Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles 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.”
The Lord comes to Mary and Martha to reveal the truth of His kingdom and to impress upon them the reality of who He is and what they must think, love, know and live.
He comes to them, he comes to His people to teach them of heaven, but He does not always come WHEN or HOW we think He should…Some of you know that pretty well…so will you trust Him?
Have you ever thought about how different things would appear to us, even the darkest, heaviest things, if we could see how they fit into God’s gracious plan for our
lives? And in the same way, how dark even the brightest, happiest things, done without faith would appear in our lives if we could see what their temporary pleasures and successes were really leading us to in the end!
Samuel Rutherford once made this point in a letter to Lady Kenmure, a woman who more than once felt sorrows and bitter disappointments such as Martha and Mary felt
in the death of their brother and a woman that Rutherford wrote to often:
“Madam, when you are come to the other side of the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to
your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God’s wisdom, you shall then be forced to say, ‘If God had done otherwise with me than he has done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory.”
[Letter XI, p. 52]
We don’t know, of course, how a particular sadness will turn out to our blessing and our salvation any more than Martha and Mary knew that Lazarus’ death was going
to turn out. But this miracle is intended to be a picture of how God blesses and sanctifies all sadness, all disappointment in the lives of his children.
Christ waited for those two days, we read in vv. 5-6 precisely
because he loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus! He brings us into despair precisely because that despair is a tool in His hand of bringing us to Himself, and He is the greatest blessing that He can give us! Brothers and sisters, not every sadness
will be overcome in this remarkable way and turned, in a day or two, into indescribable joy.
The Lord holds our darkness in his hands and employs it for our blessing and it is our privilege to know that and to believe that if sorrow lasts through the night,
joy will definitely come in the morning, however long the night must last, however sooner or later the morning will come. (RSR)
Have you ever thought of what kind of life Lazarus lived after this? All we are told is that the authorities threatened the man and told him to stop proclaiming Xp
or they would kill him. I wonder what he thought when they told him they would kill him… “Oh that again.” Lazarus died again some years later. And, as one writer asked:
I imagine his sisters, if they were still living, wept over the loss of a dear brother. But, do you not think that they also laughed through their tears? They had
turned their pain into a sacrament, a means of grace to them, precisely because they now knew that this pain was the means to his blessing and theirs.
Don’t you suppose that later, Mary and Martha and the Lord’s disciples would find themselves in difficult or discouraging places and would be tempted to despair,
depression, anger and irritation and then would catch themselves? They would remember what had happened at Bethany long ago and smile to themselves and say, “Oh no; I’m not going to make that mistake again!”
As an aside something to be careful of: Your enemy will not sit still and allow you no opposition to this kind of faith, and in fact, will work to bring to you two
things that you know far too well, two enemies of faith and they are self-pity and anxiety. When circumstances are not as we had hoped and our eyes are not upon the Lord nor directed to the joy of our faith’s perfecting we begin to wallow in self-pity which
is nothing but a form of pride.
Boasting is a response of pride, to the success or perceived successes that we have achieved. Pity is the response of pride to our sufferings and our trials. Boasting
says I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much, self-pity says I deserve admiration because I have suffered so much, it is as one author called it, the response of unapplauded pride. What self-pity is, looking backwards, anxiety is, to the future
or when looking forward. Anxiety is the repudiation of faith, it is to see only the things before you and not the kind hand which has placed the cup in yours to drink.
The one who really knows that He is the great I AM, understands why it is that Jesus is glad that our bodies ache and that we feel badly…The Christian understands
why the Lord is glad when your business does not prosper, that you are not as successful as you want to be…Why He is glad to hold back the very blessings you are just certain you need. He is glad that you see your weakness, for He knows that without these
you would never possess the precious faith which sees the reality of the unseen and the glory that is Christ’s and that is yours…not someday, but right now.
As we consider that Jesus is the resurrection and the life…not just theologically, but really, practically…not only at the end, but now…we stare death in the eye without
blinking…And for our loved ones in Christ who have passed over the river already…we do not fret. It is easy to look at those situations and think that this world, this life, is over for them. And that is an unspeakably sad thing,
unless they were driving into another world, into a far better and more beautiful world than any they had known here. And it is the glory of the Gospel, and it is the great honor of Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life…and it is the immense
privilege of human beings and of Christians especially that such a place exists and that there is a way to it from this world.
And there the saints shall live forever and ever in unbroken communion with the Lord and in a world of beauty and joy that even the most perceptive among us dimly
see, but that we must see. My pastor many years ago told me: Live long enough as a Christian and you will lose your hope that what you really long for you can find in this world. Live long enough and you will be disappointed with this world. Heaven becomes
more and more the place you want to be, the place you need to be, the place you can’t wait to reach, because all that is your life, and all that you have come to hope your life will be, you now know can only be found there.
That is what Jesus taught Mary and Martha all those years ago…that He is hope, He is life, He is home, and we are to believe that and enjoy it now.
Prayer: Father, I pray that I would find comfort in all the trials and difficulties that come to me and I know I will find that comfort as long as I am close to
You. Help me to be humbly confident in the victory of my Savior and to live in that light this day. I know there is hope, life and peace in Him but I also know that I am prone to fear, anxiety and worry. May that which is dimly seen, the glories of Christ,
become brighter and brighter, in His name I pray, Amen.
Hymn: I Know That My Redeemer Lives