Death for Glory

John 11:1-16

Jesus ignores a plea for healing and allows a situation to get worse for his own glory. This is a truth about following Jesus and the world he has created. We are for his glory.

Following Jesus is not a recipe for an easy life, but an abundant life.

Let us also go, that we may die with him.

Kiddo – Unanswered Question

My kids ask “are we there yet?”

And I have this hilarious response. “Yes, get out of the car.”

Hilarious. They… don’t think it’s funny anymore. They are curious how long until they are going to be there, they are bored, they are not entertained. Unfortunately for them, I think boredom is a healthy life-skill and I still think my answer is hilarious… so I continue to give them my answer.

And my kids continue to ask hoping to get their answer.

So our text this week is from Ephesians “parents don’t exasperate your children.”

2016 and Unanswered Prayer

I have been thinking of the ways we speak to our heavenly Father. Prayer. And I have a prayer that sounds a lot like my kids prayer. “Are we there yet?”

Tonight is New Years Eve. And we look back over this year and forward to the next. While this year had many blessings, many good moments, as I think of the year as a whole, the overall flavor is not good.

I find myself with a pile of unanswered prayers. Unanswered… or not yet, or not answered the way I want them to be answered. And I continue to pray.

“God… are we there yet?” “God, it’s not looking my plan. I don’t recognize where we are here… are we there yet?”

And I know many of your stories and the ongoing prayers of your heart. God, I know you can heal, I know you can change hearts, I know you can rescue… and what’s more I know you love me and you love the people in my life and you must be working for them and towards them…

“Are we there yet?”

And what do we do when God delays? What is God doing when God delays? What’s the point? What’s the purpose?

Now our text this morning is a narrative text, it is a story, a historical account, of Jesus’ response to a message. We have to be careful about building a whole theology on a story, because it is an example of God behaving a certain way in relation to his people, but it is not God saying he always or never or do it like this. But we do get a beautiful insight into the heart of God and his purposes as he responds to a desperate prayer.

News of Lazarus

John 11:1-16

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, whose brother Lazarus was ill.

We get the story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with oil in Luke, drying it with his hair, and it was a scandalous event in the eyes of people there, but it was apparently the beginning of an ongoing friendship with the family.

3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”

I love the reminder included in the message. Remember Lazarus, remember that you love him. And he’s sick so…

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.

So… Jesus rushed to the scene with sirens blaring. Jesus on the way, medical mission, emergency services!

He doesn’t, surprisingly, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus so….

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?”

The disciples have a ready reason for Jesus not to go. Bethany is right next to Jerusalem and Jesus was just recently in Jerusalem claiming to be One with the Father, and they know that now the religious authorities are absolutely over the top and Jesus has already escaped stoning twice now.

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.”

Answering their concern, Jesus has called himself the light of the world, and he knows that his time is appointed. He will work as His Father wills throughout the day, and there is no risk of premature death, as long as he walks in light, which might represent here His Father’s will, his is safe unto his appointed end.

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.”

I love it when Jesus speaks his parabolic kind of mysterious words and the disciples totally miss it, then he has to just say it out. “He has fallen asleep… okay he’s dead.”

16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Thomas is speaking of the threat to Jesus’ life, but even though he gets a bad rap as doubting Thomas, note that he is the one to speak up in courage here. He thinks they go to death, but he is with Jesus to face any risk.

And, as we so often see in John, he speaks better than he knows.

17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Summary

So in summary: Jesus gets a message that his beloved friend Lazarus is ill. He delays 2 days. He supernaturally knows that Lazarus is dead and heads to Jerusalem. And by the time Jesus gets there Lazarus is four days dead and already in the tomb.

Four Days

There is a whole interpretation of this passage that seeks to get Jesus off the hook here. At the end of the last chapter it says Jesus went across the Jordan, and the location where John was baptizing is about 100 miles away. If Jesus delays 2 days, Lazarus dies when Jesus announces that he is dead, then travels for 4 days that makes 4 days dead… which is how many days Lazarus was dead for. So even if Jesus had left immediately, Lazarus would already have been dead before Jesus arrived. So his delay extends the time of mourning, but not the fact of the death, and it needs to be extended because it has to be “three” days to be a “real” death.

The Rabbinic tradition was that the soul hovered near the body for three days. Now we can easily imagine how this might develop with lots of near death experiences in a world before EKG’s and heart monitors. Someone could slip into a coma, appear to be dead, and then revive. But when decomposition starts to set in after three days, it was said the soul now believes the body is dead and leaves.

6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

The implication is that waiting 2 days… so that Lazarus would be dead four days by the time they arrived… was somehow better for Mary and Martha and Lazarus. He loved them… so he delayed.

Causing them greater pain. Ensuring that Lazarus entered all the way into death.

It is not that the sickness occurred in order for God to be glorified, but rather that it constituted an occasion for God’s glory to be revealed.

The Jesus that healed an official’s son from a distance could certainly have done the same for Lazarus. But… somehow because he loved them, Jesus delayed. Implying that however painful and dark and horrible this experience was going to be, that it would be for God’s glory and for their benefit to walk through it.

Then he reinforces this message in his words to his disciples:

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.”

For his disciples sake too, then, there is something greater to be gained by walking the road of death and grief, of suffering and sadness.

Their Prayer

Their messenger to Jesus is a prayer. A message sent out to God in the hopes that he will hear and answer and heal and fix the situation. God please fix this problem.

Jesus delays his answer to prayer for the good of those he loves, that his disciples may believe and to reveal the glory of God.

This is profound. Here there is no claim that this is always the way it happens, no teaching to pray in this manner and get this result, there is no formula here… but we get a precious rare insight into the prayer from the suffering ones, through the eyes of the following ones, and hear the words of God as he responds to the prayer.

And it isn’t that God chooses his glory over the delay, the suffering, the grief.

And it isn’t that God decides it is worth it that Mary, Martha and Lazarus should go through death and grief in order that the disciples should learn.

Even as Jesus reveals the glory of the Father through the moment. Even as Jesus teaches his followers through the moment. Even as they suffer, Jesus loves them and somehow acts out of love for them as well. Love that led to death, through death, to the graveside and beyond it. We know how this particular story ends, and so we know some of the awesomeness that is coming… but Mary, Martha and Lazarus don’t.

Somehow it is for the good of those who suffer, and those who witness, and for the glory of God.

Your Unanswered Prayer

And you don’t know how your circumstance is going to end. And I don’t know the end of mine.

But we know this: Jesus loves us.

Jesus loved Martha AND Mary AND Lazarus AND his disciples AND acted out of love for all of them. He has options.

And Jesus loves me, and he loves Anna, and he loves Logan, Arabelle, and Dylan. And, even as this year hasn’t gone the way I expected or the way I have prayed… he loves me still.

This is a confession of faith: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Because his blessings tell me so. Because our history together tell me so. Because, the price he paid for me tells me so.

And the song that we are going to sing says it this way: he loves us way too much to give us lesser things.

And so, knowing that he absolutely loves me and my family… I can choose to trust that even his delays can be for me and not against me. Even his “no” are mercies.

Knowing that he absolutely loves you, you can trust him in the midst of your circumstances. That he has been acting for throughout 2016 and will continue into 2017.

16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Let us also go… continuing to follow, continuing to pray and ask, but continuing to trust.

God: are we there yet? He loves us too much to say “Yup, get out” and kick us out of the car. He will lead us to love, lead us to belief, lead us to the revealing of his glory.

He will lead us to Himself, the resurrection and the life.

Let us also go, that we may die with him… and so onto glory.