John 11

“Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’ When 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.’

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. Then he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go back to Judea.’ ‘But Rabbi,’ they said, ‘a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. It is when people walk at night that they stumble, for they have no light.’

So often God surprises us. His wisdom and his knowledge are so vastly incomparable to ours that he does all kinds of things we wouldn’t have predicted and certainly do not foresee.
Sometimes it’s in the surprises that we begin to see what God is really doing.

Jesus demonstrates His love by His delay.

The account begins with this request for help from Mary and Martha on behalf of their brother Lazarus. Jesus is in the far north, roughly 100 miles away. They send word to Jesus that “the one whom you love” is sick.

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” “So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.”

If Jesus had left immediately, Lazarus would have been dead for two days before he arrived

Jesus’ timing was regulated by his Father’s will, and not by any request of friends, or even of family. More important, by waiting to leave until Lazarus had died, and therefore ensuring that he could not arrive until the fourth day after the death,

As the story unravels, we discover how dangerous it is for Jesus down in the South at this point. The disciples themselves recognize this could get Jesus into really hot water. As it turns out, this is his last trip south.

Humanly speaking, the trigger for all of that, the trigger for his going back south, where even his disciples know is dangerous, is the resurrection of someone else. It’s almost a kind of substitutionary death, even in the narrative. Jesus goes down and brings him back to life by dying himself.

When Jesus says, “Let’s go back to Judea,” immediately the disciples say, “Yeah, that’s really dangerous.” Jesus says, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light.”

What Jesus is saying is, “Listen. Even in this world, we walk where there is light. So I must walk by the light of my heavenly Father’s revelation. Then I won’t go astray, so long as I do what God wants me to do.

If the Father wants me to go to Jerusalem, I’m going to Jerusalem. You can’t go astray if you do what your heavenly Father wants.” That’s what he means by this illustration.

Then he says, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” In other words, after two days, he has learned apparently by supernatural means that Lazarus is now dead.

What’s the point of waiting two more days, and how does this prove Jesus loves him?

In the first century, they tried to bury within one day because, after all, by that time, in that hot atmosphere, decay is already progressing at a good clip.

When they actually get to the tomb, Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” ‘But Lord,’ said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘by this time there is a bad odor. He has been there four days.’ ”

Jesus couldn’t prevent his dying. If he walked back right at the moment he had heard, then, he would still be dead when he got there. But by waiting these extra two days, the kind of miracle that was to be performed was so spectacular that Jesus would attract the kind of faith in him, in himself, in Jesus as the resurrection and the life as we shall see, that the people needed in order to understand just who Jesus is and what he can accomplish.

It was an act of love to delay.

Can you imagine what was going through their heads. “Are you so flaming busy you can’t come back to the one who loved you and whom you loved?”

There are some Christians like that too. They want certain blessings from God. “Now!”

Sometimes God, out of love, treats us to a good dose of delay. It may change our perspective. We may learn some other things. We may learn some patience. We may learn that God has something more spectacular to show us. Part of walking by faith is persevering with God in self-conscious choice that he really does know what’s best, even when in our little narrow focus it doesn’t quite feel like it.

Jesus deals with devastating loss and comforts those by diverting attention to himself.

He actually diverts attention to himself. “Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was two miles from Jerusalem. Many Jews had come out to Mary and Martha to comfort them from Jerusalem. Then Martha heard Jesus was coming.” Apparently some of the disciples had gone on ahead to warn her. “She went out to meet him. Mary stayed at home.”

Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She realizes it sounds like blame, and she quickly adds, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
she has no confidence that’s what he is going to do at this point. She is talking in generalities. “Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ She responds, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

She is orthodox. She believes there is a resurrection at the end of time. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.’

Martha is not only persuaded that her brother would not have died had Jesus been present, but even now, in her bereavement, she has not lost her confidence in Jesus,

“I am the life. Whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” That is, you gain life now already, eternal life from Jesus. In that sense, you never, never, never die. You gain eternal life now, and it goes on into eternity. It is a bit of a strange expression.

He is saying, “Apart from me, there is no resurrection, and there is no life. You believe there is resurrection at the end of the age. Good. That’s orthodox, you ought to believe that. But I’m claiming something more. Without me, there is no resurrection and no life. I am the one who brings resurrection and life.”

He is not asking if she believes that he is about to raise her brother from the dead.

He is asking if her faith can go beyond quiet confidence that her brother will be resurrected at the last day to personal trust in Jesus as the resurrection and the life.

If she answers positively, the raising of Lazarus becomes an acted parable of the life-giving power of Jesus.

Martha’s Yes, Lord introduces more than a confession of the points Jesus has raised, but a personal confidence in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God

We need to think about how that fleshes out, especially today.

The older you get, the more people you’re likely to deal with who are on death’s door. Even in pretty conservative churches, you can talk about anything, but if you talk about death and dying, everybody is nervous.

What Jesus does is something quite different. He says, “If you’re going to talk about death, you’d better talk about me, because I’m the only one who can answer it. I give life now, and I resurrect people to life, resurrection life, on the last day. He directs attention to himself.

We must make sure we direct people again and again to Jesus who alone has triumphed over death in this final sense and brings us into his consummated resurrection kingdom in due course.

Jesus deals with death and shows outrage.

Now Jesus had not yet entered the village. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said exactly the same words Martha had.

You have to face the fact that there are different cultural connections with mourning.
In Jesus’ day, not only was the cultural emphasis on the emotional display side, but the stipulations of the day were that even a poor family was supposed to hire at least two professional flute players and a professional wailing woman.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was as our English translations have it, deeply moved and troubled.

It does not translate “deeply moved. It means he was “outraged.” He was flaming angry and troubled.

What on earth is going on here, Jesus knows perfectly well that Lazarus is coming out in about three minutes.

The text tells us he is outraged, and he weeps. He is troubled.

Jesus deals with moral and spiritual death and gives life by dying himself.

46 “But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. ‘What are we accomplishing?’ That is, by their attempts to curtail his ministry.

If Jesus started a movement that really seemed to be attracting significant numbers of people, the Romans could have understood this as an incipient rebellion and sent in the troops. There could be only one result of sending in the mighty Roman legions to a little country like Israel.

If the troops come in, well, the Romans “… will come and take away both our place and our nation.” The word place means temple. “They’ll come in and take our temple away and our nation.” It would also take away their individual perks too. “Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all!’ ”

“You don’t realize that it’s better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

They express their fear that popular messianic expectations will be fired to fever pitch, and, with or without Jesus’ sanction, set off an uprising that would bring down the full weight of Rome upon their heads. They fear such reprisals could end in destruction of ‘our place’ (almost certainly a reference to the temple:

“He did not say this on his own.” That is, he wasn’t speaking only what he thought. He was speaking better than he knew. “As high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.”

God is using Caiaphas as high priest this year to speak a deeper truth than Caiaphas himself recognized.

At the end of the day, it deals with the ultimates of life and death and sin and guilt and resurrection and eternal life.