I Am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:17–44)

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Nancy Guthrie: My sisters, my sisters in this room, what a privilege to get to open up God’s word with you tonight. My my friends watching online. We’re grateful that you’re with us. We’re Are you up for gazing at the beauty of Christ in yet another way? With me tonight, I Well, a while ago, I was listening to This American Life podcast. Some of you listen to that podcast, and one of the producers, Diane Wu she told a story about how she grew up loving to watch the movie, The Sound of Music. And then a few years ago, she was talking with someone that she works with there at the show, and she said, You know, I loved the movie, The Sound of Music. And the person she was talking to said, Yeah, me too, except for the Nazis. And Diane said, what Nazis? It was not until that day that she discovered she had only ever seen the first half of the movie Her family had had the movie on VHS, which, evidently it came in a two box set and and somehow her family lost the second tape. And so in her mind, The Sound of Music was the story about this woman, Maria, who came to live with this family with a lot of kids and a mean dad, and she taught the kids how to play and how to sing, and they had a big dinner party, and it ended with Farewell, farewell, and then having fixed the family, she went merrily on her way.

Nancy Guthrie
In Diane’s mind, that was the end of the story. But of course, that was not the end of the story. If she had seen the second part of the story, she would have seen how the story really does end, that the Von Trapp Family emerges from the darkness and difficulty of the Nazi takeover of Austria into the freedom and the beauty of the Alps, where, as you know, the hills are alive with the sound of music. Yes. Well, we’ve come to John chapter 11, and I hope you will open your Bibles here in the room, or if you’re watching online, open your Bibles to John chapter 11, and this scene is very dark indeed. Sickness and death have invaded the home of a family that Jesus loves, and we’re going to see Jesus himself enter into the darkness with a message that the grieving people in this scene who think that what they’re experiencing is the end of the story really need to hear death. He says, will not be the end. There is more to the story. There is a future beyond the darkness and difficulty of life in the land of the dying. For all who believe in Him, He wants them to understand, no he wants more than for them to just understand. He wants them to experience that when you know how the story ends, you can face the most difficult part of your story, the hard and sad parts in the middle with hope and courage and peace, specifically, my friends, when we know that death will not be the end of our stories, we can face the worst things that life in this world slings at us with hope and courage and peace. So let’s work our way through John 11 looking first at the way Jesus loves. I’m beginning in verse one. Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany. The village of Mary and her sister, Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus, was ill. So the sister sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love, is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said, this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, so when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was Jesus loves these siblings, evidently close friends, maybe even friends since childhood. So when you hear that he loved them, so he stayed two days longer. What do you think? Well, I think if we were writing this story, we would certainly want it to read differently. We would want it to say when Jesus, the one who’s proven again and again that he has the power to heal the sick. Heard that Lazarus, the one he loved, was sick. He dropped everything and rushed to Bethany to employ his healing power. And perhaps one reason we want this passage to read this way is because when someone we love is sick and we cry out to Jesus, we want him to drop everything and show up in our lives to employ his healing power. We think Jesus, if you love me, if you love this person in need, you will do something now to stop the hurting. But so often Jesus waits. He says, Look at Verse four, that Lazarus sickness would not end in death. And to that, I want to say, Does he not know? I mean, if we do the math in terms of days, Lazarus was most likely already dead when the messengers actually got to Jesus with the news of Lazarus sickness. We know Lazarus has been dead for four days by the time he got to Bethany. So if we think okay, one day for the messengers to get to Bethany, where Jesus was, then Jesus waits two days, and then a day for Jesus to travel back across the Jordan. He’s probably already dead, and so Jesus, he’s he still says this sickness is not going to ultimately end in death. This is not how Lazarus story is going to end there in verse four, he also says that this illness is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. I have to think that this was the worst thing that had ever happened in the lives of these siblings, and at this point in their story, they couldn’t imagine any kind of glory that could outweigh their suffering, outweigh their agony. They couldn’t imagine what good could ever come out of such suffering. They couldn’t see where the story was headed, at least not yet. And I wonder if there are some here who find yourself in exactly the same place. Perhaps you find yourself facing the worst thing that you can imagine, and you’re wondering why Jesus hasn’t shown up for you. Maybe you’re questioning if he really loves you, and if so, I want to encourage you to hold on you are not yet to the end of your story. It might seem like the end, the end of joy, the end of relationship, the end of life, as you dreamed it would be. But this is not the end you. And be sure that when it seems like he is not showing up, when it seems like nothing will ever be good again, that he is at work for His glory and for your good in a way that you simply cannot see. So hold on. Picking up in verse 11, after saying these things, he said to them, our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. Interesting. Jesus says that Lazarus has fallen asleep. It’s similar to the way death is referred to a lot of times in the Old Testament. And this is likely purposeful, because when the Old Testament speaks of the sleep of death, it hints at the reality that death, for the one who embraces the covenant, is really more like sleep. One day they will rise from the sleep of death. Jesus follows this statement, however, by once again saying something that doesn’t sound like something we expect or really want Jesus to say verse 14. Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died, and for your sake, I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him.

Nancy Guthrie
Why would Jesus be glad he wasn’t there? Well, Jesus was glad he wasn’t there, because if he had been there, surely he would have healed Lazarus. This would have meant that the people of his day, and the people of our day would not have had the opportunity to witness what is about to happen. You see, Jesus is after something. Did you hear it in verse 15? He’s after belief, and not just first time belief, but increasing belief in those who already believe, belief that is increasingly defining, increasingly pervasive, ever deepening. Jesus was glad he wasn’t there to heal Lazarus, because now he has the opportunity to show them and to show us something about himself that we desperately need to Behold and believe. So we’ve seen the way that Jesus loves now we hear the claim Jesus makes begin in verse 17. Now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. I think we hear pain in her voice, don’t you, maybe even a sense of frustration. I mean, she’s likely witnessed Jesus performed many miracles of healing, and so she knows that if he had been here, Jesus, Lazarus would not have died. And then she says, look at verse 22 but even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Now my first thought when I read this is, I think, I think maybe she’s holding out hope that maybe he will still do something so that Lazarus will come back to her. But I think what we’re really hearing her is that she’s trying to work things out. She hasn’t yet figured out how to reconcile Jesus’s love and power with the death of her brother. And some of us have been there, haven’t we? I think we’re getting to listen in on. On her internal struggle, she knows her brother would still be alive if Jesus had been there, and she knows that Jesus is in such intimate fellowship with His Father that surely his prayers would be answered. So she simply states what she knows, because she’s not even really sure what to pray for at this point, you and some of us have been there too, haven’t we? Verse 23 Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day, you see a general resurrection on the last day. Is what most Jews had come to expect by the first century, even though the Old Testament Scriptures are actually rather vague when it comes to what happens after death, but it does give us a few hints. When we read the story of Abraham preparing to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering, we read it and we wonder, how could he do that? But then the writer of the book of Hebrews gives us insight into Abraham’s thinking. He tells us that Abraham considered that God was able to even raise him from the dead. So evidently, Abraham believed that God could raise the dead if during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha that we read three Old Testament reports of individuals actually brought back to life from physical death. Elijah raised a widow’s son. Elisha raised the shunamite son, a man who touched Elisha bones, was revived. Then we get to the book of Isaiah, especially Isaiah 25 and the prophet speaks of a day in the future when he writes, your dead shall live. Their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy, for your dew is the dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. But the clearest Old Testament statement that would have given the people in Jesus’s day, the expectation of resurrection on the last day, is found in Daniel 12, which reads this way, many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Now, Jesus had actually talked about resurrection up many times up to this point in his ministry, we could go through the book of John. In chapter five, we would find several mentions of resurrection in John chapter six, four times in the account of Jesus feeding the 5000 Jesus speaks of the raising of the dead that’s going to come on the last day. So when Martha says, I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day we we can see that Martha has been listening to the Old Testament, prophets, and she has been listening to Jesus. She knows the truth, but she doesn’t yet know the whole truth. She knows there is a great resurrection day in the future, but she simply cannot find any solace in the future tense. And those of us who have lost someone we love, we understand that, don’t we? We have a hard time finding comfort in our future hope under the crush of present pain a future Day of Resurrection can just seem so religious, so unreal, so far removed, and it is into Martha’s dry doctrine devoid of palpable comfort. I. And hope that Jesus says this, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live? And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Now, did you notice that Jesus does not say that he can give resurrection life? Well, that would be amazing, but that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying, I am the resurrection. In other words, resurrection is not merely a future event. It is a person. It is as if Jesus takes the doctrine of resurrection, and he squeezes it through himself. And who does he say gets in on this resurrection life? Whoever believes in me, believe believe, we keep hearing this call, don’t we, in this, in this book of John. Now what’s interesting is that John doesn’t actually say that we should believe in Jesus. That’s what our English Bibles say, because that’s the way they have to say it to make good English. But what John is literally saying is that we must believe into Jesus.

Nancy Guthrie
He’s calling for wholehearted, whole person engagement. You see, to believe into Jesus is to say, Jesus, I am all in with you. And then live that way. And those who believe into him in this way become joined to him in such a way that his very life starts flowing into us, starting now and when we believe into him, we become connected to the source and fountain of life, so that death can only hold us for what in light of eternity is a mere moment. Do you get what this means? It means that life is not about avoiding death. Rather, it’s about overcoming death through the power of the unstoppable life of Jesus at work in the interior of our lives. And so this means that death will not be the end of your story. It will not be the end of your existence, the end of your hope, and it means that you can begin to live now, think, now, feel now, make decisions now in light of that reality. So we’ve seen the way Jesus loves and the claim Jesus makes. Let’s look at the question Jesus asks. Look at verse 26 Jesus asked, Martha, do you believe this? It’s almost too direct of a question, isn’t it makes us a little bit uncomfortable. He seems a little bit pushy to be forced into answering this question. But you see, Jesus is not content to settle for vague uncertainty. Jesus is not afraid to push the issue of belief. You see, Jesus is loving us when he asks the question, because he knows that what we believe makes a life and death difference. Jesus insists that we must respond to Him in faith. Verse 27 she said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. Now, Martha has not yet witnessed resurrection from the dead. He. And so that means she has a limited ability to fully grasp what Jesus is saying to her, and she’s expressing what she knows. She believes Jesus is the Christ, the Promised Messiah, the Son of God. And at this point, this is the best she can do. Verse 32 now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died there it is again, if you had been here. So Mary too, she knows about Jesus’s healing power, but she doesn’t yet grasp His resurrecting power. Verse 33 when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping. He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, Where have you laid him? And they said to Him, Lord, come and see Jesus wept. Jesus wept. Jesus

Nancy Guthrie
God, Jesus knows what it’s like to stand at the grave of someone you love and to have the unbearable pain of it come out in the form of tears, because there are simply no words for it. Jesus sees this one he loves, who is weeping and her pain has become his pain. But it would seem that it’s not simple sadness that we see here in Jesus, it seems that his sorrow has an edge to it. Our translation says he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. But those words might not completely capture the reality you see. The Greek words here provide an image of an animal snorting. Before it charges. It would seem that Jesus is filled with a measure of rage as he looks at the grave of his friend Lazarus and considers how much death hurts those that he loves. His agitation reflects a mingling of grief and compassion and holy detestation of the way sin has had its way in this world, bringing so much death. And there’s also hear a sense of determination. Jesus is determined to do battle with death. Jesus has come to the grave as a weeping friend. And oh, it is so good to have weeping friends who will stand with you at the grave of someone that you love. But Jesus has also come to the grave as a warrior. He is preparing to go to war against death itself. And my friends, this is what we need. He’s there to do battle with the foe of death, who, to this point, has had an impressive track record of victory. But that’s about to end verse 38 then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time, there will be an odor, for he’s been dead for four days. His body is already decomposing. What is Jesus thinking? What. He’s thinking about glory. He’s thinking about belief. Verse 40, Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me over and over again, that they may believe back in verse 14, we read, He wanted His disciples to believe in verse 40 he wanted mary and martha to believe. Now we’re in verse 42 He wants everyone standing around this scene to believe. Verse 43 when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus come out, the man who had died came out his hands and feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. Just imagine his heart began to beat and blood began pulsing through all of his capillaries and veins, and breath filled his lungs, and dormant and deteriorating muscles began to flex, and he walked out of the tomb. Doesn’t it sometimes seem as if death always gets the last word, that death has all the power in this world. I mean, cancer strikes, and sometimes there’s no cure and the accident happens, and we can’t change the outcome. Bodies age, and we can’t turn back the clock. In so many ways, life can seem like a constant march toward death, and we are powerless to stop it, and that is why we need to see into this scene. When Jesus speaks, No, he doesn’t just speak. It says, He cries out with what must have been a loud and piercing cry, and he’s telling death to let go of its hold on Lazarus, and when he does that, there’s nothing death can do but obey, because Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Death must submit and obey its master, Jesus.

Nancy Guthrie
Indeed, it is just a short time later when Jesus Himself will be laid in a tomb, and no one will be expecting him to rise, but Jesus will emerge from the tomb. Once again, death must obey its master, Jesus, except something will be very different about the resurrection of Jesus from that of Lazarus. Yes, Lazarus was raised from the dead. But my friends, the day came when Mary and Martha stood once again at the grave of their brother, Lazarus, but my friends, Jesus is raised to never die again. Paul writes that Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. Do you get what this means? This means that if you are joined to Jesus, if you have believed into him, you can anticipate something far greater than Lazarus experienced here in John chapter 11, you see because Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, conquered death, we await the day when we will be raised with bodies like the body of the resurrected Jesus, with bodies that will never die. You. So in this passage, we’ve seen the way that Jesus loves and the claim. We’ve heard the claim he makes. We’ve heard this question he asks. We have seen him weep, and now we’ve seen the sign he has given in raising Lazarus. And all of this serves for us to see the confidence that Jesus instills you. See Jesus comes to you and me in this moment, and his question is, Do you believe this? I it now before we answer too quickly, let’s think about what it really looks like, what it really sounds like to be a person who believes into Jesus in such a way that it changes not only how we think about our eternal future after we die physically, but even how it changes how we live our lives in the world right now. What does it look like and sound like to believe into Jesus as the resurrection and the life? Well, it means that we say to ourselves and to anyone who will listen, because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and because I am integrally joined to him, I know that this life is not all there is, no matter what happens, no matter how much I lose, no matter how dark it gets, no matter how hard theme things seem, what I know deep in my core that is enabling me to stay hopeful, content and at peace to my dying breath is that this life and my death will not be the end. I know how the story of the world, how my own story, is going to end and is not going to ultimately end in death. It’s not going to end in nothingness. It’s going to end in all encompassing life and joy. It’s going to end in glory. So my friend, whatever it is that has your stomach tied up in knots and your knees knocking in fear and your heart breaking in pieces, Jesus is speaking into it, and he is saying, believe in to me, and I will fill you with confidence to face an uncertain future without being paralyzed by fear and dread. And your confidence is not going to be that I’m always going to show up and do the miracle that will save you from suffering. Your confidence will be that I am going to bring you through whatever I allow in your life. I’m going to sustain you. I’m going to work in you, even now I am generating new life in the dead places inside you. I am going to come for you. I am going to call to you. I am

Nancy Guthrie
and when you believe into Jesus in the way this way, you’ll be able to face whatever comes in a way that might seem like denial to the world, but it won’t be denial of reality. It will be full embrace of the reality that this life is not all there is. When you truly hear Jesus saying to you, I am the resurrection and the life, you’ll recognize that you’re still living in what is the middle of the story. And so you’ll be able to say sin and failure is not the end of my story. You are sexual abuse or sexual confusion does not define me. You do. Depression, anxiety, addiction, are not ultimately in control of my life. You are. My bank account doesn’t provide my greatest security. You do no one and nothing in this created world is the source or center of my life. You are my friends because we believe into Jesus, we have a brother, a friend who weeps with us over the losses that we face in life. But we have even more than that. We have a divine warrior who has done battle with the great enemy of death on our behalf and one, and he is now reigning in heaven lord over life and death, and he will one day return To destroy death for good, and because of that, we know how the story will end and that we are just now in the middle of our story. Death will not be the end of your story. It’s really going to be like a brief nap. You can die in peace knowing that very soon Jesus will awaken you, just as a new day is dawning. On that day, we will emerge from the darkness of this world into the freedom and beauty of the new creation. And indeed, the whole of creation will be alive with the sound of music. And so we strain forward even now to sing that song, the song that celebrates the final victory of Jesus over sin and death and all that awaits us in the rest of the story, glorious resurrection life that will never end.

Nancy Guthrie
Let’s pray, Lord, we thank You for this passage that shows us the way Jesus loves we need to know that when it seems like you’re not showing up, it’s not that you don’t love us, but you’re after something. You’re after belief. And so Lord, would you give us the grace to trust you when you don’t show up in the way and in the timing that we were so desperate for, we hear the claim that you make, that you are the resurrection and the life, and we hear you asking us that all important question, do we believe this? And if we’re honest, we probably say, I believe, help my unbelief. Lord, thank You for this picture that shows us you’re not callous, nowhere near that to the losses that we experience in this life, but that you weep with us, that our pain becomes your pain. So we’re grateful to see you as a weeping brother, but Oh, we’re so full of joy to see you as the divine warrior, and to see in this passage, what it looks like this sign you give of your defeat of death. And we’re finding this is instilling confidence in us. So we can say, along with Paul, to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. We can say my grave will not be my final resting place, but we know. I know there is a day coming. I can almost hear you say it. You going to say my friend Nancy has fallen asleep? I go to awaken her. And Lord, we long for that day. It helps us to know that what. Ever we face in the future, we can say this is not the end of the story. Death is not the end you are.