I Am the Resurrection and the Life

Setting the Stage

John 11:1–16 NIV

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (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.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” 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.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” 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. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.” 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.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus is given the news that Lazarus is ill. Lazarus, Mary and Martha are seen in the gospels as family to Jesus. They believed in Him and He always stopped in their home when He was in town. He cared for them and they knew of His love for them. They do not even ask for Jesus to come, they already knew He would.

Jesus responds to the concern by capturing the whole of his ministry, to come and pervade our everyday with the truth of a relationship with God and His kingdom. Jesus tells the disciples that Lazarus is enduring this so that God may be glorified through it. When we know God, our lives become canvases for His glory to shine. We go through nothing in vain, but in all things, as we rely on God, He is glorified.

Jesus is setting up His disciples for what is yet to come. This moment will mark the precursor to His glorification as He too will rise from the grave.

The disciples are afraid to return with Jesus to Bethany for they tried to stone Him at the Feast of Dedication. Bethany was only a couple miles from Jerusalem. Jesus responds to them by reminding them that there is only a certain amount of time for Him to complete His work. In the same manner, we need not fear what tomorrow holds, our days are numbered for His glory.

Jesus meets the disciples where they are at in their questioning and further explains that Lazarus is dead and now is the time to go. Thomas responds short sidedly.

I Am The Resurrection and the Life

John 11:17–37 NIV

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” 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.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 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. 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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

John 11:17-

The Jewish custom of mourning.

Martha breaks this custom and comes out to meet Jesus. In her coming, she confronts Jesus with the trauma in her life that would define her. My brother is dead and if you had only been here then you could make him well. We all face trauma in our lives. Trauma is allowed to define us for as we endure trauma, we create the means by which we could have been saved from the trauma. In doing so, we take the place of God in our circumstances. We demand the outcome that is limited by our perspective. God is always faithful to respond in our trauma. His plan in our trauma though may not fit our plan.

Jesus responds to Martha by pointing her to God’s plan. God longed to raise Lazarus from the dead. This would serve as the catalyst to Jesus own death.

Martha though responds with her own religiosity. She said the thing that we all think that we are supposed to say. Jesus though responds with revealing truth to her of who He is and who God is. She need not believe empty religious cliches, she knows the true and living God who can do what is impossible.

Mary comes out and Jesus responds to her trauma. He weeps. Compassion is the gift that moves and changes the heart. Jesus continually shows compassion on His people. He was moved to compassion to act and send out the disciples as He saw the crowds like sheep without a shepherd. Here Jesus has compassion on their tears and despair and He weeps with them.

The Kingdom Revealed

John 11:38–44 NIV

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “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.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 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.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 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.”

John 11:38-

Jesus calls forth Lazarus. After four days of being in the grave, Lazarus rises again.

As Jesus stands before the tomb, he points all those who could hear to how all of this is possible, through the power of God. God is life. He had complete control over the greatest determiner of man’s destiny, death. Death is what man fears. Death defines a man’s days. But God knows not death. He is life.

This miracle shows the purpose of Jesus’ coming, to meet us where we are at and heal our past and show us the present future.

The kingdom of God is not tomorrow, it is today. We live in the truth of the cross of Christ. We live as redeemed people. The baby in the manger has laid down His life and taken it back up again. Will we believe? Will we trust Him to see the glory of the Father? Not tomorrow, but today.