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John 11:1-45

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.” 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?” 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.” Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

By: The Very Rev. Robert S. Munday

Resurrection and eternal life are not blessings laid up for us in some remote future: they are present. When Jesus said to Martha, “Your brother will rise again,” she answered, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day”—meaning that this was a small consolation. There was her brother lying in the tomb, dead. This meant that he would never again live in the home they shared, never again exchange a loving word or joyful moment. What comfort is there to sustain Mary and Martha now that he is gone?

If you have ever known parents who have lost a child, it is an especially tragic occurrence—to lose a child who they can hardly bear to have out of their sight for a whole day, about whom they become concerned if he or she is even an hour late coming home; it is perhaps the worst pain one can experience in this life. It is no doubt some comfort to be told that they will someday be reunited—but not much.

This is not the comfort Jesus gives Martha. He comforts her, not by pointing to some far- off event that is vague and remote, but to His own living person, who she sees, knows, and trusts. Jesus assures her that resurrection and life are in Him, and that all who belong to Him, while they might suffer for a moment in death, will not be harmed by death but merely changed. And, because of Him, they will live forever.

I have a friend who used to e-mail his friends each day a humorous excerpt from a book known as The Grim Reaper’s Book of Days. The entry for Nov. 3 says: “On this date in A.D. 60, according to Church tradition, Lazarus, friend of Jesus, died—again.” We tend to forget about that last part don’t we?

The Bible says that for the sake of love—not just love for Lazarus, but out of love for Mary and Martha—and for everyone who hears or reads this story until Jesus comes again, Jesus demonstrated the power of God and raised Lazarus from the dead. That is, Jesus brought Lazarus back from infinite joy in the presence of God to resume a life fraught with sin and sickness, stress and frustration—and, in the end, to face the horrible enemy of death a second time.

My conclusion is this: God loved Lazarus and his family and took him out of heaven in order to show the power of Christ over death. And God loves all of us enough to take us out of this world—at the end of our lives or at Jesus’ return—to show that Christ is Lord over life and death, and time and eternity. At the last day, He will resurrect us, not merely resuscitate us into our old bodies to have to die again like Lazarus, but to give us immortal bodies like His own resurrection body, to live with Him forever in the kingdom and in a new heaven and a new earth. And, because Jesus is truly Lord, He calls us to believe in Him, to treasure Him above all things, and to live lives that give Him glory.