Starting Point

New Testament scholar Don Carson tells of a teenage boy who was dying of cancer. Every day he had someone read John 11to him--the story of Lazarus who rose from the dead--and Paul’s detailed statement about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. His confident hope of victory over sin and death was based on Jesus who is the Resurrection and the Life. Not everyone holds that view.

I enjoyed a TV program called The Mentalist. The main character was thoroughly secular. He considered death as final and the end of one’s existence in any form. He was a true believer in that view because his wife had been murdered and he held no hope of seeing her again. Patrick Jane, the main character, was drawn to a detective who was a woman of faith. You knew that because she openly wore a cross necklace. She too believed death was a reality because every week someone died. But for her it was not the end of existence. Sin and death would be defeated in the future because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Occasionally episodes would contrast these two worldviews. I don’t remember being satisfied with the way Hollywood handled our viewpoint.

This is not an insignificant topic. Every culture has some explanation for what happens to people after this life. It reveals our need for hope beyond the grave. We are aware that there are other views of life after death that have based hope on people’s own goodness rather than the grace of God. Islam teaches a future paradise for martyrs of their cause. Hinduism teaches the purifying of the soul through a million reincarnations and the hope for a future nirvana. As Christians our confident hope of victory over death is based on Jesus who is the Resurrection and the Life.

John 11 includes perhaps the most significant claim Jesus made about Himself. John’s Gospel records seven “I Am” statements by Jesus. These are declarations of His deity. In John 11 Jesus declares that He is the Resurrection and the Life. He claims that you can have sure hope in the face of death because He conquers death and gives people eternal life. No other leader of any major religion makes such a claim.

Jesus receives news of Lazarus’s illness. He delays two days before proposing to go to Judea. The disciples are amazed that He would go back to Jerusalem because there are people back there that want to kill Him. We learn the reason Jesus delayed returning is so He could do a work that would clearly glorify God and strengthen the faith of His disciples.

First, we have a sure hope because Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.

I. SURE HOPE (JOHN 11:17-24)

(17) When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. (18) Bethany was near Jerusalem (about two miles away). (19) Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. (20) As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him. But Mary remained seated in the house.

(21) Then Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. (22) Yet even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You."

(23) "Your brother will rise again," Jesus told her.

(24) Martha said, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

The fact that Lazarus had been in the tomb four days probably means he died the day the message was sent to Jesus. Since the Jews didn’t embalm the body, they just masked the smell of death with spices; they buried the body the day of death. There was the day to deliver the message to Jesus, the two days of delay, and the day of traveling to Bethany could have covered the four days.

Some propose the reason John included the detail was that it was discovered that some Jewish sources taught that the soul of the deceased hovered over the body for three days, hoping to reenter the body. After three days, the soul gave up and departed. We don’t know if that would have been the thought in Mary and Martha’s mind, but the fact that Jesus acted on the fourth day would have eliminated the possibility that Jesus had nothing to do with Lazarus’s restoration to life.

On the fourth day of death the body begins to show signs of decomposition. Gases begin to be emitted. This is why Martha resists Jesus’ suggestion of rolling back the stone. She says there will be a smell.

The Jews had 30 days of mourning for the death of a loved one. It is very intensive for people to come and comfort the family in the first week. This would ensure that a large crowd would be present. Bethany is only two miles from Jerusalem. This ensured a large crowd. There are going to be many, many witnesses that Lazarus was dead, and Jesus raised him back to life.