Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 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.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus[a] was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”11 After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” 17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles[c] off,19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house.21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[d]Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 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.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved[e] in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 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 has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
You may remember the story of Richard Cameron, a covenanter of Scotland, a godly man who only wished to worship Jesus freely and without state interference was arrested for his commitment to the Lord in 1680. His father Allan had already been arrested for assisting in the reading of scripture and prayers during evening worship. As a cruel joke, those who captured the young Cameron cut off his hands and his feet and threw them on the prison floor at the feet of the father, mockingly asking him, Do you recognize these?
Allan Cameron picked up the hands and the feet, weeping…he kissed them and said, “Yes, these are my son’s, my own dear son’s. Blessed be the name of the Lord, who has never harmed me or mine, all the days of my life.” What kind of faith can see past such horror? What kind of faith and what kind of man knows Jesus so deeply that in the deepest sorrows can exclaim: Blessed be the Name of the Lord?
The resurrection of Lazarus is a demonstration of the plan of God to defeat death and hell through the work of God the Son. So that there is no misunderstanding: The point here is that even death has to listen to Jesus…death does not have the final word…Jesus does… “Where oh death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?”
That is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by Adolf Hitler for leading a conspiracy against the dictator wrote some time before his execution:
No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God and no one has heard about the realm of the resurrected and not been homesick…How do we know that death is so dreadful? Who knows that in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious most heavenly blessed event in the world…death is hell and night and cold if it is not transformed by our faith and that is just what is so marvelous…Christ has transformed death.
That is what Jesus is doing here in Bethany. He is making it clear that HE is the transformation of life and the transformation of death.
Martha is a very good picture of most of us today. We believe to be sure, but we are easily shaken from the truth. We do not distrust the Lord or question the truth of what He says, but we often miss something and it is obvious by the way we live…what are we missing? Jesus tells Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha is quick to speak her theology: “Yes, I know he will rise again at the resurrection at the last day.” Martha has correct theology, but her mistake is that she sets the promise, the truth, far off, off in the distance but the Lord wants her to know, NOT in the distance, not only later, but NOW.
Jesus does not say, “I will be the resurrection and the life”, but I AMthe resurrection and the life. Jesus is taking the truth of the end, the truth of eternity and His victory for us and telling Martha, that these are not things that He, Jesus, has to go out and seek or create, but that these are things that HE IS. He IS the resurrection…He IS the life…Just as He IS the bread come down from heaven, He IS the temple, He IS the water from the rock. Jesus is life, not just at the end when we are resurrected, but right now.
Jesus asks Martha a powerful and penetrating question, He says, “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? It is one thing to believe this as a doctrine, which of course we, as Martha, are quick to affirm. But do you believe that He is the resurrection now today?
You see, herein is the great problem for so many today; too much of what we read in our bibles remains only doctrine…it stays far away, in the intellectual realm…but Jesus is saying no, I am intruding right into your life…and life is not all these things AND Jesus…Life is Jesus.
Christianity, your Christian experience is as one minister put it, and this is profound, so listen carefully: Christian experience is our measure of apprehension of that which is already true for us in Jesus. (Andrew Jukes)
In other words, our Christian life is our experience of the truth about what Jesus has already won for us. I can’t tell you how important this is: What has Jesus won for you? What has his life, death and resurrection accomplished? What has His work made certain?
Do you experience those things…NOW? If not, it could be that you are chasing a vapor for an elusive fix. Christ has done it all…you don’t have to create joy, or peace, or contentment, or happiness…the Lord has won those things for you, so now you experience them by entering into His life by faith.
Mary and Martha have suffered greatly, they have lost their brother and so we are taken into the work of Jesus for us, at life’s deepest moments and deepest pains. People are always trying to figure out the issue of pain and suffering and what it means in light of the Christian message of a loving, caring, merciful God. When the book was written: “Why bad things happen to good people”…the answer was: Hey, God is doing the best He can, it isn’t easy being God.
Jesus is directing the faith of those he loves deeply above circumstances, to see Him above it all. In all that you suffer, the loss of loved ones, the sickness of children and spouses, the rejection of those who you thought would stand by your side always, accidents that take people from us and other sufferings that are in no way to be trivialized…Know this, Jesus is directing you to Him…so that you will find that Jesus not only will be your reward, but that He IS your reward, right now.
Prayer: Father, give my faith a sight and a holy remembrance of all that You have planned for Your people and all that Jesus willing took upon Himself that You may be glorified and Your people rescued from sin, death and hell. I am ashamed at how easily I forget that the victory of Jesus over death is a victory for all His people and that I am to live in light of the truth that He is the resurrection and the life. Forgive me, and lead me this day to rejoice in the salvation that You have given me and the continued work of Your Spirit, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: O Light than Knew No Dawn