Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro
Jesus Delays…Where Are you?!
Did Jesus delay?
Jesus, though hearing of Lazarus’s illness, decided not to leave immediately for Bethany (11:6).
Was Jesus responsible for the death of Lazarus?
In one sense, yes.
Jesus already had demonstrated His power to heal at a distance (4:43–54) and could have spoken a word immediately to bring Lazarus to health.
The role of Jesus in such a miracle could have been verified by the disciples and the sisters, just as the father had been able to determine that Jesus had healed his son (4:52–53).
But in another sense, Jesus was not responsible.
The message apparently had requested Jesus’ presence in Bethany (note the sisters’ wish that He had been present in 11:21, 32).
But mathematics suggests that Jesus would not have been able, by ordinary means, to arrive before Lazarus died.
If Jesus delayed His departure by two days and arrived four days after Lazarus’s death (11:17), it would seem that the travel of the messenger to Jesus and the travel of Jesus to Bethany each would have taken a whole day.
In other words, Lazarus must have died almost immediately after the messenger left to find Jesus.
The delay of Jesus, then, was not designed to permit Lazarus to die.
So why such a delay, if not to allow Lazarus to die?
Four days late?
Significance of the four days
The answer may lie in the belief at that time that death was irreversible only after three days.
A person might be resuscitated after one or two days of “death,” since, according to a superstition of some, the soul continued to linger in the body for a while.
But after three days there was absolutely no hope of life returning.
Accordingly, Jesus delayed His departure in order to demonstrate His power to raise persons known to be absolutely dead, dead beyond question, dead beyond hope.
But another reason for the delay—a rather surprising one—appears in verse 5: Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
The New International Version obscures the connection of this verse to the next by beginning the next verse with Yet.
With the text translated this way, the reader imagines that Jesus delayed His trip to Bethany despite His love for Lazarus and his sisters.
But the Greek text used here suggests a causal connection: Jesus delayed His trip because of His love for Lazarus and his sisters!
Read in this way, the delay (and death) was designed to benefit not only Jesus and His Father, but also the family in Bethany.
Their temporary ordeal of suffering and death would be repaid many times over by the privilege of participating in the glorious revelation of God, a privilege granted through Jesus’ deep affection for them.
Jesus is Present And Has A Bigger Picture in Mind
The sight of Mary and her companions weeping aroused within Jesus an unusual response:
He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled (11:33b).
The New International Version, along with many other versions, struggles to convey the nature and intensity of Jesus’ emotions.
As usually translated, these words suggest to the reader that Jesus was overcome by emotion, that He was deeply touched with pity for the sisters and with grief over Lazarus.
I believe that this is true.
The ones he loved were hurting and it moved his heart as well
In several places in this passage it says that Jesus loved the sisters and Lazaruz.
This was not a deep care or concern, but something deeper that moved his heart in their pain.
But closer examination of the vocabulary and grammar chosen by the Gospel writer points us in another direction.
The first expression, deeply moved in spirit, suggests something closer to a stern warning (see similar language in Mark 1:43; 14:6) somehow transpiring within Jesus himself (in His spirit).
The second expression, was … troubled (John 11:33b), suggests that Jesus troubled himself.
Put together, these expressions may form a picture of Jesus stirring himself to action, shaking himself into extreme alertness, sternly commanding himself to get on with what must be done.
We need to understand that what was also on Jesus mind was the Cross.
It was ever before him.
Jesus is risking a lot by being here with the sisters and Lazarus in the company of many Jews.
But why would He need to do so?
Why does Jesus have to stir himself up?
Because Jesus knew that raising Lazarus would seal His own death, given the present hostility of the Jewish leaders.
He knew that just as certainly as He walked to the tomb of Lazarus, He would be walking into His own tomb.
His anguish-filled decision in the Garden of Gethsemane that we find in the Synoptic Gospels has its counterpart here at Lazarus’s tomb in John’s gospel.
Though all of Jesus’ emotions might have held Him back from rescuing Lazarus from the tomb, Jesus roused himself to action on behalf of His friend, though it would cost Him His own life.
Arriving at the tomb, Jesus burst into tears (11:35).
Those nearby accounted for His tears solely in terms of His compassion for Lazarus.
But throughout this Gospel the crowd has usually been wrong, or at least partly wrong.
Compassion for Lazarus accounted in part for the tears of Jesus, but the monumental nature of Jesus’ decision and its consequences were what weighed Him down nearly to the breaking point.
Yet on He went to the tomb, sternly ordering himself to follow through with the Father’s plan (11:38).
Jesus was motivated by his love for the Father, and the Father’s love for us.
Jesus was moved to a compassionate response
Trust In Jesus, Even if I Don’t Understand
Martha’s words in verse 22 are not easy for us to understand: But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask (11:22).
As they stand, these words suggest that Martha had surged forward in her faith, now confident that Jesus could reach through the gates of death to reclaim her brother for life.
But though the words may be open to such a meaning, Martha herself seems not to have understood them so.
Not only do her next statements reveal gaps in her understanding of Jesus, but her later behavior at the tomb would demonstrate that she held out no hope of her brother’s immediate resurrection (11:39).
Then what did Martha mean by her confident assertion?
Perhaps she meant to express her continued confidence in Jesus despite her bitter disappointment over Lazarus’s death.
To paraphrase, “Even now in my grief, I still believe that God mightily works through you.
I still believe that God gives you whatever you ask of him.”
But in her mind, at least as we read it, the “whatever” did not yet include resurrection.
Her confidence in Jesus had no expectations with regard to Lazarus.
Her words expressed more confidence in Jesus than she intended.
Can we place our hope in Jesus even when it seems most impossible?
In spite of our grief, frustration and circumstances can we make the same statement of trust in Jesus?
Even though she didn’t fully understand what she was saying, there was still the faith in who Jesus is.
In an effort to help Martha “make the connection,” Jesus forged a direct link: I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die (11:25–26a).
Jesus claimed, by these words, to be the means by which God sovereignly conquers death and grants life—life in all its dimensions.
In the physical realm, Jesus offers resurrection to any believer who dies.
Death will prove unable to hold those who belong to Jesus.
In the spiritual realm, Jesus offers life now.
This eternal life (presuming its condition of continuing faith in Jesus) can never be extinguished; the one believing in Jesus will never die.
Jesus, as God’s focal point of salvation and life, stood before a woman stung by the grief of death.
Do you believe this?
He asked (11:26b).
But the full truth of His words had not yet dawned upon Martha.
Again, her answer sounded right, but fell short of the mark.
Yes, she admitted.
I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world (11:27).
Indeed, these titles are rightly ascribed to Jesus throughout this Gospel,
We can say all the right words that we have heard others say or read.
We can know all of the things about Jesus, but until we experience them, we only may have a vague understanding.
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