Signs 7: The Raising of Lazarus

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B: John 11:38-44
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Welcome

Good morning, and welcome to Family Worship! I’m senior pastor Bill Connors, and it is my humble honor and privilege to get to shepherd this wonderful body of believers here at Eastern Hills. Thank you to those of you who are here in the room this morning, and thank you to those who are joining us online. I also want to say thanks our praise band and children’s ministry for helping us to give thanks to the Lord for our country this morning.

Announcements

It is certainly fitting and proper to celebrate the fact that God has created the United States of America and to thank Him for providing us with the blessing of getting to live and worship as her citizens. And tonight, we will get to join together for the great American pastime of fun, food, family, and fellowship. Independence Day celebration tonight at 5pm. We likely will wrap things up a little before dark, so we won’t be doing any lighted fireworks here on the church parking lot (we’ll have pop-its and sparklers for everyone, but I’m not too sure how well they’ll sparkle in the dusk). Plan to come and celebrate the blessed freedom that we have in the United States of America with our church family.
Today is the first Sunday that we are taking up our annual missions offering for World Hunger/Disaster Relief. Our goal for this year’s World Hunger/Disaster Relief Offering is $5,700, taking through July. Please ask the Lord how He would have you give, and respond in obedience to His prompting.

Opening

We are nearing the end of our series called “Signs,” during which we have looked at the miraculous signs that Jesus performed and that John recorded in his Gospel. Each of these signs point to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah and that Jesus is God, and that is the perspective we’ve sought to take on each one. If you’d like to go back and get caught up on the series, you can do that on our website, our YouTube channel, or our Facebook page. This morning, we are looking at the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Let’s open our Bibles or Bible apps together, and stand in honor of the Word of God as we look at this miraculous sign together:
John 11:38–44 CSB
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 “Remove the stone,” Jesus said. Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42 I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.” 43 After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”
PRAYER (Cornerstone Community Church in Rio Rancho, Pastor Floyd Silva, currently raising funds for a building)
John 11 is one of my favorite chapters in Scripture. In a way, it is the pre-crucifixion/resurrection climax of John’s Gospel, because it showcases both an incredible work that Jesus performed and the change of direction of John’s telling of the life of Jesus, shifting clearly toward the cross. Raising Lazarus from the dead is the last and greatest of the miraculous signs recorded by John. In this series, we are saying that Jesus performed one greater sign—His own resurrection—but for John’s purpose in this book, that was the final declaration of who Jesus is, not a miraculous sign that Jesus performed.
We’re going to basically look at this entire chapter this morning, and in it, we will see 5 characteristics of Jesus: His knowledge, His confidence, His identity, His pain, and His power.

1: The knowledge of Jesus

What a fascinating thing it would be to know everything, all at the same time. Who am I kidding? For us, it would be fascinating to know the total working of just one future sequence of events ahead of time. I’d even like to know the total working of just one PAST sequence of events! One aspect of God’s character is His omniscience: At all times He knows all things, and all things about all things. Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the Second Person of the Trinity, totally God, but also totally human. As He is God, He has a full understanding and knowledge of everything: both things that are, and things that will be. We catch a glimpse of this in the first part of John 11:
John 11:1–6 CSB
1 Now a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. 3 So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” 4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.
The act of Mary in anointing Jesus with perfume and wiping His feet with her hair was a well-known occurrence by the time John wrote his Gospel, and John uses that event’s notoriety to give us a reference point to understand who he is writing about. Lazarus was the brother of this Mary, who along with their sister Martha, lived in Bethany just east of the Mount of Olives. Jesus was up in the region of the Galilee at this point, following His run-in with the religious leaders of the Jews at the Festival of Shelters after what we looked at last week in John 9.
A messenger brings notification from the sisters to Jesus of His friend Lazarus’ illness, and it was a grave illness indeed. First, it was grave because of Lazarus’ life. Second, it was grave for the sisters because Lazarus was likely their primary means of support in a culture that generally looked down on women making money. And then, third the sisters would have believed that it was grave for Jesus, because they knew that Jesus loved Lazarus. They even said in the summons, “the one you love is sick.”
Just a little side note on that statement. Notice that the sisters didn’t say, “the one who loves you is sick,” but “the one you love is sick.” In his 2004 book Scandalous: The Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus,
“Those who draw really close to Jesus think of themselves first and foremost as those loved by Him, rather than those who profess their love for Him.”
— D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus
What a great shift in perspective that is…
These sisters knew how much Jesus loved Lazarus, and so they sent for Him to come and rescue their brother from this serious illness. But something happens that might be surprising to us. Jesus doesn’t just drop everything and head over there. Instead, He said that this sickness will not end in death, and even though He loved Lazarus and his sisters, which John is making completely clear in this first 6 verses, Jesus waited, saying that this illness would ultimately show His glory.
There’s a double meaning to this statement of Jesus. First, He will be glorified when He displays the power of God in raising Lazarus. This is the obvious first meaning. But then, the raising of Lazarus sets in motion the final push of the Pharisees to kill Jesus, thus bringing about His crucifixion, thus His resurrection, and thus His ultimate glory, which we will look at next week.
John 11:45–53 CSB
45 Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” 49 One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50 You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God. 53 So from that day on they plotted to kill him.
They were going to kill Lazarus as well, because it was his resurrection that was bringing so many of the Jews to faith:
John 12:10–11 CSB
10 But the chief priests had decided to kill Lazarus also, 11 because he was the reason many of the Jews were deserting them and believing in Jesus.
None of this was a surprise to Jesus. He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the grave. He knew that He would come under increased pressure from the religious leaders, and that this turn in the path would take Him right to the cross. Jesus knew exactly how this was going to go, and He knew exactly what He needed to do so that He would be glorified in it. And what He needed to do was to wait for two more days before heading to Bethany. I’ll explain exactly why in a minute.
Jesus knows everything about everything. We simply don’t. And since that’s the case, we can trust His knowledge about how our lives should be lived. He knows what is best, and what needs to happen to bring Him the maximum amount of glory, which is why we exist. Unfortunately, not everyone in this narrative in Scripture had the same assurance of Jesus’ comprehensive knowledge. But this doesn’t shake Jesus’ resolve to do what He knows is best.

2: The confidence of Jesus

Jesus simply will not be shaken. He would never doubt, never fear, never fail to do the will of God. The waiting had a reason, but as we continue to read this chapter, we find that after 2 days it was time for Jesus to head back to Bethany and reveal His glory through the death of Lazarus. The disciples aren’t particularly fond of this plan:
John 11:7–16 CSB
7 Then after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.” 8 “Rabbi,” the disciples told him, “just now the Jews tried to stone you, and you’re going there again?” 9 “Aren’t there twelve hours in a day?” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.” 11 He said this, and then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on my way to wake him up.” 12 Then the disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.” 13 Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking about natural sleep. 14 So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15 I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.” 16 Then Thomas (called “Twin”) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go too so that we may die with him.”
Jesus shows His confidence here in two ways: 1) He’s not afraid to go back to Judea, even though in John 10:31-39, the Jews wanted to kill Him; and 2) He is absolutely sure of what is going to happen when He arrives at Lazarus’ tomb.
In John 10:31, it actually says that the Jews had picked up rocks to stone Jesus. Obviously, this would have been kind of a dicey situation for His disciples as well. He is, after all, their teacher. So the disciples point out that going back south to the area around Jerusalem might not be the best idea if you’re wanting to stay alive. But Jesus will not listen to their arguments. Instead, He uses the contrast of walking by day and walking by night to explain that He is not afraid, and they don’t need to be afraid either.
This is because Jesus knows and has complete confidence in the plan that God has for Him. He will not stop any sooner than He is supposed to stop. He is actually hearkening His disciples back to what we saw last week in John 9: that Jesus is the light of the world while He is in the world, even using a very similar picture with day and night.
John 9:4–5 CSB
4 We must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
So Jesus is not afraid. He’s not going to be stopped before He has completed what He came to do. The disciples are being challenged to trust Him with their lives (which Thomas says in verse 16 that they are likely to lose if they go to Bethany, so I’m thinking Thomas missed what Jesus was saying here, even if he shows great gumption.)
I’ve been listening to and reading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, and in the second chapter of the book was a block that cut me to the heart regarding how much I trust myself vs. how much I trust Jesus:
“We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety. This is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.”
—A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
We do not need to fear that somehow Jesus will lead us astray if we follow Him. Our lives, our loves, our talents, our treasures, our families, and our futures are all completely safe in Him, and are absolutely not safe outside of Christ. To walk with Him is to walk in the day. Anything else is to walk in the night. Jesus is confident they will be safe from the Jews.
But Jesus was also confident in what He would do when He arrived in Bethany: That He would “wake Lazarus up.” Of course, when He said that Lazarus had fallen asleep, He meant that at some moment between the arrival of the message to the time when they were leaving, Lazarus had died. The disciples still didn’t think they should go, especially if Lazarus was simply sleeping off his sickness. So Jesus makes it plain to them: Lazarus had died.
But Jesus isn’t at all intimidated by that fact. He said He was going to wake Lazarus up, and that’s exactly what He’s going to do. And then He tells the disciples that He’s glad that they weren’t there sooner, because this would give the disciples another opportunity to really trust Jesus—to believe in Him. He’s already said that Lazarus’ sickness was going to end with a display of His glory, and now He confidently tells the disciples that they are invited to witness that display, so that they would trust Him.
This is because of the fact that this sign will be a confirmation of His identity as Messiah and as God.

3: The identity of Jesus

The point of every miraculous sign performed by Jesus that John recorded had the same reason: to showcase Jesus’ identity as both Messiah and God. It’s what this series has been about. And this sign would be the clearest declaration of this; the greatest sign that Jesus performed. Martha went to see Jesus while Mary stayed behind with the guests who had come to mourn with the sisters. She makes the first statement of confidence in Jesus’ healing abilities which actually betrays a lack of real faith at the same time:
John 11:20–27 CSB
20 As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her. 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
“Lord, if you have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” She’s sure of that. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to understand what she means by her next sentence, “Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” It doesn’t seem like she’s asking for Lazarus to be raised, because of how she responds to what Jesus says next and what she says to Jesus at the tomb. So what does she mean? She is saying that even this hasn’t shaken her belief in who Jesus is, which she affirms in verse 27.
This is the hinge of this entire passage. Jesus declared clearly what He was going to do: “Your brother will rise again.” Unfortunately, Martha still didn’t get it, thinking that He was referring to the resurrection that the Pharisees believed in—that there was hope because of that resurrection. But Jesus says instead that HE is where her hope resides. HE is the resurrection. HE is the life.
We sometimes kind of think about our relationship with Jesus as this list of blessings that we have because we belong to Jesus. We are justified. We are being sanctified. We are adopted. We are sealed. We are called. We are going to be glorified. We get hope and peace and security. But these are all just bonus things, side blessings that we receive, because in Christ we don’t get a list of blessings: we get a relationship with God Almighty through Jesus Christ, the Son of God through His Holy Spirit within us. We don’t get things. We get HIM. And the sad part is that I wonder if we’ve missed this fact in a lot of ways—that we’re so excited about the blessings we receive FROM Christ that we forget that we first and foremost have received Christ Himself.
This is what happens to Martha. She may not fully understand what Jesus is saying or what is about to happen, but she makes her declaration, and she’s not wrong. She declares that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.” (27) What she says may be incomplete in her head, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. This sign, like the six before recorded by John, will reveal Jesus’ role as Messiah and His glory as God:
John 20:30–31 CSB
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Jesus is the Messiah—He rescues people from death. We are all given over to death because of our sin. In fact, without Christ we are dead in our sin, without God and without hope in the world because of our rebellion against Him:
Ephesians 2:12 CSB
12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Without Christ. Without hope. Without God. Excluded because of our sin.
But Jesus as Messiah rescues us from this:
Ephesians 2:13 CSB
13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
This forgiveness is only found in Jesus, because only Jesus’ blood is sufficient to deliver us from the penalty that is owed to us because of our sin—because His sacrifice paid for it already.
But in addition to that, Jesus is the Son of God—He is the giver of true life. John wrote about this in the beginning of His Gospel:
John 1:1–4 CSB
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
Jesus, the Son of God, is fully God. He is the giver of life. If we are dead in our trespasses and sins, we like Lazarus don’t need a healer and we don’t need a comforter. We need to be resurrected, brought to life out of death. And Jesus is the only one who can do that. And the life He gives is eternal life: the one who believes in Him will never truly die. It’s the promise of being in His presence forever.
Jesus asked Martha a great question: “Do you believe this?” That question comes to us as well this morning. It’s the most important question you will ever answer, because its consequences are forever. Who is Jesus? What do you believe about Him? Is He Savior and Lord?
And I believe that perhaps the answer of the people around Him in that moment is why Jesus wept.

4: The pain of Jesus

Martha left Jesus and then went and informed her sister that Jesus was outside and wanted to see her. So Mary gets up quickly and goes to Jesus, followed by all of the mourners who would have felt obligated to go and mourn with her at Lazarus’ tomb, if that’s where she was going. But instead of falling at the base of the stone over the tomb, she falls at the feet of the Rock of Ages:
John 11:32–38 CSB
32 As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!” 33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you put him?” he asked. “Lord,” they told him, “come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?” 38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
In this passage are the second and third times that Jesus’ identity and power are questioned in this chapter. His weeping could be that He is sharing in the pain of Mary and Martha. It could be that His weeping was because of death itself, the enemy of life. Or it could be the unbelief and doubt surrounding Him in this moment. Given that the Greek word translated in English as “deeply moved” generally denotes frustration or irritation, and the Greek word translated “troubled” references a feeling of great distress, perhaps the last option is best overall. Jesus sees all of those around Him: Martha didn’t understand; Mary didn’t understand, and now the mourners and others don’t understand either. They look at His tears and assume He’s crying for the same reason as Mary: Lazarus’ death. But they get this wrong.
Notice that they make reference again to what we saw last week in John 9. “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?” They knew what Jesus had done with the blind man. But they certainly didn’t understand what was about to happen here. “Couldn’t he… have kept...” It was a done deal in their minds. Death had had the final word in Lazarus’ life, and in their view, Jesus was powerless to change that fact. This actually relates to why Jesus waited before coming to Bethany… I’ll clarify that in a moment.
Three times it has been suggested that had Jesus been there, He could have done something to keep Lazarus from dying. And certainly that is true, given what Jesus said to His disciples back in verse 15. And three times, Jesus is referenced as having a major emotional response to the unbelief of those around Him. But the plan of God in this situation wasn’t that Jesus show Himself as powerful over illness. It was to reveal that He has power over the grave itself.

5: The power of Jesus

Jesus always knew what was coming. He knew about Lazarus’ illness before the message arrived. He knew that this situation would not end in death, even though Lazarus died. He knew that the moment was coming when the grave would be opened, and His glory would be revealed as He spoke to the corpse of His dead friend, and he got up and walked out of the grave.
John 11:39–44 CSB
39 “Remove the stone,” Jesus said. Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42 I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.” 43 After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”
Jesus gives three commands here in this passage:
The first is “Remove the stone.” Martha still doesn’t get it, even after her earlier conversation with Jesus. He said He’s the resurrection and the life, but she doesn’t see it. He said Lazarus would rise again, and she’s thinking about the end times. But for now, she responds: “He’s been dead for four days. If we move that stone, it’s going to stink, Jesus.”
Here is where we find the answer we’ve been waiting for: Why did Jesus wait for two days after hearing about Lazarus’ illness? So that He would arrive on the fourth day after Lazarus died. The fact that it has been four days is why everyone is so completely convinced that death has outplayed Jesus, and Lazarus is hopelessly gone. In Jewish superstition in the first century, they believed that when someone died, their spirit kind of “hovered around” the body for three days, just in case some kind of a resuscitation was accomplished. However, once day four rolled around and decomposition started, the spirit left, never to return. Remember that God was going to use Lazarus’ death so that the Son would be glorified (v. 4). By waiting the extra two days before returning, there was basically no chance that someone would regard this as a mere natural resuscitation. It had to be a work of God! So Jesus is clearly shown as having power over death, and is glorified because of it.
Jesus responds to Martha’s very practical rebuke of His suggestion about moving the stone by saying that He’s already declared that if they believe in Him, they would see God’s glory on display in Christ. And then Jesus prays out loud. His prayer is not a false prayer… He’s literally talking with the Father. But He’s praying publicly so that everyone will connect His prayer to what is about to happen.
Then He issues His second command of this scene: “Lazarus, come out!” Jesus is the Word of Life, and through Him, all things in the universe came into being. God spoke, “Let there be light.” In the same way, Jesus speaks life into His dead friend. No long incantations, no incense, no flashing lights or funny hand gestures. No other embellishment needed. Just a command from Jesus, and death gives way to life, just like at creation: just a command from God, and darkness gives way to light. The dead man gets up and comes out.
And finally, Jesus’ third command: “Unwrap him and let him go.” His concern isn’t showmanship. He could have taken this moment and given a big speech or taken a bow or signed autographs or something, but that’s not what He does. His concern is Lazarus. He doesn’t need anything further because the power speaks for itself… loudly.
Do we believe that Jesus has this kind of power? Do we believe that Jesus can defeat death, the last enemy according to 1 Cor 15? We should. Does that mean that He will defeat death every time we ask Him to on this plane of existence? No. But He ultimately will defeat it according to Revelation 20. What it means is that Jesus knew from the beginning what was going to take place with Lazarus, and He was never going to be swayed from that mission. He is exactly who He says that He is, and He has all power and all authority in His hands.

Closing

In the seven signs that we’ve studied thus far, Jesus has made it completely clear that He is Messiah and God. But just giving mental assent to that truth, and still living in opposition to Him is foolishness. What if Lazarus had decided to not come out of that grave after Jesus called him? Jesus called Him out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Lazarus surrendered to that call. Is Jesus calling you to surrender, to give up your grave of death and trust Him for your life this morning? Listen to the Spirit’s call:
Repentance
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Offering
PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading: Ezekiel 2 today.
Instructions for guests

Benediction

Romans 16:25–27 CSB
25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation about Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent for long ages 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic Scriptures, according to the command of the eternal God to advance the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles—27 to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ—to him be the glory forever! Amen.
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