INTRODUCTION: Jesus Perplexes (11:1-16)
In just a couple of weeks we’re going to reach a solemn anniversary – the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attack on the US. On that September morning four airplanes full of innocent travelers were deliberately crashed into three buildings and a field, killing thousands of people without warning. Those of us who vividly remember that day (I was less than 10 miles away from it when it happened and had flown into Newark airport the day before) remember that the most intensely repeated and debated question was “where was God?” Many said that God could not have been there or He would have prevented it. There was the idea that God’s job was to prevent death from happening and if He did not do it then He was absent or weak or that He just doesn’t care about us.
The truth is that we have that kind of attitude all of the time. We have life all figured out and we decide in advance what God should do for us, and if He gets it wrong we can sit in judgment over him in our own smug self-satisfaction. We keep bending our theology until we make the following assertion: a bad thing happened, and if God was there it would not have happened. The problem is that when we look at life with this limited perspective, we make God very tiny. When we twist reality like this
- It leaves no allowance for God’s rule,
- it leaves no understanding of God’s love and
- it leaves no room for God’s mercy.
I remember one time on the radio show of a famous woman who gave advice to people, one of her callers - a Christian woman - gave thanks to God during a call for saving their family from being seriously hurt an auto accident. The host, who claimed to be very religious, actually furiously yelled at the woman, saying “how dare you say God protected your child! Other kids die in traffic accidents every day! How dare you say that God treated you special!” The truth is that our faith must fit into the real world. There is a lot that we don’t understand, but if your theology leaves you in unbelief or rebuking God for getting it wrong, then maybe your theology needs to be better thought out.
Now at this church we pride ourselves (probably the wrong word to use, but maybe not?) on keeping our theology pure and being “Bible believing Christians”. Our fellowship’s motto is “the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible.” We love carrying our Bible around and sending our kids to learn it, and we go to church once a week to hear someone talk about it. We like being “orthodox” and believing in Jesus. But sometimes I wonder if we spend too much time “believing in Jesus” rather than just “believing Jesus”.
Turn to John chapter eleven. This chapter contains the well-known and well-loved story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus. Lazarus was one member of a family with at least three siblings. He had two sisters named Mary and Martha. We don’t know anything about Lazarus (other than that he is going to die) but there are a few other places where his sisters are mentioned. Martha and Mary had very different personality types and most of us can see ourselves in one or the other of them. Martha was organized and responsible and ran her life according to plan. Mary, however, was emotional and spontaneous. In Luke we read the story of a time when Jesus was at their house and Martha was being a good host and making a fancy dinner for their guests. While this was going on Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus enjoying his teaching. Martha was so frustrated that she ended up asking Jesus to make her sister help her with preparations but Jesus would not, instead praising the devotion of Mary.
Here in verse 2 John describes Mary as the one “who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair.” We know from the story that the ointment was very expensive, so she really did live in the moment and gave her all in worship. It is in this context that the story comes to us.
As the chapter begins, we see that the sisters’ brother becomes very ill, and they send a message to Jesus asking him to come. Jesus had moved to a different location across the Jordan river to teach after the Jewish leaders had tried to stone Him and then tried to arrest Him. He was having a fruitful ministry there but it was probably a couple days of travel away from the town of Bethany where they lived.
The family of Lazarus, Mary and Martha was a family that Jesus had a good and friendly relationship with. The sisters described their brother as “he whom you love”. (The Greek word for love there is phileō, or brotherly, friendly affection). When Jesus got their message 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."
Now John writes something that seems strange in verses 5 and 6, but verse four and later in the chapter shed light on it. Still these two verses sound like they don’t go together:
John 11:5-6 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.
To make a long story short, Jesus then announces to his disciples that they will be returning to Bethany because Lazarus is asleep, but that He is going back to wake him up. The disciples don’t understand, so Jesus plainly tells them that Lazarus is now dead. Continuing the theme from verse four, he says that He is glad that He was not there (to save him from dying) because there is a higher purpose – their faith. Still they are going back to where they had been in danger, so they misunderstand him and Thomas actually says that he expects to join Lazarus in death when they return.
(And you think your kids never listen to you….)
I Martha the Theologian (11:17-27): Jesus Teaches
John 11:17-20 17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house.
In verse 17 we see Jesus and his disciples arrive on the scene in Bethany. To understand what happens, we should set the stage and describe what the scene was like as they arrived.
It is now four days since Lazarus died and his body has been sealed in its final resting place in a tomb. Unlike in our culture where we go to a funeral for an hour to pay our respects, hear a few stories, and say a few words to console the grieving relatives before going home to continue our day, funerals in those days would last much longer. Also, while a funeral in our day might be as much as a week later to make sure a convenient time is found for people to attend, in that day, the body would be buried right away because there was no embalming or refrigeration. A notice would be sent out and family and friends would come and stay with them, not for an hour but for seven days, which means that at the time Jesus arrived the initial week of the mourning was only at its midpoint!
The people would show their solidarity with the bereaved by crying and wailing loudly for the seven days with the family. There were even professional mourners hired - women who were hired to lead the wailing and kept the somber atmosphere that was expected. This was not self-serving or theatrical, it was considered a caring way to show sympathy and share in the suffering of the family. We can infer from John’s narrative that Lazarus’ family was an influential and well respected one because so many came to join in this customary tradition with them. Since they were only two miles from Jerusalem many people probably came from the city to show their respects.
Jesus arrives during all of this and Martha hears about it. She immediately comes out to meet him, but Mary stays in the house. Martha’s first words seems to contain a statement of faith but also a bit of rebuke:
John 11:21-22 21 Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you."
I don’t really see this as a rebuke so much as a statement of frustration and sadness. From her statement here and her following words she was a strong believer with impeccable theology. Like Jesus’ other disciples she had seen Jesus heal many people and had no doubts in his ability to do so. And yet there are a few missing pieces. Remember the Roman Centurion whose faith Jesus had been amazed by? He had asked Jesus to heal his servant but understood that Jesus had the inherent authority to declare it to be so no matter how far away he was. He knew that Jesus did not have to be present to heal. Also Jesus had raised a couple of people from the dead by this point.
But I don’t want to pile criticism on Martha at this point. Imagine what the last week was like for her – her brother becomes deathly ill and the sisters (and their whole town) immediately realize that his only hope is to be healed by Jesus. So they immediately send messengers out to find him and bring Him to Bethany to save Lazarus. Days and days go by while Lazarus’ condition deteriorates. They tend to him and keep going outside to look down the road to see Jesus come. But they do not see him. Hope wanes until the hour comes when Lazarus breathes his last. Choking down tears, they run out into the street to see if Jesus has arrived at the last moment to save the day. But the Savior is nowhere to be found.
Now the body is tended to and buried forever and the tentatively prepared for funeral begins in earnest. The rabbis taught that the spirit stayed around the body for three days before departing for Sheol so there was still hope for a miraculous revival. But still Jesus did not come. Now it was too late. Lazarus was gone. The fact that they had had hope probably made this day seem even darker. So we can excuse Martha for her statement – waiting for Jesus to come and heal her brother had been her only thought for so long that it came pouring out. BUT – she had not lost her faith, and even now declares that she believes Jesus is still worth believing in. But maybe she still has a ways to go. Jesus immediately replies:
John 11:23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Jesus’ statement is filled with a message of unbelievable hope. Could He be saying that something amazing is coming? Or is that too much to expect? Jesus’ reply could be taken two ways, right? Martha chooses the lesser but more orthodox option:
John 11:24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
Bravo to Martha for replying with good theology. She had understood the teaching Jesus had been giving about the promise of life after death for believers. But perhaps her hopes had been dashed for too long and she chose the safe answer. Jesus did not chastise (or praise) her but continued to unfold truth about Himself to her:
John 11:25-26 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
To her statement of religious doctrine, Jesus hits her with an enormous dose of theology. He it not just a prophet, asking God if He will do things. He Himself is God and has the power and authority over life and death. At this point we need to remember the purpose of John’s gospel, given by John himself in the last chapter:
John 20:31 … these [things] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Unlike the other three gospels, John is constructed around a few sevens:
1. There are seven specific signs that point to the deity of Jesus
2. There are seven discourses where He revealed things about Himself and his salvation ministry, and
3. There are seven “I AM” statements where He pretty much explicitly says who He is.
Remember that when YHWH revealed Himself to Moses and Moses asked what his Name was, he replied “I AM who I AM”. All Israelites know God as the eternal self-existent one, with no beginning and no end, the uncreated creator, the Lord of Lords. When Jesus made these “I AM” statements there is no doubt that his meaning was understood by the Jews. Not only was their reaction severe, but John even uses an unusual Greek construction to translate Jesus words. The words ἐγώ εἰμι are not the usual way of saying “I am <something or other>” but we do see this construction used in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures (the Septuagint) to translate God’s self-naming from Exodus three at the burning bush.
So Jesus holds nothing back for Martha. He reveals himself as the One with total power over life and death. She can have hope if she will just lay hold of it. But it seems like this is still too enormous of a concept for her. She gives a wonderful testimonial about Jesus that is at least as good as Peter’s great confession when Jesus asked him “who do you think that I am?” She replies:
John 11:27 She said to him, "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world."
Bravo, Martha. And yet with our hindsight it seems not enough. But Praise God, Jesus is not giving up on her yet. So we have seen Martha, the rational sister, the planner, the hard worker, and the intellectual theologian of the family. What about her sister, the “emotional, devotional” one? Martha goes and gets her sister Mary now (maybe the conversation is getting a bit too hot with its overtones of gigantic truths?).
II Mary the Worshipper (11:28-37): Jesus Empathizes
John 11:28-31 28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." 29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
So Jesus has asked Martha to go and bring Mary to Him. While Martha goes out of her way to try to ensure a quiet meeting, it is not really possible that she could make it there alone. As we said previously, it really was the duty of the visitors at the funeral to stay with and weep together with the bereaved, so when Mary got up and left, the crown came with her. We can also see plainly that Mary is eager to see Jesus and comes immediately. But her first statement to Jesus is to make the same lament as her sister:
John 11:32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
So both sisters, despite the difference in their temperaments, were at the same place emotionally. The desperate hoping and waiting had taken its toll. Their frustration came out in the exact same words. If only Jesus had come more quickly, all of this grief and hopelessness could have been averted. But while Jesus had taught Martha, it was now time to have the whole family here for a more powerful teaching time – this time teaching by demonstration. But John first includes more detail in the story, and there is more here than the exercise of the power of deity. Jesus is not just some sort of avatar of the Most High – a remote control robot operated by the finger of God. He is a bridge between God and man. As the writer of Hebrews put it:
Hebrews 4:14-16 14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
John now records something amazing. For the first time in the story he tells us what Jesus is feeling during this time.
John 11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
There is a commonality between human beings that is part of our design. We are not designed to live alone. If a child is isolated from birth it will die. We are designed with the ability to empathize with each other. We can actually pick up on and feel and understand the emotions of our fellow people. And Jesus did the same! This is an important part of being human. (If a person does not develop empathy by an early age it is almost impossible to teach it. In fact, there is serious concern among psychologists about what the long term effects of not being able to see faces will have on this generation of children growing up for years seeing nothing but the tops of people’s faces.)
There is a lot of disagreement (or at least pointed discussion) between bible teachers on what emotions Jesus was feeling here. The term translated “deeply moved” (brimaomai) is used for various strongly felt emotions. Some believe it signifies anger at the effects of sin and the suffering of people in despair without faith and hope. Some say it is anger at the unbelief of God’s people (and even the sisters) here. Some say it is frustration at the lack of understanding expressed here. There is another side that believes that this is only describing his common grieving with the people at the funeral, a sharing in their sadness. The first group points out that there are better words that describe grief if that was used, but the second group points out that there are also better Greek words for anger. So I agree with others that say that this is a bit of both. Surely one of the things that we have seen Jesus get very frustrated with is the lack of faith and understanding among his disciples. But He also “sympathize[s] with our weakness”. He is the one who sends the Comforter to us and says “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28) and the one who “had compassion for [the crowds], because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt 9:36). John Peter Lange put it this way:
“… He stirred Himself up from the deep. He moved Himself in the spirit to such a degree that the disciples perceived His agitation in His bodily appearance, -- hence: He convulsed Himself ; He billowed up, -- He surged up. A divine storm of the spirit passed through His breast, under which His human nature quaked.
Now we see two responses. Jesus is not going to sit around lamenting the situation. He is going to act. There is an old joke that says “a lot of people complain about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!” Jesus is going to do something about it!
John 11:34 And he said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."
But Jesus is not just going to dispassionately snap his fingers and perform a technical repair of a broken machine. He is going to minister to humans as a human himself. He feels the pain of the people around Him, and he manifests that shared emotion. Now the manifestation of this stirring up and human emotion is described in what is both the shortest verse in scripture and also one of the most beloved verses in the Bible:
John 11:35 Jesus wept.
Now the weeping of Jesus was not like that of Mary and the other mourners. John uses the Greek word klaiō for their weeping which describes loud lamentation and wailing. What Jesus did in verse 35 is a word (dakryō) which speaks more of quiet sobbing and shedding of tears. And the people notice. He is one of them. He understands.
John 11:36-37 36 So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" 37 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?"
But in the end, this section ends with everybody on the same page, saying the exact same thing. Man, is Adam’s race hopeless or what?
IIc Jesus the I AM (11:38-44): Jesus Acts
Now Jesus takes control of the situation, and He gives a sign that differentiates him from all the other religious leaders through history. Remember that his earthly ministry is going to end with his crucifixion in a very short time. But He has promised to give the nation one more sign, the sign of Jonah. He has raised people from the dead before, but both Jairus’ daughter and the widow’s son were only hours dead. Lazarus has been in the grave for more than three days. This is quite a different thing, and leaves no doubt as to his power. He is going to prove that he is “the resurrection and the life”.
He springs into action.
John 11:38-39a 38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, "Take away the stone."
Once again Jesus is “deeply moved”, and the text seems to point to the lack of faith among the people manifesting as complaining about his not being there to heal his friend as the cause. And now we see the faith-filled theologian try to stop Jesus from doing something foolish!
John 11:39b Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days."
Martha demonstrates that she just doesn’t get it. Jesus in his great “I AM” statement told her exactly what He could and would do, and she is here telling Him not to do it. There is an amazing parallel between her and Peter. Remember that right after Peter gave his great confession to Jesus about who He was, he turned around and told Him not to go through with the plans that He revealed to them about his death. Now Martha has given almost the same word-for-word testimonial and then turns around and tells him that what He is calling for is foolish. Before we get too smug toward Martha, though, perhaps we should examine ourselves closely. How many times even this week have each of us told God how unreasonable it would be to obey Him in something – just because it would look foolish or because we are too tired, or because it cramps our lifestyle? Jesus replies
John 11:40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?"
It’s like He is replying “did I mumble? Did I stutter? Come on!” I can almost picture Him doing a quick facepalm before he goes on. Now Jesus has an interesting conversation with his Father. But it is not for the Father’s benefit. It is for the crowd.
John 11:41-42 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me."
Jesus is always teaching. This sign is important. It has the same purpose as John’s gospel, and is the crown of all of the signs listed in it (except his own resurrection, of course). But it is easy to say that you are the resurrection and the life, but it is going to be impossible to demonstrate it unless it is indeed true. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, and this pudding is the best! Now the only person in this whole chapter who obeys Jesus without any questioning or whining comes into the story:
John 11:43-44 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
III Conclusion: (11:45-53) The People React
So a mighty miracle happened there in Bethany, and it was a preview of what would happen days later at Calvary with Jesus himself.
To this mighty miracle there were two responses:
- Some people become believers and followers of Jesus
- The rest hated Him and planned to kill Him.
As always, it all comes down to the heart. John wrote earlier in his gospel that some people rejected Jesus because they loved darkness rather than light. There are just two responses, receive Him or reject Him.
But what about those of us who do call ourselves believers? How much do you believe? When we were talking about this story about a week ago, Donella and I started thinking about Martha’s response specifically. She was a person who any church would be proud of. I believe that her faith was genuine and strong. She had obviously paid a lot of attention to Jesus’ teaching, and she had the same God-given insights that were manifested by the apostle Peter that pleased Jesus so much in Matthew 16. So I have no intention of maligning her spiritual condition.
But we were struck nonetheless by how much deflection that she did to the statements of Jesus. Every time Jesus made a promise she chose the less hopeful option. To every powerful claim He made she parroted back a lesser but well learned spiritual truth. Finally she recoiled in fear when Jesus was going to actually prove his claims by giving her her brother back. What was wrong with her? Why was she so afraid of blessing? What held her back from jumping in with both feet into a life of total faith?
I can’t fault her because I constantly step back from the scary precipice of really following Jesus with a full heart. I think that we all do. We don’t really want to give up the unnecessary stuff that we like. In the end we love singing about giving all to Jesus, but we keep a lot of treasures in our pockets that we pick up on the way to the heavenly city. How much blessing do we miss because we won’t trust Him totally? How much do we sacrifice because we are comfortable in the statement “oh, we don’t do that”?
Maybe we all need to spend
time with the Lord this week (and Communion service is just a few weeks away)
and ask Him – “You are not frustrated with my deflections and excuses, are
you? How does my faith look to
YOU?”
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