I AM The Resurrection and The Life (Part 1)

616 days ago, 20 months and 1 week ago, we started a journey in the Gospel of John.

I stated then that’s John’s purpose for writing his gospel was that we might believe. And in order to persuade us to believe, he points us to the glory of Jesus.

We are going to be looking at chapter 11 of John this morning, but before we go there, I would like us to turn to to chapter 1 so that we can be reminded of some things.

I would encourage you, if you haven’t already, to spend time meditating on the first 18 verses of chapter 1. Read it in different versions and translations.

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp to a greater extent what is being said about Jesus

John chapter 1 is so chock full of expressions about who Jesus is and what He is like. It’s almost like John, in introducing Jesus to us, runs out of words to express his adoration and worship

I feel like I could spend a lifetime thinking and meditating on the first 18 verses of John chapter 1.

Jesus The Word, fully God, speaking all of creation into existence with the power of His word!

This very Jesus, fully God, put on flesh (just like we put on clothes this morning). He put on flesh and dwelt among a people who should have known Him, yet rejected Him.

I am especially drawn to verses 14-18

John 1:14-18 (The Passion Translation)

14 And so the Living Expression (The Word, Logos) became a man[t] and lived among us![u] And we gazed upon the splendor of his glory,[v] the glory of the One and Only[w] who came from the Father overflowing with tender mercy[x] and truth! 15 John taught the truth about him when he announced to the people, “He’s the One! Set your hearts on him! I told you he would come after me, even though he ranks far above me, for he existed before I was even born.”[y] 16 And now out of his fullness we are fulfilled![z] And from him we receive grace heaped upon more grace![aa] 17 Moses gave us the Law, but Jesus, the Anointed One, unveils truth wrapped in tender mercy. 18 No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor except the uniquely beloved Son, who is cherished by the Father[ab] and held close to his heart. Now he has unfolded to us[ac] the full explanation of who God truly is!

Verse 14 says that we (the apostles) gazed upon the splendor of his glory. That is, the glory of Jesus!

Verse 18 says that no one has ever gazed upon God’s splendor except the Son, Jesus. And now Jesus has unfolded or revealed to us the FULL explanation of who God truly is!

I find these verses remarkable and full of wonder!

Because when I think about gazing upon the glory of God, I think about scenes like

What Isaiah saw—the LORD, high and lifted up, His splendor and glory filling the temple, the Seraphim attending Him, but they not even being able to look upon His glory and holiness. And them crying out, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD, the Commander of the Heavenly Armies! The whole earth is filled with His glory!”

I think of the building being filled with smoke and the door frames shaking at the sound of their voices

And I think of Isaiah falling on his face in terror because He had gazed upon the glory of God!

And I think of Ezekiel’s vision in Ezekiel chapter 1, filled with strange symbols and creatures, coals of fire, and flashing lightening,

And seeing someone who looked like a Man on a throne of sapphire stone

Brilliant, the color of amber, with fire all around Him that looked like a rainbow

He says, this was the appearance of the glory of the LORD!

THIS is what I think about!

And I think of John in Revelation who finds himself confronted by someone who looked like the Son of Man with hair like wool and eyes like fire, His feet like bronze, with a sharp, two-edged sword coming out of His mouth

And John later finds himself in the very throne room of heaven surrounded by worshiping multitudes!

THIS is what I think about when I think about the glory of God!

But John says in chapter 1 that Jesus was the very revelation of the glory of God. That He was the fullness of who God is!

Now it’s true that the heavenly glory of Jesus was briefly revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration and that Peter, James, and John got to see that. But I think that John, living and following Jesus saw something that we struggle to grasp.

John makes the case that God’s glory includes His character, His mission, His priorities, His “otherness”, the way that He shows a different way of thinking and living.

In fact, I think John is saying, That God’s glory includes ALL of who He is.

Because while the Greek word “doxa” can refer to the brilliance or splendor of something, it also carries the thought of “whatever results in praise”. That is also the glory of someone.

And by showing us who God truly is, we see far beyond the visual things that we talked about.

And we saw in chapter 2 that John’s really is to showcase the glory of Jesus. When Jesus performed His first miracle, John said, “In this way, he displayed His glory”.

Today we see Him yet again displaying HIs glory, which is the glory of The Father

And He does it in a way that is truly astonishing

Before we get into chapter 11, we need to know what’s going on

In chapter 10, Jesus AGAIN almost get’s Himself stone, and then almost arrested.

So He escapes Jerusalem and goes east across the Jordan River and stayed there.

And that’s where He is when this happens:

John 11:1–44 (ESV)

The Death of Lazarus

11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, (chapter 12) whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

We will pick this story up again next Sunday. But I just want to pause here this Sunday because there is something truly remarkable about this story

I know that all of us, or most of us, have heard this story ever since we were very little.

But sometimes it helps if we can just take a step back and try to see these stories with new eyes. Pretend that you haven’t ever read this story before.

And if you do that, you might get the feeling that John is setting us up for something really unusual and special that’s about to happen.

Because in this passage that I read, we see three things coming together here that we maybe don’t naturally think should be in the same place:

Sickness and Death

Love

The Glory of God

Sickness and death

Jesus is on the east side of the Jordan River and a messenger comes to him with the news that His friend, Lazarus is ill.

Now we have to understand that illness in that day was nothing to be taken lightly. Even what we think would be a small infection or a minor illness could turn into something serious or even be fatal.

Medicines and medical knowledge were fairly primitive.

And it’s still that way in many parts of the world. When someone get’s sick, you sit up and pay attention if you care for that person at all.

Furthermore, if you send a messenger at least a day’s journey to find someone and tell them the news that someone is ill, you know that this has to be more than a toothache or common cold.

The messenger comes to Jesus and says, “The one whom you love is ill”.

What’s not said in this statement, but is strongly implied is, “Jesus, if you have any hope of seeing your friend alive again, you had better come now! When we left him, he was literally fighting for his life! He’s not got much longer without a miracle!”

What does Jesus do? How does He respond?

Well, what would you do?

Nora, if I may, you got the call saying that your mother’s breath is becoming labored and that you should come immediately. What did you do?

You went immediately. No matter what you were doing, you would have gone immediately. Dropped it and come.

And that’s what we expect Jesus to do.

But He doesn’t do that. And we are left baffled and puzzled. Doesn’t He care? Doesn’t He really love Mary and Martha and Lazarus.

2. LOVE

Well, we KNOW that He loves this family. John leaves us no question about that.

Now, how Jesus knows this family, we don’t really know.

It could be that the story in Luke 10 where Jesus goes into their village and Mary sat at His feet and Martha was irritated with her sister was the event which in some way started the relationship between Jesus and them.

We don’t even really know their age. Maybe they are orphans because they seem to be living by themselves in the same house.

But without a question, there is this tight bond between them.

Look at the message that the sisters send to Him, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill”. They don’t even bother naming Him because they know that Jesus will know what they mean.

And then John, just in case we miss it says again in verse 5 “now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”.

And he mentions that this is the same Mary who annointed the Lord’s feet with oil and wiped them with her hair.

Do you know, really know, that Jesus loves you?

I hope that you do. I pray that you do.

We heard this past week for 3 full evenings about the incredible, personal love that your Father has for you. We heard about how each of us were created to live in deep fellowship with our Creator and the devastating effects on our lives when we don’t.

I think most of us would say, at least from our heads, “Yes, I know Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.”

But this is where things can get confusing for us.

Even worse, here is where some people have even abandoned the faith.

Because when it’s our head, or our logic, that says “Yes, Jesus loves me”, then logically we think that Jesus should always respond or act in a certain way to prove His love.

Because logically we think, “Well, that’s what I would do”. If Jesus REALLY loved me, as I’ve been told that He does, then He would__________.

Heal me out of this financial jam that i’m in

have protected me from being abused

Heal my dad from his dementia

have saved my husband, my wife, my children

Some of you heard about what happened to this Mennonite couple in Indianapolis the other night.

Jesus loves them? Jesus loves these children that are now without a mother and with a father in the hospital? Jesus loves us and these things still happen?

And these are questions that are natural to ask. Jesus understands that we wrestle with these questions.

But we can’t stay there.

Because that’s our logic talking. That’s our head talking. And that is what has pulled many people away from the faith.

It’s when we have a heart that is connected to His, when we are abiding in Him, learning to know him and not just about Him, that we start to see, understand, and accept, that He isn’t like us.

He sees life and death a lot differently than we do. He sees the world from a sovereign point of view. And that brings us to the 3rd thing that i see here

3. His Glory

If we are approaching this story with the belief that Jesus, upon receiving the news about His friend, should drop everything and run to his side,

Verse 6 of the ESV turns that idea on it’s head with one little word.

Verse 5 says, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

Are you ready for it?

Here’s that one little word: “SO”

And you think, “Well naturally. He loved them SO, he went immediately to the village and healed His friend. End of story.”

But…no. That doesn’t happen

We are astonished to read, “SO, he stayed two days longer in the place where He was.”

And apparently he doesn’t even say anything about this to his disciples.

Because It wasn’t until two days passed that He says, “Hey, let’s go back to Judea”. And His disciples have no idea why He would want to go back there.

“Ummm, if you recall, they were just trying to stone you there”.

Jesus loved them, so He stayed where He was, and apparently did nothing about that immediate situation.

Instead, He sends this strange message back to the sisters, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Meanwhile, Lazarus passes away, and the sisters are left wondering if Jesus actually cares about them.

I would guess they were questioning His love for them.

How could they know that the reason that Jesus stayed away and allowed Lazarus to die was actually because He loved them?!

Now you might think, as I have thought, “Well, it wasn’t a big deal for Jesus to stay away, because look at the end result. He raised Lazarus from the dead!

It didn’t matter whether He got to Lazarus before or after he died. The end would have been the same”

But Mary and Martha didn’t know the end. And Lazarus, in his final moments of gasping for breath didn’t know this.

How could they have known or understood that Jesus stayed away because He loved them.

What about us in our times of suffering and hardship?

It it possible for us to grasp this?

That possibly we are suffering precisely because He loves us. Logically, in the head, that doesn’t make sense.

It’s only in the heart that we can start to make peace with this. And that peace only comes through the work and transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

You see, Jesus was on this earth for one reason alone: That is to glorify the Father by sacrificing Himself to bring fallen mankind, including Mary and Martha and Lazarus into communion with Him.

Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, so He did not allow anything to distract from the mission that He was on: the mission to bring glory to God.

If this confuses us, (and it does sometimes), we aren’t alone.

We see the confusion among the disciples:

“Why are we going to Judea again? They want to kill you over there!”

“Oh, good thing that Lazarus is sleeping. If he’s sick it will do him some good. He’ll wake up and feel much better”

“Well (Thomas says this), Jesus is going to get himself killed. So let’s go along so we can die with him!” (gotta love this guy)

But it’s clear from what Jesus says that He has a different plan.

John 11:9–10 (ESV)

9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”

Jesus is basically saying something that He has said on other occasions: “My time hasn’t come yet”.

It’s not night time yet. It’s still day time! It’s not yet time for me to die and so I still have time to work

I believe, as we study this passage, that the most loving thing that Jesus could do for Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and his disciples, and for any of us, is to be faithful to what God had called Him to do.

To be lovingly sovereign. Unshaken and in control of the events that bring suffering to people.

His concern was for the glory of God:

“This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Folks, I know that some of you are facing difficult things.

I just want you to know that Jesus loves you. He really does.

And because He loves you, He will continue to be sovereign. He will continue to work out His purposes in your life.

But His purposes may look a lot different than our purposes.