The Resurrection And The Life Series

The Resurrection and The Life

Jeffery Anselmi / General

Signs / Resurrection; Lazarus (Name) / John 11:1–4; John 11:28–44

Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

INTRODUCTION

A local café served as a regular hangout for several senior adult men.

They typically got together for lunch and extended conversation.

On this particular day they were discussing a whole litany of problems that ranged from local frustrations to national calamity.

A fellow diner overheard the bulk of their conversation and couldn't help but laugh when one old timer summed up their discussion.

With a smile he quipped, "Well, there's one thing we don't have to worry about anymore.

We ain't gonna die young!" Reader's Digest, January 1992, p.154

• The COVID-19 pandemic created an enormous well of grief throughout the entire world.

• In December 2020, the New York Times returned to one of the hardest-hit areas, Bergamo, Italy, to see how residents were coping months after the deadly, horrific spring.

• They found an aching void and sustained trauma, guilt, and grief.

• Jason Horowitz writes, "Every Monday night in the northern Italian town that had perhaps the highest coronavirus death rate in all of Europe, a psychologist specializing in post-traumatic stress leads group therapy sessions in the local church.

• 'She has treated survivors of war,' the Rev. Matteo Cella, the parish priest of the town, of Nembro, in Bergamo province, said of the psychologist.

• 'She says the dynamic is the same.'"

• One survivor, Roberta Pedretti, said, "Bergamo is trying to come back, but it's full of fear. … It saw too many cadavers. It can't be like before."

• (Jason Horowitz, "Bergamo's Pandemic Survivors Carry Scars Unseen and Incalculable," New York Times, December 6, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/world/europe/bergamo-italy-coronavirus-covid-19-ptsd.html).

• The culmination of the gospel stories is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

• Yet before his resurrection from the dead, Jesus brings several other people back to life.

• Only one of those deaths makes Jesus cry, and it is that story and sign that we are focusing on this week in our series on the signs of Jesus.

• So far, we have looked at a variety of different signs.

• These signs were actions Jesus took that demonstrated God working through him for our salvation.

• He turned water into wine at a wedding, healed an official's son from a great distance, made a lame person walk, healed a blind man's sight, and fed thousands of people from very little food.

• And now the sign is the raising of the dead.

› The BIG IDEA FOR THE MESSAGE TODAY IS THAT JESUS IS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. The raising of Lazarus offers proof of this point.

• Let's begin by turning to John 11:1-4!

John 11:1–4 (CSB)

1 Now a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.

3 So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

SERMON

I. Sign showing a concerned Lord.

• At the start of chapter 11, Jesus learns that his friend Lazarus is seriously ill.

• Jesus's response to this concerning news is reminiscent of how He responded to the disciples' questions in chapter 9.

• He tells them that Lazarus's situation "is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it" (v. 4).

• By this statement, we know that whatever happens next happens so that God will be glorified through it.

• This statement gives us more understanding of these signs: they are meant to reveal the glory of God.

• Similarly, John 2:11 says that when Jesus turned the water into wine, he "manifested his glory."

• The glory of God is on display through Jesus.

• Jesus is told by a messenger from his dear friends Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus is sick.

• I like that the messenger reminds Jesus that Lazarus is the one He loves.

• Jesus is probably still in Perea, where we left him in chapter 10.

• Bethany is a village on the backside of the Mount of Olives, about 1½ miles east of Jerusalem.

• It is not the same as the Bethany in the Jordan River Valley (1:28), but a small village on the road to Jericho. (Gospel of John. College Press Commentary Series)

• For a bit of background concerning Lazarus and his family.

• We know from Luke 10:38-42 that Jesus enjoyed hospitality from the family while passing through Bethany.