If you would please turn within your Bibles to John chapter 11 beginning at verse 28. And when she, Martha, had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, ‘The teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.
Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. And 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.
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.’ And 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?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him.’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?’
And then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. And 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.’
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.’
Then he 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 with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him and let him go.’
And many of the Jews therefore who had come with Mary and had seen what he did believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Lord, you speak to us from your word. You show us these things and you tell us these things so that we may believe in you as the son of God, to believe in you as our savior, to know the truth and to know you as true. Help us to believe. Forgive us our times of unbelief, and let us always be encouraged in faith by your word. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So these three friends of Jesus living in Bethany, they had called and asked him to come because one of them, Lazarus, was sick—sick unto death. And Lazarus’s sisters, they asked Jesus to come because they believed in Jesus and they hoped that he would help their brother.
But Jesus, for his own reasons, delayed coming and Lazarus died. Now, four days later, Jesus finally arrives in Bethany, coming instead to comfort the sisters and be present with them in their grief over the loss of their brother rather than to come heal him.
And so after first welcoming and then confronting Jesus, Martha called to her sister Mary, saying in private, ‘The teacher is here and he is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.
So Martha, she must have decided at this point that since they were someplace safe enough for Jesus, that now she could call for her younger sister to come and attend to their friend and mentor and teacher. But Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.
And 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. Jesus had not yet entered the town. He was still outside somewhere away.
But when Mary left, the Jews who were with her, they assumed that she was leaving to go to her brother’s tomb. They did not know that Jesus was nearby, and they were unconcerned apparently for the potential of his appearance.
So perhaps and probably if this group of Jews who were there, if they belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, or were at least sympathetic to their views and convictions, then they may have also been sympathetic to the sisters’ views about Jesus. These Jews might have even been friendly or positively inclined towards Jesus or minimally at least unopposed to him and his teachings.
This is just my supposition about the situation and the possibilities because the text isn’t really clear about that. But I think it is a fairly reasonable interpretation and assumption. But nevertheless, they followed Mary because they were unwilling to leave her to suffer in her grief alone.
And while it may not seem like such a big deal to us, I mean, we might be more inclined to give her her space. Going to the tomb with Mary was evidence for the depth of feeling that they felt because it was actually a costly sacrifice for them to go with her.
The law declared that whoever touches a dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days. He shall cleanse himself with water on the third day and on the seventh day and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and the Sabbath, he will not be clean.
Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died and does not cleanse himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Now Lazarus has been dead for four days. And since he surely died at home because he was suffering from an undisclosed illness, the sisters would have been considered unclean, especially because they must have been the ones to prepare their brother for burial.
And since Lazarus had been dead and sealed in the tomb for four days, Martha and Mary would have just completed the first stage of their required ritual cleansing. So going to the tomb would be a risk of repeat contamination, and it would be contamination for their fellow mourners because they were risking contact with other dead bodies or other unclean things around there.
Yet these mourners, they were willing to sacrifice their own ritual purity for the sake of remaining present with Martha and Mary, for the sake of comforting them in their grief and sharing in the same temporary exclusion from the Jerusalem temple and Jewish life.
But instead of going straight to the tomb, Mary went to where Jesus was, unintentionally leading the Jewish mourners to him as well. And like her sister before her, Mary confronted Jesus. And she accused him of failing her brother Lazarus.
Because 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.’ She accused him with the confidence and the severity of her faith in him. She accused him with her disappointment and sorrow. She accused him with her own brokenness, blaming Jesus for her brother’s death instead of accepting it as the Lord’s providential will as Martha seemed to have.
I mean, we would not be the first ones to accuse or blame God for our own sorrows and losses of loved ones. So 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.
Now, the story of Lazarus’s death and resurrection in Bethany is a much-beloved story and it is a source of comfort for our sorrowful souls. I mean, not only does the story provide strong evidence for Jesus being the son of God, not only does the story build up our hope in the resurrection, but this story is one of the strongest examples of Christ’s humanity, demonstrating the depth of his emotions and the fullness of his ability to empathize with us.
I mean, seeing Mary’s sorrow and the sadness of the Jews that followed her, Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. Jesus was unsettled in his soul. He was agitated because of his feelings, experiencing strong emotions, running the full gamut from anger to sorrow in such a very short and compressed time like us.
Jesus, like us, also became upset and confused at the range and severity of his own expressed human emotions. Because truly, Jesus was like us in every way, yet without sin. I mean, not only was he tempted like us, experiencing the world’s same outward attractions that are meant to entice our desire to sin, but he also felt the same emotions that we do, responding to all of the different experiences of life.
I mean, Jesus got happy and he got sad. Jesus felt pain and he felt pleasure. Jesus almost surely got sick just as he got well. Jesus got angry and mad. So recognizing here the truth of Jesus’s humanity, appreciating the fullness of his humanity and the fullness of his deity, this gives us the confidence to believe that Jesus actually understands us and that he can appreciate and empathize with whatever we are going through because we know that he actually did experience it as well.
Understanding the humanity of Jesus Christ is important for us as a matter of our faith because his empathy is based on his human experience rather than just being an intellectual only divine understanding. Jesus understands everything that we go through, and so he is willing and able to help us through whatever that may be.
Then Jesus asked the mourners, ‘Where have you laid him?’ And they respectfully answered, ‘Lord, come and see.’ And then Jesus wept.
While these two simple words comprise the shortest verse in the Bible, it is one of the most impactful depictions of Jesus for us to hear and understand as Christians. Jesus wept. It was a simple act filled with abundance of meaning. It was a simple act described by words that really fail to express the intended fullness.
Jesus wept, but he was not just upset. Jesus wept, but he did not simply sigh in sorrow. Jesus wept, but he did not just shed a couple of tears. Jesus wept, but he did not cry merely or become red-eyed. Jesus wept.
To weep is not a verb that we commonly use today. Instead, we use one of any number of lesser synonyms. We cry. We sob, scream, grieve, ball, blub, mourn, blubber, lament. We whine, whimper. We groan, howl, moan. We wail, we sigh. We sniffle, we keen. We snivel, bleat, mule, yowl, and pule. And every one of these describes a different kind of response to our human sorrow.
And every response is as valid and appropriate as any other. But to weep best encompasses them all. And so when the evangelist tells us that Jesus wept, he is saying that Jesus was feeling the whole range of human emotion and that Jesus was very obviously being affected by his feelings.
Jesus was not an unfeeling Vulcan or a stoic philosopher. Jesus was very much fully human and fully God. Jesus wept, and his expression of human emotion moved his fellow mourning Jews to exclaim, ‘See, see how he loved him.’
I mean, the weeping of Jesus was a public demonstration of Jesus’s grief over Lazarus’s death. The weeping of Jesus was a public demonstration of Jesus’s grief over Lazarus’s sin, which made dying necessary. The weeping of Jesus was a public demonstration of Jesus’s grief over humanity’s sin that justly leads to every person’s death.
The weeping of Jesus was a public demonstration of Jesus’s grief over the brokenness and corruption of the world that was caused by Adam’s sin. But ultimately, the weeping of Jesus is an expression of God the Father’s grief over what humanity, what we have done to his good creation.
Jesus wept. Jesus was sorrowful over the death of Lazarus. And Jesus grieved because of the death of his friend. Even though Jesus knew what he was about to do, even though he knew that Lazarus’s death was only temporary, and still Jesus wept.
This fact that Jesus wept should encourage us and remind us that it is okay for us to be sorrowful when our loved ones die. It is okay for us to grieve over such felt losses even as Christians. Even as Christians who believe that Jesus Christ will raise the dead, restore us to true wholeness, and cause us to become holy and be justified as right and righteous before our Father’s throne.
It is okay for us to grieve when someone dies. It is natural for us to grieve when we’re confronted by death. It is a part of human nature to grieve death because God grieves death. We grieve at death because death is an unnatural thing, the just and rightful consequence of sin, the product of sin which God did not create and is not responsible for.
But it is okay for us to grieve death because our grief and sorrow is tempered by the hope-filled knowledge that one day even death itself shall die and be no more. Jesus wept. Jesus grieved his friend’s death and then God the Son did something about it.
Meanwhile, some of the mourners who witnessed Jesus weep, they scornfully and cynically questioned among themselves, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?’ Their hearts remained stony, hard, and dead in their sin. They doubted Jesus. They doubted his power and they doubted his word.
Their cold hearts could only conceive of preservation, a continuing maintenance of the status quo. They lacked the imagination and hope that only the Holy Spirit gives. They could not imagine the restoration that Jesus offers us. They could not imagine things actually getting better, at least maybe not better than they were back in the days of Solomon. They could not imagine life being restored to the dead.
They could not imagine true healing or true wholeness. They could not imagine a world without sin or its effect. They could not imagine a new heaven, a new earth, or life in the world to come. They could not imagine it. So Jesus had to show it to them once again.
Then Jesus, deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. Now first-century Jewish burials in Israel were very different from how we lay our loved ones to rest today. Their burial practice consisted of anointing the body with certain herbs, spices, and oils, or unguents, and then wrapping them in binding cloths.
But this was not meant to preserve the body. This was not some form of Jewish embalming to try and turn them into a mummy like the ancient Egyptians, but rather these herbs, they helped to actually aid in the body’s decomposition. While the cloth bindings kept the bones gathered together, the hands and the feet were tightly bound because of all the so many tiny bones. And then the body would be closed inside of a stone tomb set out either on a stone bench or within an alcove.
And these tombs, they were either naturally formed caves or they were hewn from the rock for this purpose. And while they were sealed with a heavy stone, it was not to make them airtight, but just enough sealing to prevent animals or scavengers from getting into them.
And then about a year later, after the flesh had decomposed, the tomb would be reopened and the bones would be gathered together and collected and then sealed inside of a stone box called an ossuary. And this box is what would be their final repository, and it would be stored elsewhere within the tomb alongside the remains of their other family members.
And so you see, it’s important for us to understand these kinds of particulars about that historical and cultural context because that context shows the improbability of the sisters being involved in some kind of conspiracy or fraud because they would not have been able to move the stone on their own. This knowledge supports the improbability of a person being willing or able to remain within a tomb for four days pretending to be dead because it would be such a cramped, enclosed, and dark space.
And together, this firmly emphasizes the fact that Lazarus truly was dead. So Jesus, he commanded them, ‘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 four days.’
See, first-century Jews, they were exceptionally conscientious people. They feared inadvertently causing offense, and the smell of a four-day decomposing body, even in the wintertime, should not smell pleasant. But the Jews were even more concerned about preserving their ritual purity—something that the smell of decay and death would have offended against just as contact with a dead body would transmit its uncleanness to the living.
So despite their other faults, these ancient Jews did understand better than most about how unnatural death really is. I hate it when people say things like ‘death is a natural part of life.’ That is one of the biggest lies that people choose to believe and it’s something that Christians should never say because Christians do not believe it.
Although we know that every person will die, we know and believe that death is not natural. Death is not a part of life. Death is unnatural. Death is horrible and inglorious. And death is the necessary consequence of sin. It is because of Adam’s sin and account of our own sins that it is appointed for man to die once and then after that comes the judgment.
But just as death is not something for us to celebrate or affirm, we also do not and should not fear it because of our resurrection hope. Because we know that our physical death is not the end but only the closing of a chapter. As Paul said, ‘For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’
So Jesus responded to Martha, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ Lazarus’s resurrection would be a display of the glory and power of God, affirming what Jesus had told his disciples earlier, saying that this illness, the illness of Lazarus, does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.
And Lazarus’s resurrection would be confirmation that Jesus is the Son of Man and God the Son, proving his earlier claim that truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
Then they took away the stone. At Jesus’s command, the grave of Lazarus was opened, and the prophecy of Ezekiel 37:12 began to be fulfilled. And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’
And the man came out, his hands and feet bound with those linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth. Now, unlike the few resurrections recorded in the Old Testament, those involving Elijah and the widow’s son in Zarephath, Elisha and the Shunammite woman’s son, or the dead man who was cast into Elisha’s grave, the resurrection of Lazarus here was much less showy and far less dramatic.
Elijah, he cried out with multiple loud prayers before the child he raised returned to life. Elisha performed an elaborate ritual before the child he raised returned to life. But this last man, the one who was unceremoniously dumped into the grave of Elisha, he was restored to life without any fanfare at all when his body just simply touched the prophet’s bones. Yet Jesus, Jesus simply spoke.
Jesus spoke a word of command and the dead Lazarus obeyed. The Son of God spoke a word of life and the dead listened and obeyed. Then after witnessing this amazing occurrence, many of the Jews therefore who had come with Mary and seen what he did believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
Some believed and some did not. Some believed in Jesus, but others continued to doubt and deny. Ezekiel’s prophecy was fulfilled where he said, ‘And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you from your graves.’
So whether or not they believed it, they knew it. And therefore, they were without excuse. Now the resurrection of Lazarus is the seventh miraculous sign offered by John, demonstrating that Jesus is the Son of God.
This story also included the fifth occasion of Jesus declaring, ‘I am,’ claiming equality with the Lord God the Father when he told Martha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ And the grief expressed by Jesus, the depth of his emotion and sorrow on account of Lazarus’s death fully demonstrated the truth and reality of Jesus’s humanity.
Together, the evangelist presents all of these evidences in support that Jesus is God the Son, the Logos who is Theos and Andros. And together they work to encourage our hope in God’s promise of new life in him and in a future resurrection from the dead to live in his kingdom forever.
So apart from being evidence to support our belief that Jesus is both God and man and apart from encouraging us by the knowledge of his ability to truly empathize with our human weaknesses and frailties and apart from building up hope within us that Jesus is able to raise us from the dead, and apart from being a prophetic fulfillment moment to confirm an even greater promise of God that all of the dead shall be raised and that all shall be judged and that some shall be raised to an eternal life of blessing as others are raised to an eternal life of judgment and condemnation, how should Christians, how should we respond to the death and resurrection of Lazarus?
How does this story directly impact our lives? I’m sad to say that in most respects, I don’t think it really does. We didn’t witness it. We only know about it by the tenth hand. Yet, we do believe the story that it is factual and true.
I mean, I doubt that this story, that this evidence was the final puzzle piece that convinced many of us about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for us. I remember back to the final teaching in the story about the other Lazarus when Abraham tells him, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
I mean, it is a great piece of evidence that supports our conviction and hope in God’s promises. But the story of Lazarus does not really directly affect our lives. But while the story of Lazarus may not directly impact us, it still has a tremendous impact on our faith.
I mean, believing that Lazarus was raised from the dead, a small miracle, helps us to believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, a bigger miracle, so that we may hope for the fulfillment of all of God’s promises when since we know that he can and since we trust that he will when he will raise us all from the dead, which will be the biggest miracle.
It helps us to believe that when we are raised from the dead, we will stand before the throne of God and we will be judged, and the elect will be declared righteous because they have been washed in the blood of Christ and because their names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
And we will each be rewarded according to our deeds more or less, depending upon the good or evil that we have done. And then we shall each enter into our final destination. So believing this, believing because of these resurrection proofs will impact how we live our lives.
It will affect our sense of assurance and our peace with Christ. It will affect how we grow in grace. It will affect the degree of urgency and importance we feel towards the work of evangelism, proclaiming and sharing the truth of Jesus Christ with other people.
It will affect the degree of importance and direct our efforts for doing good works of charity and love in the name of Christ as our response of faith rather than as a hope for salvation. The apostle Paul told the church in Corinth, and he tells us about the importance of the fact of these resurrections and the hope that we have because of them.
Writing now, ‘If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise if it’s true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has also come the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Our entire hope as Christians, the truth of everything that we believe about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done and what Jesus is doing for us, depends entirely upon the truth of and the fact of the resurrection.
So if the truth of Lazarus’s resurrection and if the truth of Jesus’s resurrection does not affect and impact your life in these ways as a Christian, then you are without hope and the one deserving of pity. But if the resurrection does affect your life, then believe Christ and trust in his promises, and know and believe that you will be raised and you will be judged as righteous because of your faith in Jesus.
Then know and believe that by Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, that through your faith in him, your sins are forgiven. Amen.