mary and Martha had both expressed devotion, hospitality, and service to the Lord. If anyone deserved a break, from the standpoint of human reasoning, this family certainly did. And yet as soon as the messenger set out on the twenty-mile journey to another town called Bethany, sometimes called Bathabara or “Bethany beyond the Jordan,” where Jesus was ministering, Lazarus died.
Sometimes life does not make sense. That’s why Paul told Timothy to “preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (2 Tim. 4:2). We need more than simple steps to a happy home; we should be learning some of the deeper teachings of Scripture, such as the sovereignty and providence of God. Such truths are the bedrock and foundation upon which we can stand in difficult times, whether facing sorrow, sickness, persecution, or even death itself. In just a few days from receiving the message about Lazarus, our Lord would be standing before the high court of the Jews and eventually before the Roman government. To prepare his disciples for his soon-approaching crucifixion, Jesus said these solemn words, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal” (12:24-25).
* * * * * ILLUSTRATION * * * * *
In 1813, Adoniram Judson became the first American missionary to Burma, now known as Myanmar, arriving with his 23-year-old wife, Ann, after only 17 months of marriage. Before he married her, Adoniram wrote her father a letter asking permission to marry his daughter. Here’s what he said,
“I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”
The father, surprisingly, left the decision to his daughter. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Ann would bear him 3 children: one died nameless on the 114-day voyage to Burma; the second child, Roger Williams Judson, lived only 17 months; and their third child, Maria Elizabeth Butterworth Judson, died at the age of 2 years old, but outlived her mother by 6 months. After Ann’s death, Adoniram fell into great despair, thinking he had chosen the mission field out of selfish ambition and fame, rather than a deep love for faithfulness to Christ.
He eventually remarried a missionary widow eight years after Ann’s death. He and Sarah Boardman had 8 children over the next 11 years, but only 5 lived beyond their childhood. Then Sarah became so ill that they took passage on a ship to America, leaving the 3 oldest children behind (one of whom died before Judson could return) and taking the 3 youngest with them. Judson had not been home in 33 years. Sarah died not long into the voyage, the ship dropped anchor just long enough for Judson to bury his wife and the mother of his children before continuing on their journey.
After his arrival in America, Judson eventually fell in love with Emily Chubbock, a famous writer who was willing to spend the remainder of her life in Burma as a missionary wife. The couple had four wonderful years together, and had 1 child together, but Judson became quite sick and took passage on a ship to France, in hopes that the salt air would help him recover. A friend accompanied him on the journey. Judson’s misery was punctuated with terrible pain and vomiting, and one of his last utterances was, “How few there are who…who die so hard.” On April 12, 1850, at 4:15 p.m. Adoniram Judson died. After the ship’s crew assembled quietly, with no prayers offered, the captain gave the order and Judson’s coffin slid through the ship’s port into the night. They continued on their journey to France. In just ten days, Emily would give birth to another child, who died at birth. She did not hear the news of her husband’s death until 4 months later. She returned to New England within a short time, but died within 3 years of tuberculosis at the young age of 37. Today, there are 3,700 Baptist congregations in Myanmar who look to Judson as the God-blessed, human seed that “fell into the ground and died,” the fruit of whose life and death was the birth and multiplication of many gospel-preaching churches.
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As we continue in John’s gospel we read, beginning in verse 4:
4But 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.” 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. 7 Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to Him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” 9 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. 10 “But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 This He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” 12 The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep. 14 So Jesus then said to them plainly, “ Lazarus is dead, 15 and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.” 16 Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”
Oh, if we could only understand that everything is under the sovereign control and direction of the Lord God Almighty, whom even a wicked Old Testament ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, eventually declared, “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” (Daniel 4:34b-35).
When the messenger reached Jesus with the news from Bethany, Jesus already knew, as God in human flesh, two things: first, that the ultimate goal for the sickness and death of Lazarus was “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it,” and secondly, that this particular illness would not cause the death of Lazarus, even though it did kill him “graveyard dead” for a few days. Isn’t it strange how truth calms our hearts when we know the final outcome of everything is for the glory of God and His Son, Jesus Christ? Amen? Really, folks, if you knew that tomorrow a routine physical exam would result in your doctors discovering an inoperable brain tumor, would any of these truths of Scripture be a comfort to you?
This past week, I heard John Piper say, “Suffering was not just a consequence of the Master’s obedience and mission. It was the central strategy of his mission. It was the ground of his accomplishment. Jesus calls us to join him on the Calvary road, to take up our cross, and to hate our lives in this world, and fall into the ground like a seed and die, that others might live. We are not above our Master. To be sure, our suffering does not atone for anyone’s sins, but it is a deeper way of doing missions than we often realize.” What an incredible thought for us to embrace! What a Christ-like response to know that our life is in the Father’s hands, and that whatever He has ordained for us to go through will ultimately ring forth to the praise of His glorious grace!
Can you hear this? The sickness and suffering and death of Lazarus was one of Christ’s critical strategies to bring salvation to a lost and dying world. Was this some cruel, cosmic chess game where Lazarus was an unwilling casualty in the opening round? No…NO!! It was the final move that put Satan and his demonic hordes in position to make one last, desperate, foolish move that would bring Christ to the cross for a checkmate. Even then, it would seem, at least for three days, that Satan had been the victor in the battle. But, as the old gospel hymn-writer put it,
Up from the grave, He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah, Christ arose!
Paul said it well, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). Did you notice how the Holy Spirit inspired John to juxtapose the love of Christ, in verse 5, with both the statement in verse 4 (concerning the glory of God) and the mind-numbing paradox of verse 6? Verse 5 says, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” But the next statement does not seem to coincide with the love of Christ, does it? One would expect the text to say, “So Jesus immediately made haste to Bethany” or “Jesus said to the messenger, ‘My dear friend, Lazarus, has been made well.”
One commentator said it this way:
"God’s love for His own is not a pampering love; it is a perfecting love. The fact that He loves us, and we love Him is no guarantee that we will be sheltered from the problems and pains of life. After all, the Father loves His Son: and yet the Father permitted His beloved Son to drink the cup of sorrow and experience the shame and pain of the Cross. We must never think that love and suffering are incompatible. Certainly they unite in Jesus Christ." [Warren Wiersbe, BE Series, Gospel of John]
Jesus could have prevented Lazarus’ sickness or even healed it from where He was; but He chose not to. He saw in this sickness an opportunity to glorify the Father. It is not important that we Christians are comfortable, but it is important that we glorify God in all that we do.
Instead, we read that Jesus stayed two more days upon hearing the news about His friend, Lazarus. Why? Lazarus had already died! There was no reason for the omniscient (all –knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful) God-man to rush about, since He knew, as Scripture ascribes to Him, “the end from the beginning.” Let’s do the math. Bethany was approximately 20 miles away, a day’s journey for the messenger, then add the two-day wait, and another day for Jesus and his disciples to travel to the home of Mary and Martha. Four days, right? We later learn (in verse 39) that Lazarus had been dead for four days upon the arrival of Jesus.
Let’s listen in upon the conversation between Jesus and his disciples when the decision is made to go to Judea, meaning Bethany, only a couple of miles from Jerusalem. After waiting two days in Bethany beyond the Jordan, Jesus says, “Let us go to Judea again.” The road-weary disciples responded with something like, “Are you serious? You were nearly killed a few days ago by the Jews. They’re looking for you, Master, and if they find you it’s all over!” Jesus responds in two ways: first, with a foundational statement designed to teach them a profound truth, and then by stating his reasons for going.
This foundational teaching of our Lord is somewhat veiled in its language, a little confusing perhaps to our ears, but hopefully we can make some sense of it. On one level, he is talking about daylight and darkness, the two realities that all of us experience every day: the sun comes up in the morning and we call that “day”; later, the sun goes down and that becomes “night”. If Jesus were just giving a lesson on the earth’s orbit around the sun that causes night and day, it would be out of place; the disciples might say, “What does that have to do with putting your life on the line by going back to the Jerusalem area?” However, Jesus was speaking of obedience to the Father’s word and will, sort of like the Psalmist meant when he said, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).
Concerning the necessity of sound doctrine to enlighten us and lead us in the path of growing in Christlikeness—in other words, the life-long process called “sanctification”—Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote:
"The passages of Scripture which prove that the instrument of our sanctification is the Word of God are very many. The Spirit of God brings to our minds the precepts and doctrines of truth, and applies them with power. These are heard in the ear, and being received in the heart, they work in us to will and to do of God’s good pleasure. The truth is the sanctifier, and if we do not hear or read the truth, we shall not grow in sanctification. We only progress in sound living as we progress in sound understanding. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Do not say of any error, “It is a mere matter of opinion.” No man indulges an error of judgment, without sooner or later tolerating an error in practice. Hold fast the truth, for by so holding the truth shall you be sanctified by the Spirit of God." [Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings, July 4 AM (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995), electronic edition]
Jesus is teaching the disciples in the laboratory of life. The lessons have already been many, but in some ways, they were just beginning to learn how God is glorified in life and in death.
Let me close with an excerpt from a book entitled The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd by John Piper. In this book, the inspiring lives of these three men are viewed through the lens of their suffering and the great contribution each of them made to our Christian heritage. I will read several excerpts over the next few weeks as we continue to look at the incredible miracle of our Lord’s resurrection of Lazarus from the tomb, but in closing this morning I would like to read a portion from the section on John Bunyan.
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"In all my reading of Bunyan, what has gripped me most is his suffering and how he responded to it, what it made of him, and what it might make of us. All of us come to our tasks with a history and many predispositions. I come to John Bunyan with a growing sense that suffering is the normal and useful and essential element in Christian life and ministry. It not only weans us off the world and teaches us to live on God, as 2 Corinthians 1:9 says, but also makes ministers more able to strengthen the church and makes missionaries more able to reach the nations with the Gospel of the grace of God.
"I am influenced in the way I read Bunyan both by what I see in the world today and what I see in the Bible. As you read this page, the flashpoints of suffering will have changed since I wrote it. But the reality will not—not as long as the world stays and the Word of Jesus stands. “In the world you have tribulation” (John 16:33). “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matthew 10:16). Today churches are being burned in some countries, and Christian young people are being killed by anti-Christian mobs. Christians endure systematic starvation and enslavement. China perpetuates its official repression of religious freedom and lengthy imprisonments. India, with its one billion people and unparalleled diversity, heaves with tensions between major religions and with occasional violence. The estimate of how many Christians are martyred each year surpasses all ability to weep as we ought.
"As I write, I see thousands dead in the paths of hurricanes or killed by earthquakes. I see hundreds slaughtered in war. I see thirty-three million people worldwide infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Almost six million new people are infected with the virus each year (eleven people every minute)…. I see the people suffering in my own church with tuberculosis and lupus and heart disease and blindness, not to mention the hundreds of emotional and relational pangs that people would trade any day for a good clean amputation.
"And as I come to Bunyan’s life and suffering, I see in the Bible that “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom” (Acts 14:22); and the promise of Jesus, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20); and the warning from Peter “not [to] be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12); and the utter realism of Paul that we who have “the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan with ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23); and the reminder that “our outer nature is wasting away” (2 Corinthians 4:16, RSV), and that the whole creation “was subjected to futility (Romans 8:20).
"As I look around me in the world and in the Word of God, my own sense is that what we need from Bunyan is a glimpse into how he suffered and how he learned “to live upon God that is invisible.” I want that for myself and my family and the church I serve and for all who read this book. For nothing glorifies God more than maintaining our stability and joy when we lose everything but God. That day is coming for each of us, and we do well to get ready, and to help the people we love get ready." [NOTE: John Piper, The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd, The Swans Are Not Silent, Book Two (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 44-46.]
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Let us pray…
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Benediction:
“But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle [you]. To Him [be] glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:10-11)
