1) {Introduction}
If you have seen the news, you would recognize this man and his family [show picture]. A couple of days ago, Jimmie Wallet went out for ice cream, and when he got back, his wife and three of his four daughters were gone. They were killed in a mudslide.
You also have seen the news. Three weeks ago, the Asian tsunami wiped out people from 11 countries. The death toll now is exceeding 150,000. When the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan flew over a remote of Indonesia, still unreachable by the rescuers at the time, he was shaken by what he saw, "I must admit, I have never seen such utter destruction, mile after mile, "And you wonder, where are the people, what happened to them?”[i]
Two days after the powerful tsunami, the Wall Street Journal printed the following: “...thousands people killed by the tidal wave, so far. Who are they? What are their names? How did they love and hate? Where was God when this happened? "God saved me, but why?" a nine-year old boy named Subhani asked a reporter. He had just watched his mother and elder sister drown in front of him as he looked on, helpless; six months ago, the little boy had lost his father...”[ii]
Where is God in the midst of all this? We scream out this question in the last few weeks. As we continue our study through the book of John in chapter 11, let’s see if there is any answer according to God’s Word.
Let’s pray...
2) {Verse-by-verse exposition}
Chapter 11 started out with the family of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, the same family mentioned in the book of Luke…
Now 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.
Perhaps the readers of John may have known Mary, as you can see how he wrote about her. If you remember the sermon last week, at the end of Chapter 10 the religious leaders were about to stone Jesus for claiming equality with God. So Jesus withdrew to across the Jordan River, and He was no longer around the region where Lazarus lived. [Show map]
3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
Notice their pious prayer… 1) expressed their faith (they believed that Jesus is capable to do something with the sickness); 2) rooted in His love for them[iii] (and not “Lord, the one who love you is sick”); and 3) submitted to His mercy (they just presented their situation to Him, without any specific demand for Him to do something).
Many of us assume that if we pray a “right prayer”, from a “righteous life”, with a “right attitude”; then we should get what we expected. As if the “right prayer”, from the “righteous life”, with the “right attitude” will obligate the Almighty God to do our bidding.
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.”
Back then there were neither phones nor email. It took two days for a messenger to carry the words of the sisters to Jesus. And so this was the reply He sent back. Ironically by the time the message arrived, Lazarus had already been dead. Imagine what it was like to be Mary or Martha: right when you just loss your love one, the messenger came back alone (without Jesus and) with the strange message, “This sickness will not end in death!”
Was Jesus Ignorant (didn’t He know that Lazarus was dead)? Sometimes it’s hard for us to comprehend HIS PROMISE. Many times the circumstances we see around us seemed to be a total opposite of what we hear from Him: Our parents shredded us into pieces, and God said that they are our pride[iv]; our friends abandoned us because of our new faith, and Jesus said that we will gain hundreds more[v]; our employment situation became hopeless, and God promise He will deliver[vi]; our spouses blew up at us again, and God said that we received them as favors from the Lord[vii]...... No! Jesus is not making ignorant promises! Even though sometimes it’s hard for us to comprehend HIS PROMISE, we need to realize that His promises came from His deepest love for us.
Verse 5: Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
When we love someone, we want to rush to help them: “Do something! Don’t just stand there, do anything!” When Jesus loved, He waited and took His time.
Was Jesus Indifferent[viii] (and didn’t care for His friends)? Sometimes it’s hard for us to comprehend HIS INACTION. And how could we comprehend? Didn’t God declare: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways; as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”[Isaiah 55:8-9] No! Jesus is not indifferent toward our problems and pains! Even though sometimes it’s hard for us to comprehend HIS INACTION, we need to realize that His inaction came from His perfect timing of when to act.
Verse 7Then [Jesus] 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.” 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.”
As we see up to this point in the Gospel of John, the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of the time had become more intense. At the end of the previous chapter, they were about to arrest and kill Him, but “he escaped their grasp” [Jn.10:31, 33, & 39]. That’s why the disciple protested Jesus’ decision to go to Lazarus.
It seemed strange to them that when Mary and Martha asked Him to come to heal, He didn’t come. Or if Lazarus was just asleep, then why bother. And even now that Lazarus was dead; risking their lives to be late at the funeral was still not making too much sense to them.
Was Jesus Inconsistent (and couldn’t make up His mind to whether go or not)? Sometimes it’s hard for us to comprehend HIS TIMING. Did Jesus inconsistent when sometimes He performed healing and some He won’t? Did He inconsistent for not taking a stance against slavery back then yet, leading His people to take that stance today? No! Jesus is not inconsistent in His dealing with us! Even though sometimes it’s hard for us to comprehend HIS TIMING, we need to realize that His timing came from His desire to workout everything for the greatest “the glory of God,” i.e., the manifestation of the power, love, and wisdom of God; so that men may see, acknowledge, and put their faith in God.[x]
And for the glory of God, the healing a sick person would not match the raising of the dead. And for the grace of God, Lazarus must be allowed to die before He was made alive. In fact, the longer the decaying, the greater a miracle! By the time Jesus took another two days of travel to arrive, everything was sure to be too little too late!
Verse 17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Bethany was less than two miles 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.
It seems like "the Jews" in Jerusalem were much more responsive to Mary and Martha compared to Jesus. They were there for them.
Sometimes it seems like the world is much kinder to us than God or His people would have been. The world love to seize any opportunity to shine, especially when God seems to fumble. You have seen how many secular charity outdone Christians in the relief efforts, how celebrities and stars pledged to help. “You trust your Jesus, who was far removed from your practical needs; and look at what He gets you?” The world asked. “Pain and suffering; confusion and heartbreak? Some of you fail your classes; some of you struggle to find work; some of you lost your love; some of you battle tough illness. Why don’t you trust something closer, only two miles a way; something more concrete, like the cities and its politics, like the charity and its comfort, like the good heart of other human beings just like you?” The world whispered. How would you response to the sweat talk of the world, especially when it seems like God had let you down?
Verse 21“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
[Raise voice] “IF YOU HAD BEEN HERE: MY BROTHER WOULD NOT HAVE DIED! I trust in you, I have faith that you certainly could heal; I prayed and pleaded to you. Why Lord? Why? What was your logic for letting my brother died?” Martha must have felt that way.
Even if she didn’t, isn’t that the same way we feel sometimes? “If God was in control, how could He let 150,000 innocent people died in the tsunami?” “If He’s capable, why didn’t He do something to prevent it?”
Sometimes it seems like God flunked our logical test. But it was our logic, not His logic. However, deep down inside of us, our spirit groaned beyond human logic could understand. Out of nowhere, a glimmering of hope and faith appeared when Martha said:
Verse 22“But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
What was her speaking about? Was she suggesting that Jesus should resurrect her brother back to life? Not quite, because in the next few verses (v.24), it seemed like she had abandoned all hope, especially in her refusal later on to open the dead man’s tomb. The only thing which makes sense was that she clinging on to Jesus’ word as the messenger brought back days ago. We can imagine how again and again Martha, now that her brother was dead, had been repeating these strange, these very mysterious words, “This sickness is NOT unto death.” Deep down underneath her soul, her faith vocalized the conviction in its own voice, which the human mind’s login can’t fathom.[xi]
23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha wanted to know the reason why God seemed to fail her. And Jesus gave the reason to her. And just like whenever God tried to reveal Himself to humankind, we didn’t seem capable to grasp the Truth.
24Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Instead of following her unexplainable sense of faith a few minutes ago, Martha came back to the hopeless reality and resigned herself with a safe, doctrinal answer. A few minutes ago the “whatever” in the hope-filled “God will give you whatever you ask” could include a possibility for the most astounding miracle, now the “whatever” get folded into a corner of reasonable theology.
Isn’t that the story of our faith too? One minute was so vibrant, and the next was so gloomy. Someday we could believe in supernatural miracles, and someday we settle for just any natural explanation. But praise be to God, who persistently pursue us by Himself, independent of how much faith we have in Him, and not influenced by how we feel about Him:
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?”
Note that “Resurrection” came first before “Life”: because resurrection opens the gate to immortal Life.[xii] As human being, we messed up and chose to follow the way of Death in the Fall of Eden with Adam. There is no way for us to achieve “Life” now except going through Death to the Resurrection! And the only way to the Resurrection and Life is to believe in Jesus: believe in Him, and not in a doctrinal system!
Another pastors put this eloquently: “When you are sick, you want a doctor and not a medical book or a formula. When you are being sued, you want a lawyer and not a law book. Likewise, when you face your last enemy, death, you want the Savior and not a doctrine written in a book. In Jesus Christ, every doctrine is made personal [1 Cor. 1:30].”[xiii]
Here Jesus was questioning Martha’s faith in Him, not her faith in the doctrine of the resurrection; (she had just given the doctrinal answer). But had Martha already express her faith in Jesus? She asked Jesus to heal Lazarus, and even when Jesus didn’t heal him, her faith in his ability didn’t sway: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died”.
The issue here is “what type of faith?”
- Faith in Jesus as a historical real person: it’s not the faith God wants.
- Faith that Jesus had great moral, ethical teachings for us to follow: it’s not the faith God wants.
- Faith in Jesus as a Deity who can grant miracles and blessing: may be closer but that’s still not the faith God wants.
- Saving faith in Jesus is so exalted a concept that the Creator Himself became a man in order to die for our sin, to give us the resurrection in the next life, and the new life now while we are still on earth.
Then God want our faith to grow even more: is God still God in your life if He demanded you to change your sinful habit? Is God still God in your life when things are not as you expected? When He says No to your prayer? When bad things happened to good people? When it seemed like He fumbled and failed you? When disasters strike? When loved one loss? When diseases come? When pain and suffering abound? When He seemed absence when you needed Him most?
In the dark nights of your soul, do you still believe in Him?
27“Yes, Lord,” [Martha] told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
Without Lazarus’ death, she believed that He could heal.
With Lazarus’ death, her faith had to workout some more, it became stronger, and she now choosing to believe that He is God Himself, the Resurrection and Life for humankind.
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.
Martha called for Mary: Notice that faith spread; even there is still no change in the circumstances, in the midst of pain.
The Jews who were there to comfort the family also followed Mary out to the graveside: the world is watching you in your struggle with God over your pains and your loss.
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.”
“If you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Identical words, different attitudes.
While Martha was able to stand and carry a conversation with Jesus, all Mary could do was to throw herself at His feet, and cried like a baby[xiv]. Perhaps what troubled Martha was the understanding of, “Why Lord? Why? What was your logic for letting my brother died?” Being more emotional, what troubled Mary was not the understanding, but the feeling of, “Why Lord? Why? Why were you so cruel and let my brother died?”
Identical words, different attitudes from the sisters, and different responses from the Savior. Jesus responded to Martha’s mind-numbing questions with loving theology, and he responded to Mary’s heart-wrenching tears quite differently.
Verse 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.
Let’s remember that our tears, both from people who believed in Him and from those who have yet to believe in Him; your tears and my tears, our tears moved God to tears. He responded to Mary’s tears with His own tears.
But why did Jesus weep? Surely it’s not because He was so sad since He couldn’t see his friend Lazarus ever again, (for He was about to resurrect him). So why did He weep? The text tried its best to describe His feeling. One of the terms described that he was “deeply moved”. This term is elsewhere used in Matthew 2:18 to describe the emotional trauma of those in the region around Bethlehem whose children, two years old and younger, were slaughtered at the order of Herod. In Matthew 26:75, the term describes Peter’s grief at having denied his Lord. In Luke 19:41, it depicts our Lord’s agony over the unbelief of Jerusalem and its impending judgment. In Luke 23:28, it is used of the mourning of the women of Jerusalem, as they watch the Lord Jesus being taken to His cross.[xv]
What Jesus saw, was the agony of death on humankind when we reap the terrible consequence of Sin. We live in a dying world, where before all of us looms the inevitability of death. Since the Fall, there has been a curse [of death] on the earth and that curse has sent the earth and all of its inhabitants careening and spiraling into disasters, tears, sickness, and the grave.[xvi]
This is the true meaning of compassion, which by definition goes even beyond the duty of empathizing and sympathizing with someone. Com=with/together; passion=suffering. It means to actually enter into the suffering of others.[xvii]
There was a story of a grandpa come into the nursery and found his grandchild stood crying in the crib, “Out, Grandpa, [I want to get] out!” Poor boy; the grandpa was about to pick him up, only to be interrupted by “Law and Order”: the boy’s mommy, “No dad. He was bad and he had to stay in the crib!” The kid kept crying, so what a loving grandpa do? He climbed into the crib and confined himself there to comfort the boy.
That’s the compassion of God. We were wayward and deserve the serve pain and suffering judgment here; and God came to us to endure suffering with us. That’s compassion.[xviii]
Verse 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?”
To some, Jesus’ visible tears are the proof of His compassion for fallen humanity [Luke 19:41].[xix] But there are still others would question His love. They blamed that a powerful God should be able to prevent disaster like the tsunami from happen; they claimed that God should be held liable for every pain and suffering in the world.
{Here’s a brief theology of calamity, see discussion point at the end of the footnotes}
Let’s say that someone ignored the construction code and build a beautiful house on the Malibu’s slope, looking down the ocean view below. With the mudslides of last week’s rain, the house now ended up down the drain. Can that person claim that the government was liable since it could prevent the destruction from happen? The government could, and it did, through the volumes of zoning law and building code, which they chose to ignore!
When humanity chose to sin and ignore God’s instruction, we preempted God’s protection, and therefore we are heading to destruction:
a) Remember, in the beginning we were given the dominion over nature. (Gen.1:28 said that we were supposed to “fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”) Think of it as we were appointed engineer of the train called Creation by God.
b) Then when we rebel, our own do-whatever-we-want freewill switched the whole nature to a do-whatever-it-want mode. We jumped the train off the railroad track and run it on the ground. What will happen but damages to the train? (Gen.3:18 said, “...Cursed is the ground because of you... It will produce thorns and thistles for you...”)
c) Chaos reigns, destruction happened with earthquakes, typhoons, volcanoes and floods. As a train ran aground, this universe was broken and awaited its redemption (Rom.8:19-22 said “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”)
d) See the phrase “the pains of childbirth”? Everything is breaking down at a quickening pace. It will only get worse as the end comes near. (Jesus said in Mat.24:6-8 that, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”)
e) Ultimately, we are heading for destruction. (From Rev.8:7-12, you can other monstrous disasters including asteroid hits the earth. If you think 150,000 people dying was bad, try 2 billions!)
f) But then eventually God will have to create a new heaven and new earth to replace our current universe. [See the end of Revelation]
You see, we are on this destructive path to a cosmic train wreck, and God had compassion on us, He entered into to the suffering with us to provide us a way out!
{End of a brief theology of calamity}
VERSE 38Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39“[Roll] 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?”
Once again we see the struggle to believe. Just a few minutes earlier, Martha expressed her conviction and belief in Jesus: God of the Resurrection and of the Life; and now she shrunk back quite a bit when she must express that faith out by action, and not just a statement. Jesus demands us all to act in accordance to what we say we believe. Only then, we will be able to 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.”
Jesus wanted them to know clearly that He was acting on God’s behalf. What was the purpose of any miracle? To reveal God to us so that we can believe in Him; to give us a glimpse of what’s possible outside of this grimed world.
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.”
Here John described the last and greatest miracle in his book, a foretaste of our own resurrection. Notice how Lazarus appeared, even though he was alive, his hand and feet were still bound, his face was covered with a cloth. These details were intended to contrast with the details of the ultimate resurrection: when Jesus risen from His own tomb, the linen was lying there and the cloth were folded neatly next to them. The cloth was still covering Lazarus face because eventually he would die again, but the cloth was put away by Jesus because he resurrected into immortality, just like us someday.
Verse 45Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
Many people saw an astounding miracle and believe; yet many others still turn away from Him.
47Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. 48If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
Why is it people won’t believe? Notice the repeated terms “our” here. It’s not that people don’t know God’s power or His existence, but that they don’t want to yield control to Him. They want to run their own lives the way the see fit.
49Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” 51He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
At the end, what did it take for Lazarus to be resurrected and to have life? It took the life of Jesus so that Lazarus can have Life. It took the Life of the Son of God so that we all can have Life.
3) {Closing Conclusion: (which I dropped from the actual delivery since time was up.)}
When we faced tough time, we asked, “Where is God?” Have you wondered what the answer could be? Someone tried to express the answer when you look from the view point of God. The author used the September 11 as the scenario:
“You say you will never forget where you were when you heard the news on September 11, 2001. Neither will I. I was on the 110th floor in a smoke filled room with a man who called his wife to say "Good-Bye." I held his fingers steady as he dialed. I gave him the peace to say, "Honey, I am not going to make it, but it is OK...I am ready to go." I was with his wife when he called as she fed breakfast to their children. I held her up as she tried to understand his words and as she realized he wasn’t coming home that night. I was in the stairwell of the 23rd floor when a woman cried out to Me for help. I said, "I have been knocking on the door of your heart for 50 years! Of course I will show you the way home - only believe in Me now." I was at the base of the building with the Priest ministering to the injured and devastated souls. I took him home to tend to his flock in Heaven. He heard my voice and answered. I was on all four of those planes, in every seat, with every prayer. I was with the crew as they were overtaken. I was in the very hearts of the believers there, comforting and assuring them that their faith had saved them. I was in Texas, Kansas, London! . I was standing next to you when you heard the terrible news. Did you sense Me? I want you to know that I saw every face. I knew every name - though not all knew Me. Some met Me for the first time on the 86th floor. Some sought Me with their last breath. Some couldn’t hear Me calling to them through the smoke and flames; "Come to Me... this way... take my hand." Some chose, for the final time, to ignore Me. But, I was there.
I did not place you in the Tower that day. You may not know why, but I do. However, if you were there in that explosive moment in time, would you have reached for Me? September 11, 2001 was not the end of the journey for you. But someday your journey will end. And I will be there for you as well. Seek Me now while I may be found. Then, at any moment, you know you are "ready to go." And I will be in the stairwell of your final moments. – God
The big question might have been, “Where was God?” But the biggest question of right now and the rest of eternity is, “Where are you?”[xx]
For full HTML-formated and footnotes and/or discussion, go to: http://i12know1stdraft.blogspot.com/2005/01/if-you-had-been-here.html#comments
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