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Jesus the Resurrection and the Life (Part 7)

John 11:1–53

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the Resurrection of Christ from John 11:1–53


“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. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and 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? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.’ After 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.’

His disciples replied, ‘Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.’ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’

‘Yes, Lord,’ she told him, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’ 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.’ When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.

When 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. When 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.’

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘Take 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.’ Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I 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.’ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The 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.’ Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.

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?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If 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.’

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’ He did not say this on his own, but 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. So from that day on they plotted to take his life.”

So often God surprises us. Moses thought so. Endless years on the backside of a desert and now 80 years of age, his own family, children, and grandchildren passed by for any redemptive purpose for the nation, suffering a speech defect, and an outsider now from the courts of Egypt but called of God, nevertheless, to be the redeemer of the people in their slavery.

Habakkuk thought so. It was all right for God to use wicked nations to punish a still more wicked nation. That he could understand, but for God to use the pagan powers all around to punish Israel, his covenant people, which on any showing was less steeped in social pathology than Assyria or Babylon, that was a bit much, but God surprises us.

Paul thought so. He had prayed for others to be healed and some of them had been. He prayed for himself when he suffered his own thorn in the flesh. Three times in long intercession, and God’s only answer was, “My grace is sufficient for you. My grace is made perfect in weakness.” There are many more witnesses that could be called forth, and it is partly because of this truth God often surprises us, that he is not to be domesticated, that he takes the common things and turns them into surprising things, that large swaths of the Bible are written with a kind of ironic twist.

You think you know where it’s going, and then it shunts in another direction. Could anybody have predicted how the story of Job would turn out? How Habakkuk would turn out? The New Testament writer most given to irony is John. Almost every chapter has some ironic note, but the chapter most given to irony is John 11, the account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and the place, too, where Jesus gives this remarkable claim, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

I think if we are to understand that claim aright and how it bears on us today, we’ll understand it best if we take the time to see how it’s embedded in unfolding irony so that we see it in all of its power. I think it will be convenient to divide the text in four points, each steeped in irony. This is more by way of framework, but it’s still an important framework.

1. Jesus receives a desperate plea for help and demonstrates his love by delay.

The account begins with a request for help from Mary and Martha regarding their brother, Lazarus. In the originals, of course, there was no chapter division at this point, so you would have read on from the end of chapter 10.

The end of chapter 10 places Jesus at a particular point. He’s at the place (verse 40) where John had been baptizing in the early days. That takes you back to chapter 1, and that place is also in our English translations called Bethany, but what it is is Batanea, which is up in the Galilee district. Lazarus lies ill in Bethany of Judea which is only two miles or so (a little less) from Jerusalem, just on the other side of the slopes of the Mount of Olives.

This family was clearly loved by Jesus. They refer to their brother, “the one whom you love,” is sick (verse 3). Just that expression, I suspect, hints of all kinds of human relationships Jesus had of which we know fairly little. I do think, though, it is one of the common features of those who become intimate with Jesus that they think of themselves not as those who love him particularly well but those who are particularly well loved. Thus, John, the writer of this gospel, refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

Paul, in Acts 2, in the midst of an atonement passage can refer to Jesus and then throw in the clause, “who loved me and gave himself for me.” He can insist that he prays for the Ephesians in Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 14 to 21, in his second petition there, “That you might have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” I think those who draw really close to Jesus think of themselves, first and foremost, as loved by him rather than those who protest their love for him.

At the same time, certainly the sisters are trying to play on Jesus’ emotions. “The one you love is sick.” In other words, there’s an invitation, in effect, to demonstrate his love by doing something about this illness. When Jesus heard this, he said to his disciples, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” It’s not for God’s praise simply but for God’s display of glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it. In fact, we’re moving into another sign now, another miracle that is significant.

You recall how the first one ends after the conversion of the water into wine. We are told, thus, Jesus displayed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. So now, this illness, too, is fitting into a larger pattern in which God will also display his glory again. Then we read in the NIV, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” There’s that close relationship again. The love is not denied; it’s affirmed.

Then the NIV has, “Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” In fact, the original is stronger yet. There’s just no way it should be rendered like that. The original should read, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Therefore, when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.”

That’s designed to make you think. You read something like that, and you say as the Germans do, “Es ist nicht echt.” It doesn’t ring true. There’s something wrong with the narrative. It doesn’t flow properly, so you have to go back and look at it again. That’s what it’s meant to do. It turns out he stays two days (verse 6), and then he says, “Let us go up to Judea.”

Remember those two days. The disciples are not pleased he’s going back at all. There’s a lot more trouble for Jesus in the south of the country in Judea than up in the north in Galilee, which was far more cosmopolitan and not quite so likely to give him trouble, but Jesus replies with a little parable (verse 9), “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.”

I think by this parable Jesus means by his going he is doing the will of God. He is walking in the light. If you walk in the light, you can’t stumble. You can’t be wrong if you can follow the will of God. I think that’s what he means. Now he says at this point, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.”

In other words, it is at this point he now declares Lazarus is not only sick but dead. After the two days, he declares Lazarus is dead. How he knows this is simply part of his reliance upon his Father for supernatural information. He knows things human beings normally don’t know. There’s no telephone or telegraph or satellite to make communication possible. From Bethany in the south to Batanea in the north is about 150 kilometers, about 110 miles, a three- to four-day’s walking journey for a fit man.

He has had the news. He has waited two days. Now he says, “Now the man is dead. Now we’ll go.” His disciples misunderstand his metaphor of sleep. “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better. The fever has broken. He’s finally getting his rest. He’ll be all right now.” But Jesus had been speaking of his death, we’re told (verse 13). He tells them plainly (verse 14), “Lazarus is dead.” Here it is again. “… and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.”

In other words, his being absent meant Lazarus would die. If he had been there, doubtless precisely because Jesus did love him, he would have healed him. Then you wouldn’t have had the miracle that is recorded in such detail in chapter 11, but this miracle is significant. It is a sign. It is pointing to something, and it will engender faith. It will help them in their faith. He’s glad for their sake he wasn’t there in the first place.

Still, why the delay? Because, you see, if he delayed only two days and when he gets there he learns that Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days, and that is what we are told, then why bother delaying? Thus, for example, we read (verse 39), “Lord, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” In other words, if Jesus had set out as soon as he got the report and come south, Lazarus still would have been dead. The miracle would still have had to have been performed, but the man would have only been dead for two days.

Still, it would have relieved two days of suffering, wouldn’t it? Suffering on the part of those who were bereaved. Why this particular action? Why this insistence that it was part of Jesus’ love to delay? Verses 5 and 6: “Therefore, when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.”

I think the delay turns on something that is a little strange to our society but would have been easily understood in the first century and perhaps even in the Western world up to a century ago. There was a Jewish superstition (Jesus is not endorsing it, but it certainly was a superstition that was operating in Jesus’ day) that when you died your spirit hovers over you for up to three days and then departs. At that point, no resuscitation is possible.

Thus, you read in this document (it’s called Leviticus Rabbah 18:1) that the soul hovers over the body of the deceased person for the first three days “intending to reenter it, but as soon as it sees its appearance change (as soon as decomposition has set in) it departs. Death is then judged irreversible.”

I suspect the reason why such superstitions grew up is pretty obvious to any culture that does not handle bodies the way we handle them today. Today, when someone dies, the body is immediately whisked out to the mortuary and there it disappears from public view for a day or two days or three days. It is embalmed and made to look as lifelike as possible and laid out in an open casket for a viewing.

There are very few people today in the Western world who are buried without first being embalmed in some measure, but that’s a fairly recent innovation. When my grandfather died in a poor London home in 1919, he was laid out on the kitchen table. People viewed him on that first day and he was buried within 24 hours. That wasn’t uncommon.

Within that kind of framework, then, where it was not always possible right at the end of the war, for example, and supplies were thin on the ground and so many people had been killed and medical attention was not always available, it was quite possible for someone to be judged dead without any medical confirmation. Then, as the people gather for the funeral and put him in the casket, in fact, he could wake up and knock on the wood. There are all kinds of accounts like this in the literature.

In fact, I was explaining this on one occasion in England, and an elderly lady came up to me after the meeting and said, “That’s exactly what happened to my grandfather. We were actually carrying him on our shoulders …” A fairly common thing. “… to the burial plot.” It’s still more common nowadays to have cremation over there, but they were carrying him on their shoulders to the church burying plot, and they heard a knock on wood from inside the casket.

Within that framework, it is understandable how a certain tradition would develop that the spirit hangs on in the area for a while. Then, after the face has changed, after there is such decomposition now that there is no possibility of reversal, then the spirit departs. I’m not suggesting for a moment Jesus holds to that particular superstition.

I am saying, however, if Jesus had arrived two days earlier with Lazarus already well and truly buried and then, if he had brought him back from the dead, some would have said, “Yes. We know how this one works.” In fact, there is other literature in the first and second century of healers who went about who were very astute precisely in that area.

There’s a chap named Apollonius of Tyana who pulled back from the dead two or three people and they openly said he was a kind of doctor who had special powers to see when there were still some vital signs left and he made some draft of wine and herbs and would stimulate them again. He had some remarkable people coming back from the dead, and people were not quite sure whether it was a resurrection or whether it was some really insightful cure. You can read the document to this day. It has been translated into English.

With Jesus staying that long, it was not only the fourth day, a point that is made very clear, but so long, in fact, that decomposition has set in. That’s the point of verse 39. It is not to make us feel the narrative is lacking in taste or a bit gross. It is to make the point, in fact, there is no way you can doubt this man was dead. He was dead. Dead to the point of decay. There was no embalming, and in that kind of heat, decay would set in. The man was dead.

When they wrapped them in strips of cloth or when they used ointments, as they did with Jesus with Joseph of Arimathea supplying so many of these things, it was not primarily to embalm and preserve; it was simply to quell the smell. These were not embalming perfumes. They were simply smell-quenching perfumes. That’s all they were.

In other words, what Jesus is doing is demonstrating his love by guaranteeing that when he gets there, not only is the man dead but he has been dead such a long time that when he performs the miracle it is deeply significant. Mary didn’t know that. Martha didn’t know that. But God has surprising ways, and sometimes he demonstrates his love by delay.

We all recognize it is the prerogative of a little child who understands so little about time beyond now to cry immediately, “Now! Now! Now!” We understand that, but God is a God who takes the long view, and he understands that sometimes delay is the very best thing for us. Think of this passage from Romans, chapter 5, verses 3 and following.

“We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” You get the impression there both Paul and God share this vision that the development of character, perseverance, and eschatological hope are more important than simply relief from suffering.

Isn’t that what’s required by this passage? We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance.” That is not something the West knows much about. We expect God simply to release us immediately if not sooner or jolly well give us an explanation and God may be less interested in giving us explanations than in building character.

A friend of mine a number of years ago was shaking hands at the door. He was pastor of a church, and this woman came out and shook his hand and said, “Pastor, pray for me that I might be given more patience.” Well, every pastor has had that. You’ve probably heard variations on this story yourself.

He simply said, “I will pray the Lord will send you a packet of trouble,” and she said, “That’s exactly what I don’t need. Trouble I have. All I need is patience.” He said, “Well, if you want patience, I’ll pray the Lord will give you a packet of trouble.” Because that is the way the Lord regularly does things. The suffering produces the perseverance which produces the character. God is a God who normally uses means, and he’s patient.

I first arrived here in 1978. The next spring (‘79) a rather remarkable incident took place at Trinity where I teach. Trinity has some pretty inflexible rules when it comes to final examinations. Even then, it was a school of 1,000 or more. It’s closer to 1,400 or 1,500 now. It’s a fairly substantial student body, and to avoid endless rearrangements of schedules and constant vigilant of people who want to do exams by themselves, we have some pretty firm rules about doing them when they’re prescribed.

If the exam for your course is set for a certain time and place, you take it at that time and place. No exceptions unless, of course, your spouse dies or you hear your father had a heart attack. We’re not hard-hearted. If you think you have some excuse that is of less moment than that, you’re going to find it very difficult to move the administration on this matter.

This particular couple, in fact, was planning on leaving that weekend to go preach for a call in California. They had been in regular dialogue with a particular church out there. This church was inviting them out for the weekend, and this church wanted them to arrive on Friday afternoon, Friday early evening at the latest, so they could spend a little extra time with the church. They were going to put on a banquet for them.

Without telling this church they had final exams slated for that Friday afternoon, this couple said, “Sure, that’s fine,” booked their passage, and then told the seminary, thinking that the fact they had booked the passage would give them leverage. The seminary remained unpersuaded by the urgency of this request, and the students said, “But aren’t you really interested in ministry? We are going out to minister. This is a call to a church. This surely takes priority.”

“But you understood the rules in advance.”

“But this is going to cost us money. We cannot change these tickets. These are special weekend tickets.”

“You understood the rules before you signed up. You didn’t ask us first. You just did this.” This couple was really disgruntled. They badmouthed the seminary endlessly. For two weeks they just badmouthed the seminary. We were only dry-as-dust academics and not interested in ministry. It may even be true, but it couldn’t be judged on that basis.

They were still mumbling after the exam on the Friday afternoon when they came into what we now call the White Horse Inn, a little coffee shop. They were still mumbling and complaining when news came in that plane had crashed and killed everyone on board. That was the Chicago crash of ‘79. That was their plane. I am not for a moment suggesting all Christians are spared coming down in airplane crashes. On the other hand, God is in charge of things like that, too.

It made this couple reflect a little more on their urgency, their passion to do what they wanted regardless of what arrangements had been made in their commitment to the divinity school, their urge to succeed and press ahead. God is sovereign. He is wise. He is very good, and part of Christian maturation is understanding even his delays are not foolish or stupid or mistakes or exercises in whimsy. He is to be trusted, an even the delays are to be improved upon by the way we respond to them.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on your head.

 

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

 

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flow’r.

 

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan His work in vain;

God is His own interpreter,

And He will make it plain.

2. Jesus comes up against devastating loss and consoles grief by directing attention to himself.

Verses 17 to 27. “Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” Already, John is preparing the ground for this four-day delay. “Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary.” From Jerusalem. They had come out of the city. Although they were village people, these people were pretty posh. They had large bank accounts, and bank accounts in any country mean a lot of contacts.

The point is this was a family that had enough money to expend an entire tube of ointment on Jesus when that tube cost about a years’ salary for a day laborer. Perhaps $25,000. They could expend the whole thing in one go. This family had money, and because of that, they had all kinds of contacts. Many people from the city had come out to console them in their loss.

Therefore, when Martha hears Jesus is coming, she slips out ahead to try to meet him on the road. Hence, the dialogue beginning in verse 21. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” This is probably not a rebuke. “Lord, it’s all your fault. If only you had been here.” It’s probably not that. That’s a harsh reading of it.

Probably, it is simply a lament, anguish, realizing that it could have been another way. If Jesus had been there, he would have healed him. The brother would not have died. Then she hears what it sounds like. It sounds rude as if it is Jesus’ fault, so she says (verse 22), “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

You must not think that by this she understands now a resurrection is about to take place. The whole ensuing narrative shows she does not expect it. It is merely a proforma acknowledgement that Jesus is powerful. She’s not really blaming him. She knows even now Jesus can ask his Father and his Father will do wonderful things through him.

“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ ” Martha is orthodox (she knows there’s a resurrection at the last day) like the Pharisees, like Christians, unlike the Sadducees, so she says (verse 24), “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” In other words, she knows nothing of any expectation that Jesus will raise him now, so Jesus then says to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

This is a remarkable passage. Jesus is diverting attention from a generalized belief as to what takes place on the last day to himself. He is not offering the comfort of saying, “Yes, my dear sister, there is a resurrection on the last day.” He’s saying, “I want you to believe something more than that. I am the resurrection and the life.”

In fact, this claim is richer still. There are really two claims which are then progressively unpacked. The first is, “I am the resurrection.” That is, “Where there is death, I resurrect people.” The second is, “I am the life.” That is, “I give eternal life.” Now the two are unpacked in the same order. “I am the resurrection … He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” In other words, death is not the final word. “I am the resurrection.” Even if he dies, he will live. There is resurrection beyond death.

The second point, “I am the life … Whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” One gains eternal life now and it goes on and on and on and on. “There may be physical death that you pass by, but I am the life.” It’s important to understand what he means by this, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

An illustration I sometimes use is of Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Some of you will remember when Kentucky Fried Chicken first came on the market, and everywhere was this white-headed, white-goateed man in advertisements, billboards, and television. He showed up on radio and so on with his finger-licking good Kentucky Fried Chicken.

This so caught the market at the time that it would have been quite conceivable for Colonel Sanders and his famous Kentucky Fried finger-licking good chicken to say something like, “I am Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Everybody would have understood what he meant. He would not have been making an ontological claim: “I am a chicken from Kentucky, fried or otherwise. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!

No one would have misunderstood that. Everybody would have understood, rather, that he meant something like, “I am so identified with Kentucky Fried Chicken that apart from me there is no Kentucky Fried Chicken. There are surrogates and placebos and fake claims, but if you really want Kentucky Fried finger-licking good chicken, you must get my chicken. I am identified with this chicken and no one else can provide it.”

In another example, Charles de Gaulle in France said on more than one occasion, “I am the state.” Well, give me a break! De Gaulle is gone; the state is still there. The identification is not one to one, but in the troubled times after the Third Republic and so on, in some ways he held the whole country together and it was understandable that a man with that ego should say, “I am the state,” and mean, in effect, apart from him there was no France. The whole thing was falling apart, apart from him.

Jesus, then, without a trace of arrogance says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” It’s not an ontological statement nor is it an arrogant one. He simply means, “I am so narrowly and exclusively the provider of resurrection and life that apart from me there is no resurrection and life.”

Martha, who has been prepared to confess her belief in final resurrection at the last day, is now being encouraged to believe something more. Not only that there is final resurrection at the last day, but that the only one who can provide it is the one who says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” The only one who can provide eternal life is this Jesus. The only one who can provide resurrection on the last day is this Jesus. That’s his claim. “Martha, do you believe this?”

Imagine, in the midst of her mourning, in the midst of her loss, when she’s in the pit of despair, here’s Jesus preaching a sermon about himself, and she replies (verse 27), “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” In other words, Jesus is not asking if she believes he is about to raise her brother from the dead immediately but if her faith that there will be a resurrection at the end can extend to deep trust in Jesus himself as the one who grants eternal life now and will resurrect the dead on the last day. In short, if she can trust him as the resurrection and the life.

If she answers positively, then the raising of Lazarus itself becomes a kind of acted parable of the life-giving power of Jesus. “Do you want to see that I can do it? This is a touch of what will be on the last day.” It’s a sign he is, in fact, the resurrection and the life, so she answers positively. Her reply then carries the narrative forward, for clearly she believes the one who is the resurrection and the life must be such by virtue of the fact that he’s the Messiah. “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

She still does not yet believe he’s going to do anything with her brother. When Jesus actually gets to the tomb, she is the one who protests. “Lord, don’t roll that stone back. By this time, he stinks.” That’s really what the verb means. She still doesn’t expect anything immediate. Still, this is a remarkable exchange. It’s a remarkable exchange, for what it demonstrates is an instance when Jesus butts up against devastating loss and offers comfort by diverting attention to himself. No platitudes, nor is it unsympathetic.

I’m not for a moment suggesting there is no place in our consoling of those who bereave for simply listening, for weeping, for holding a hand, for helping with the gardening, doing jobs, going and fetching a meal and so on, but among genuine believers, the greatest consolation of all is going to come from focusing on Christ. Not even the raw creedal points of faith, as important they are, “You will see your brother again.” That’s true. Martha believed that. It didn’t help much, but she believed it. But what Jesus does is divert attention to himself.

A friend of mine, another pastor a number of years ago, tells of a young man in his congregation (late teens or early 20s, I can’t recall now) who was converted out of a really rocky background. Really powerfully converted and within a very short time (months at most) he was diagnosed as having a vicious melanoma and only had weeks to live. His family had written him off. He was an ex-junkie. He really had no friends except this group of Christians.

As the Christians went to see him in the hospital, they were nervous. They thought, “How is this chap’s faith going to stand up now? He no sooner becomes a Christian and he’s struck down with cancer.” As his body began to bloat and his face began to waste away, they would go in with more and more fear and trepidation until it became clear what he wanted from them when they came in was for them to read John 11 and 1 Corinthians 15 and pray with him and talk of the love of Christ.

In our deepest loss, we need more than friendship and a listening ear, though they are wonderful. We need more than mere arguments, though in some cases they stabilize us. We need the reality of God himself. God, as he has spectacularly and definitively disclosed himself to us in the person of his Son, will require of us that we focus our attention on him both for this life and for the life to come.

3. Jesus confronts implacable death and displays his sovereignty over it in tears and outrage.

Verses 28 to 44. Martha goes back and tells Mary the teacher is here. Mary gets up quickly and plans on meeting him, but this time the crowd spots what Mary is doing. In those days, it is important to remember, the cultural patterns of grief were very different from what we go through today.

Today, it’s considered good form I suppose, without anybody saying it explicitly, to weep discreetly, to dab tears and turn away, and to be quiet and subdued. We go into a mortuary and our voices go down to a whisper. We talk quietly. But in many cultures in the world including the Jewish culture in the first century, that’s simply not the way it was. There you expressed your grief at 140 decibels and up. It’s the way you did it.

You can still see the same thing sometimes in immigrant groups today. If you go into a Greek orthodox funeral, for example, you will hear some wailing. In fact, in the first century, not only did you wail yourself (let it all hang out) but you hired professional mourners. It was customary in the first century for even the poorest family to hire a minimum of two flute players and a professional wailing woman.

The flute players would play dirges in all minor keys to increase the solemnity and the sadness of the occasion, and the professional wailing woman, every time things got down a little bit, she would up the volume level again. This was not a poor family. This was a posh family with lots of money. What they had, who knows? They probably had a whole orchestra, a choir of wailing people.

This was a lot of noise, so when they see Mary slipping away, they think she’s going off to the tomb, and they think, “We’ll follow along and provide her with the appropriate support,” and in those days (it seems strange to us) that would have been judged to be a great support. It would be a mark of respect of the honor that is being accorded to the deceased person.

They’re there in their great numbers from Jerusalem, and they’re now following Mary. Mary isn’t going to the tomb, however. She goes up the road and finds Jesus, and she approaches Jesus with exactly the same words Martha used. Verse 32: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Now the conversation takes a very different twist. Who knows what conversation would have ensued if this crowd hadn’t been there? Maybe something very similar to what ensued with Martha. We’re told (verse 33), “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping …” This is noisy now. This is not discreet, dab-your-eyes tears. This is first-class noise.

We’re told in the NIV, “He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” There is just no way this should be rendered that way. I hate to mention two mistakes in translation in one passage, but this is just a plain, flat-out mistake in translation. What it means is, whenever this verb is applied to human beings, he was outraged. “He was outraged in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept.”

I suspect the fact that Jesus wept is what has constrained some people to render the earlier verb, “He was deeply moved,” but it is simply not what it means. Some of you have German stock in you. Look at any German translation, old or modern. They all say something like, “He was outraged.” Look at the French versions or the Spanish versions. They all have it right. For some reason, the English heritage has a whole succession of, “He was deeply moved,” or something like that, but it is simply not what the text means.

Why was he outraged? Why was he angry? Why was he troubled? Why did he weep? That’s the question. Why these responses? It surely was not because he was powerless (he was only minutes from a spectacular miracle), nor is it a question of frustration in front of death (he’s about to reverse death), nor is it, as some commentator has suggested, that he feels forced into doing a miracle (this is the very reason he came down south), nor is it simply that he’s crying because he misses his friend.

It’s impudent to try to put yourself in Jesus’ place, but so far as you can, put yourself in Jesus’ place. If you were crying because your friend had died when you knew you were going to pull him back out in about two minutes, how real would these tears be? No. No. It’s important to see the context.

He sees all of these people weeping and crying and wailing in the face of implacable death, and he is outraged. He’s outraged, profoundly troubled, and so emotionally wrought up over it that he weeps. There’s compassion there (the tears), but he’s outraged, not because he has lost a friend, though that’s enough, but because of death itself. It is such an ugly enemy. It causes all this anguish, and to anyone steeped in Jewish tradition, in the whole biblical tradition, death itself is always a mark of sin.

How was death introduced to the race? Death itself is nothing other than God’s insistence that human hubris will go so far and no farther. Whether it afflicts us at 5 or 10 or 30 or 50 or 70 or 80, death comes. We are sinners, and we will die. Every time there is death it still hurts, it is still painful, it is still ugly, and it is still the result of sin.

It causes all this anguish and all this pain, and it was not the way the creation was made in the first place. He’s simply outraged by the whole thing. He is outraged by the death that has called forth this loss, he is outraged at the sin that lies behind that, and he is outraged at the unbelief that characterizes everyone’s response to it. There is outrage and there is grief.

I want to suggest to you it is important for Christians to adopt something of the same stance at death. There is a school of thought in Christian circles that almost views death so much as a blessing that you’re not allowed to cry, and you find some well-meaning types who will come up to you when you’ve just lost a spouse or a parent or a child who put their arms around you and say, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” and you want to kick them basically.

Then you feel guilty for wanting to kick them because you feel you’ve let down the side. It’s true. If they are Christians, that’s true, so why do you feel so angry? The Bible is more realistic both ways it seems to me. It still does treat death as the last enemy, to use Paul’s language. It is an enemy. It can be a fierce enemy. It is not normal, not normal when you look at things from the vantage point of what God created in the first place. It’s normal this side of the fall, but that’s not saying much.

It is an enemy. It is ugly. It destroys relationships. It is to be feared. It is repulsive. There is something odious in death and never, ever, ever pretend otherwise. It isn’t honest, but it isn’t the last enemy. It’s the last enemy this side of eternity, but it doesn’t have the last word. It’s the last enemy down here, but more to be feared yet is the second death, and in any case, death doesn’t have the last word.

“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus says. Thus, when we come to grips with these things, there needs to be both outrage and pain on the one hand and trust and quiet confidence on the other, and the mingling of these things together, it seems to me, appropriately is part of a genuinely Christian response to the ugliness and shock and terror and loss of death. We begin to understand we sorrow but not as those who have no hope.

When Jesus looks at this thing, there is both outrage and tears. Tears without outrage quickly degenerate into mere sentimentality. Outrage without tears hardens into arrogance and bad-tempered irascibility and unbelief. But Jesus displayed both. In fact, he begins to display his divine sovereignty over death by tears and outrage.

“Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’ ” The Jews were right and wrong in both of their responses. “See how he loved him?” Yes, they were right (he did love him), but they were wrong (they did not really understand his tears).

The other response? “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Yes, he could have, but then again, no, he couldn’t have. Not if he was going to do the Father’s will and bring about this miracle that was going to bring about a greater display of the Father’s glory.

Superficial reactions. No real understanding. “Jesus, once more deeply moved …” That’s the same verb again. “Jesus, once more deeply moved came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘Take away the stone,’ he said.” By this time, he’s angry. “But, Lord …” There’s a protest. By this time, there’s a bad smell. “ ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone.”

Now Jesus prays and he makes it very clear this is a prayer he is praying in public because he wants people to learn something by it. Prayers in public have not only God as the ultimate hearer but also other people who are listening in, and Jesus crafts his prayer along those lines. “ ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here.’ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ And he who had been dead came out, bound hand and foot in his grave clothes.”

Someone has said if he hadn’t stipulated, “Lazarus,” all the graves in Jerusalem would have opened. At one level, it’s fanciful. At another level, it is exactly right, for on the last day this is the one who will say, “Come forth,” and men and women will come forth. My father will come forth. Adolph Hitler will come forth. The friend I lost when I was 12 will come forth. Some to the resurrection of life, we’re told in John 5, and some to the resurrection of death, but the one who cried, “Lazarus, come forth,” will cry again, and men and women will come forth.

4. Jesus butts up against moral and spiritual death and gives life by dying himself.

Many of the Jews see all of this. Some put their faith in Jesus. How real this faith is is hard to be sure (verse 45). Verse 46. Some of them, however, simply go and rat to the Pharisees to see one more opportunity to get in on the inside track with the religious and political authorities. “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. ‘What are we accomplishing? We can’t deny these miracles are real.’ ” There is, again, part of the point of Lazarus being in the grave four days.

“We can’t deny it. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. They will believe in him as some sort of messianic figure. There will be a political uprising. The Romans, the superpower, will come along and take away both our place and our nation.” In other words, their place as leaders.

As vassals under the superpower, they are going to lose their positions of authority in clout and prestige and honor and power and money and they’ll lose the whole nation. “Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year …” Strictly speaking, high priests were supposed to be there for life.

Annas had been appointed. The Roman superpower kicked him out and put in his nephew or son-in-law. The relationship is not entirely clear. Caiaphas was high priest that fateful year, it means. He spoke up. “You know nothing at all!” The language is derogatory. “You bunch of twits!” It’s not diplomatic language at all. “You ignoramuses. You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

In other words, “Can’t you wake up and see what’s going on here? What we need is a bit of royale politique. What we need is a bit of crass political expediency. We have to bump off one man, or else the whole nation is going to go. Can’t you see that?” In other words, “What we need is a wet operation. Get this chap out of here, and we’ve solved the problems and we’ve saved the nation.”

There are two profound ironies, then, in these closing verses. The first is they did bump off Jesus, they did execute him, and the nation died anyway. A mere 40 years later, the Roman troops came thundering through and Jerusalem was razed to the ground. The same Jesus who had cried over the city, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How I would have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathers her chickens, but you would not.” Ostensibly, they resort to cheap political expediency to save the nation, and the nation perishes.

But there’s a deeper irony. Doubtless, John didn’t see it at the time, but afterwards he saw it, and he writes (verse 51), “Caiaphas did not say this on his own, but 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. So from that day on they plotted to take his life.”

It’s important to understand what is being said here. This is not arguing God used Caiaphas the way he had used Balaam’s ass in the Old Testament. God spoke to Balaam through his donkey. The ass spoke. We are not to think from that narrative the ass was giving his considered judgment. It was just a flat-out miracle, but here, Caiaphas is giving his considered judgment. God is not using Caiaphas the way he used the ass. Caiaphas is giving his considered judgment. “What we need here is to bump one person off so the whole nation will be saved.”

What John is saying, even as he speaks, even as he descends to the crassness of royale politique, in fact, is God is speaking a profounder word than Caiaphas himself could know. Caiaphas spoke better than he knew, for one man did die, and not only for the nation but to gather the people of God from every tongue and tribe and people and nation into one new humanity.

Isn’t that what we found out already in chapter 10, the preceding chapter? He calls his own sheep by name, not only out of the sheep pen of Judaism but from the other pens as well. “I have other sheep,” he says, “that are not of this fold, and they will be one flock.” So also here. Jesus will 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. There’s a wonderful poem that sums all of that up. It was written four centuries ago, so the English is a little old, but its thought is profound. It is the supreme irony.

He death, in death, laid low;

Made sin he sin o’erthrew;

Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,

And death by dying slew.

Thus, he is the resurrection and the life because he dies. The most profound irony of all. Nor is this the end of the story. Readers of this gospel know where the gospel is going. To Jesus’ passion, yes, but ultimately to his own resurrection from the dead, amply attested by hundreds of witnesses in prospect of the resurrection on the last day, in anticipation of the eternal life he gives even now, sometimes one by one here and there, and sometimes in sweeping revival as the resurrection power of Christ flows by his Spirit to men and women today, in anticipation of the great day when the graves themselves will be emptied.

The strife is o’er, the battle done;

The victory of life is won;

The song of triumph has begun.

Alleluia!

Let us pray.