John 11:38-46 Page 1 of 4 November 14, 2010

39th in a Series

11:38 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.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed
in him, 46 but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

Up until this moment death has been the phantom stalking Jesus like a half-seen shadow
in the background of his life. As an infant his mother and step-father took him to Egypt
to escape Herod’s massacre of the boy children of Bethlehem. In the Wilderness Satan
tempted him to jump off of the pinnacle of the Temple into the Kidron valley and trust
that angels would catch him. His neighbors in Nazareth tried to lynch him after he
preached in their synagogue that he was the Messiah foreseen by the prophet Isaiah.
When he began his public ministry the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem decided early on
that he had to die, and they tried many times to arrest him, put him on trial and execute
him. Death haunted Jesus’ life and ministry from the start.

Eventually death would claim him. That was the reason why he came into the world:
“to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45a); “to lay down his life for his
friends” (John 15:13). But the moment of his death would occur only at the time
appointed by his Father. Until that moment arrived Jesus focused on doing his Father’s
work, which included performing various kinds of miracles that revealed his Divine
power and compassion for suffering humanity.

Most of Jesus’ miracles were spur-of-the-moment responses to sickness or disability or

hunger, but the raising of Lazarus was different. Jesus carefully prepared for this miracle
beforehand so that it would make the greatest possible impact on the people who
witnessed it. By this point in his ministry, even his enemies were forced to admit that he
possessed extraordinary powers over nature and sickness and the forces of evil. This is
why, when Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus became sick, the sisters were so confident
in Jesus’ ability to heal that they immediately sent a message to him hoping he would do
something to save him. But as we saw, Jesus did nothing and Lazarus died.
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That was all part of Jesus’ preparation for this miracle. You see, it is one thing to believe
– as the sisters did – that Jesus had the power to heal a living sick person. But it was a
very different matter to believe that Jesus had any power at all over death. Once a person
crosses the horizon into death, there is nothing more to be done, and so it was with
Lazarus. His sisters continued to love Jesus and believe in him even after their brother
died and was buried, but they and everyone else assumed that Jesus was as helpless in the
presence of death as any of us. That is a perfectly reasonable assumption, isn’t it? The
universal experience of mankind teaches us that death is the final reality which comes to
us all, without exception. And the universal experience of mankind teaches us that no
one comes back from the realm of the dead. Only God has life in Himself and the power
to give life to others, and we are not God.

Jesus delayed helping Lazarus so as to make the greatest impact on those who witnessed
the miracle. Last time I mentioned a Jewish tradition which said that at death the soul of
the deceased lingered by the body for three days and then departed for good on the fourth
day after corruption set in. When Jesus arrived at Bethany and commanded some of
those standing around to remove the stone that covered the entrance to his tomb, Martha
objected (v. 39): “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four
days.” The odor meant that corruption had begun. The soul of her brother had fled.
There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Lazarus was well and truly dead, and Martha
did not want to expose her beloved brother’s body in its present condition.

Neither Martha nor her sister nor the bystanders who accompanied them to the tomb had
the slightest clue about what Jesus was going to do. They did not have the slightest clue
that they were about to witness a demonstration of (v.40): “the glory of God” which
would invite them to believe in Jesus in an entirely new and different way. As I said, it
was one thing to believe that Jesus could perform healing miracles on living people, but it
was something else again to believe that the healing power of Jesus extended to the realm
of death itself.

After all of this careful preparation and anticipation, the actual miracle happens rather
quickly. When they took away the stone that sealed the tomb, while everyone’s attention
was riveted on Jesus, he (vv. 41b-46): “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.’ 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 with a cloth.
Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ 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.”
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By the power of the Word of God death released its grip on Lazarus, and he was restored
to life and to his sisters and his friends and his little community for a time. I say “for a
time” because this was not a resurrection into eternal life, it was a revival or restoration
of this life, and one day Lazarus would have to die all over again. So then what was the
point? What are we supposed to make of this miracle?

I have mentioned many times that one great theme of John’s Gospel is “abundant life.”
Jesus said that he came into the world so that his sheep: “may have life and have it
abundantly” (John 10:10). He was not referring only to the joy of eternal life in the
world to come. Jesus wants his sheep to experience “abundant life” right now in this
world, and one aspect of that “abundant life” is freedom from anxiety about life and
death. Jesus would have us live joyful, confident, and productive lives that honor him
and glorify his heavenly Father, even now, as we make our way through this valley of the
shadow of death where our lives and our health and our security and our prosperity all
hang by the slenderest of threads which can snap at any moment. There are two ways
that this miracle contributes to that abundant life.

First, Jesus summoned Lazarus from the realm of death to show us that he is the
Sovereign Lord: “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do
not exist” (Romans 4:17). Where the Spirit of Christ is present, and the power of God is
at work through that Spirit, even humanity’s greatest and most powerful enemy – death –
must surrender those who believe in Jesus and who confess with Martha that he: “is the
Christ, the Son of God” (John 11:27), or with Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God” (Matthew 16:16).

This is why we Christians do not believe that death is the end, lights out forever. We
Christians do not believe that eternal life comes to everyone automatically without
reference to what they believe and how they behave now. And we Christians do not
believe that we triumph over death by practicing religion, performing religious duties, or
obeying religious laws, which is the default option of human beings down through
history. The raising of Lazarus shows us that the power to bestow life on the dead
belongs to God, and He has shared that power with His Son Jesus alone. No prophet, no
priest, no New Age mystic, no founder of any of the world’s great religions can
overcome death which claims even them. Victory over death is the gracious gift of God
which he gives to everyone who is united to Him by faith in His Son, Jesus.
Only Jesus, the Son of God, has the power to raise the dead, and only those who are
united to him in faith can live with the confidence that since they are united with him
they belong to him, and since they belong to him death no longer has any ultimate claim
on them. This conviction is one of the foundation stones of the abundant life that Jesus
desires for his sheep. If we let this conviction take root in our hearts and our minds, and
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if we learn how to live from it day by day, we may still face times of pain and struggle
which test our faith and our endurance, but we will be liberated from fear and anxiety
about life and the inevitable death which comes to us all.

Secondly, while the raising of Lazarus revealed that Jesus is the Sovereign Lord of life
whose life-giving Word of power is greater than the power of death, this miracle was not
God’s final victory over death. As we will see, death continued to stalk Jesus, just as it
stalks us, but the raising of Lazarus lifts the curtain and gives us a peek into the future
and that great and glorious day when death itself will die. Lazarus’ revival by the power
of Jesus’ Word is a faint anticipation of the far greater and more glorious Resurrection
into eternal life which is yet to come.

Here is how the Apostle Paul describes that Resurrection to the Christians in Corinth:
"Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and
the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body
must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the
perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come
to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is
your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of
sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:49-57)

The raising of Lazarus shows us that, of all people on earth we Christians alone have a
living hope. Because we are united by faith to the Source of life whose Word trumps
death we can accept whatever comes to us – good times or bad, health or sickness, joy or
sorrow, strength or infirmity, comfort or pain – with the confident assurance that: “if we
live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or
whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8) “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be
steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the
Lord your labor is not in vain.” (I Corinthians 15:58)