The Raising Of Lazarus Series

What Lazarus needs and what Martha needs is the assurance that they’ll rise from death never to die again. What does he say to her? “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

This is the critical gospel question: do you believe that Jesus has the power to overcome death – for all time? Are you ready to believe in him and live in him?

I know you shouldn’t try to mix John’s theology with Paul’s, but I’m struck by the use of “live in me” there. Do you remember how when we studied Ephesians that phrase “in Christ” was repeated over and over again? Well Ephesus was the place where John spent much of his time after Jesus left, so I wonder whether there’s a connection there.

In any case, Jesus statement includes in it the implication that he alone is the one who can raise us from the dead. There is no other way to be raised because he is the resurrection and the life. Without him there is only death for human beings. But if we believe in him and are “in him” then we’re already enjoying the life with God that heaven will be in all its fullness. It’s in that sense, I think, that we will never die.

Martha’s answer is profound in its simplicity: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Notice, by the way, that it’s Martha in John’s gospel who makes the clearest confession of who Jesus is. In the other gospels Peter declares him to be the Messiah, but here it’s Martha with this deep confession that Jesus is the one God had promised would come to bring salvation to his people.

Well, at that Martha goes to call her sister, Mary.

Mary comes and falls at Jesus feet with the sad acknowledgement, again, that if only Jesus had been there Lazarus wouldn’t have died.

You get the feeling that Jesus has a soft spot for Mary. Remember it was she who sat at his feet listening while Martha was busy getting dinner ready one night. And here, as Mary greets him we’re told he was deeply troubled. There’s a stark difference in the way he greets Mary. There’s no challenge, no theological quizzing. In fact he responds to her emotion and that of the other mourners with emotion himself. Mind you it isn’t just sadness that he expresses. We read: “he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” The expression that’s used there could mean “outraged and troubled,” as though he was angry? Well what would he be angry at? Is it the crowd of mourners making such a racket just because they were supposed to? Well there’s no hint of any rebuke about that. This was just the way people in that culture responded to grief and loss. It might have been because their faith was so lacking that they couldn’t trust him to bring Lazarus back to life. That was certainly his response in the case of Jairus’ daughter, but there he tells them to stop their wailing. No, it seems more likely that he was angry at the fact that sin and death are such a commonplace in this fallen world.