As we get ready to study the seventh sign, which is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. This is Jesus’ seventh and climactic messianic sign in John’s Gospel. Resurrections are rare in the Old Testament (by Elijah, 1 Kings 17:17-24; by Elisha, 2 Kings 4:32-37) and in the Gospels (Jairus’s daughter, Mark 5:22-24, 38-42; the widow’s son at Nain, Luke 7:11-15). The raising of Lazarus served as the final event that triggered the Jewish leaders’ resolve to arrest Jesus and try Him for blasphemy (John 11:45-57).
This is why I am going to break up this final sign into three parts; The Death of Lazarus (John 11:1-16); Jesus is our Life (John 11:17-37); and Jesus is our Power (John 11:38-44). Each week I will have the entire seventh sign here so you can re-read this sign as a whole if you like or just the section that is being studied that week; John 11:1-44.
11 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (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.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4 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.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”
9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”
11 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.”
12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two milesfrom Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
28 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.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 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.
32 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.”
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then 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 have kept this man from dying?”
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “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.”
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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.”
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 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.”
As we have studied the signs in the Gospel of John, we have seen how John chose to record the previous six miracles that prove that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Seven miracles that produce faith in readers. In the first six, we have seen his power over the physical aspects of life, including the human body, the natural elements, time and space, and even food and drink. But in each case Jesus also demonstrated that his purposes went beyond the physical to the spiritual. Now the Lord revealed his power by reaching beyond this life and touching death and the afterlife, territory that belongs only to God. Death is not a natural extension of life, though many psychologists argue that point today. Death is an enemy, created as a result of sin, and ultimately to be destroyed by God.
The perfume-anointing described in verse 2 is further developed in Matthew 26 and Mark 14, although John mentions it just to identify the relationship among these two sisters, their brother, and Jesus. Sometimes the Lord’s ways are hard to understand. Imagine the disciples listening to Jesus as he observed casually that the sickness would not end in death and then lingering around for a few more days before heading to Bethany.
Even as we read this passage, we wonder about God being glorified through sickness, the strong point of verse 4. Of course, God was glorified through Jesus’ resurrection, but he was also glorified through his death. Any crisis that brings glory to God is good. If God is glorified in illness, it is good, as difficult as this is for our human minds to grasp.
The Lord’s words, this sickness will not end in death, show us how much more deeply he was thinking than the disciples. They could never have imagined that Lazarus’ physical death would end and he would actually walk out of the grave after several days.
How was God glorified in this life-and-death event? Certainly through the resurrection, but also in the death. The faith and hope that Lazarus’s death evoked in the sisters occupies a significant portion of this chapter.
It appears that the four days that passed between the death and the raising of Lazarus find their starting point just before the Lord left for Bethany. That allows two days after the original message for the intended delay, and two days for the trip.
But we ask, the trip from where? We simply do not know. The end of chapter 10 places Jesus and the disciples in Perea (Transjordan), and that may have been their location at the beginning of this chapter. This is why the “therefore” of v. 6 contributes to the flow of the argument. Lazarus’ illness will not finally issue in death: it is for the glory of God (v. 4). This does not mean Jesus is indifferent to human suffering. Far from it: Jesus loves Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (v. 5). Indeed, it is in consequence of that love that he delays his departure by two days, waiting for the divine signal, the news of Lazarus’ death, before he sets out on the four-day journey (v. 6), for this delay will make a substantial contribution to the strengthening of the faith of the Bethany family.
The Lord and his disciples had some distance to walk back to Bethany in the northeastern part of Judea. Death threats awaited there, and the disciples had serious reservations about the trip. Verses 9 and 10 represent the Lord’s answer, though it does not seem to fit the context. Perhaps it was a proverb of the time, meaning duty is more important than haste. For Jews, the twelve hours of daylight would have been from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., and perhaps Jesus emphasized that we have a full twelve hours, but no more. Each valuable hour should be used to glorify God.
Both Romans and Jews calculated time in twelve-hour blocks, and work was done during the daylight. The interesting expression this world’s light obviously refers to sunlight, but John may have intended a veiled reference to working in the “Sonshine”, that time which the Father had allowed Jesus to be on earth.
Jesus returned to the subject at hand and used a common New Testament euphemism for death, the word sleep (Matthew 9:24; 1 Corinthians 11:30; 15:20; 1 Thessalonians 4:14). We see this again at the end of Acts 7 in the martyrdom of Stephen. “Sleep is a common New Testament euphemism for death. It translates the Greek word (elzoimethe) from which we construct the English noun cemetery. A cemetery, supposedly fearsome and spooky, affords a Christian word of faith. Christians who die are not gone; they sleep temporarily until Jesus wakes them up. That sleep, of course, does not mean cessation of existence or awareness, because we learn later in Paul’s writings that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:1-10)”.
After having told them the sickness would not be unto death, Jesus then said clearly, Lazarus is dead. The disciples did not pick up on the word sleep and its connection with death. Not only that, but we learn the delay that allowed the death of his friend would work for the benefit of Jesus’ disciples. They were on their way south to Bethany. This trip would take them through Jerusalem.
Thomas called Didymus offered the pessimistic cry of the martyr complex, Let us also go, that we may die with him. “What futility,” they must have thought. “Lazarus is already dead; why put our own lives in jeopardy since we can’t help him now.” In the view of Thomas, all of them (certainly including Jesus) would be dead before this trip ended.
Thomas entered the narrative of John three times and in each case in a somewhat negative reference. The word Didymus means “twin” (not “doubter” as some have surmised), although we know nothing about his sibling. Indeed, the name Thomas is the Hebrew word for twin. One can almost hear the sign of futility, the complete ignorance of substitutionary atonement and resurrection victory.
Next week we will continue this with Jesus is our Life (John 11:17-37). ffffffff