The text this morning is from the Gospel according to John, the 11th chapter:
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 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.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 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. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 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. 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.” 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. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 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.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 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.” Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 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.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples. Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Amidst the doubt and confusion in these dark and troubled times, we stand at the fifth week of Lent, looking at our Gospel reading, and it should comfort us to no end. The resurrection of the body is laid out so fully and completely for us in our Gospel lesson, but perhaps you need some help to pull it out.
One of Jesus’ dearest friends, Lazarus, became ill. So ill was he, in fact, that death was approaching and everyone knew it. So ill, in fact, that his sisters ran, not to a doctor, but to the Great Physician, whom they knew could heal their brother. They had faith in this Jesus and depended upon Him; He could heal Lazarus. But when approached, Jesus tells them Lazarus’ sickness won’t lead to death. Is this callous of Jesus, to go against everything everyone knew to be true? Or was Jesus telling them what Lazarus’ end would be? Of course, we know it is the latter, that though Lazarus would indeed die, Lazarus was not going to stay dead.
But, to prove His point, Jesus stayed where He was for two extra days. It’s not because He didn’t want to be by His friend’s bedside, but that Lazarus would suffer and die for the glory of God. This way, there would be no question as to what Jesus would do. You’ve heard of an Irish wake before, of course. These are joked about today, but in the past, the idea was you lay the body out on a table and everyone gathers around. You basically spend time with the body of a person you think died to make sure they’re not just in a deep, deep sleep, a drunken stupor. If they don’t wake up after a few days, then it’s okay to bury them. But, you don’t want to move too soon. It has been the same throughout the world. Only here, Mary and Martha knew their brother was dead. Everyone else didn’t need to be convinced either. But, if Jesus came in that same day Lazarus died, it would have only looked as if Lazarus were deeply sleeping. So Jesus waited. And it pained Him.
Now, Jesus has set His face toward Jerusalem, and Bethany, the village where the siblings lived wasn’t far from there. But it was a dangerous time. The Pharisees were seeking to kill Jesus. How could He go so close to their home base, the seat of their power? Jesus’ mission would take Him there. After all, we are not far from the crucifixion. It would happen in mere days. The disciples didn’t understand, but this was a major step in setting up Jesus’ own arrest, trial, and death. It needed to be done for the glory of God.
Lazarus died. When Jesus arrives in Bethany, everyone is upset and mourning. Even Mary and Martha look at Jesus with judgmental eyes. But He reminds them, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who live and believes in me shall never die.” For this statement to take root in the hearts of all who trust in God is the reason Jesus came. He doesn’t come to this earth just to make everything happy and clappy. He doesn’t just come to make people feel good. He comes to raise people from their graves. He comes to give people eternal life. He comes to restore to humanity the image of God lost in the fall of Adam. He comes to make everything complete.
The Jews had a belief that the soul departed from the body after four days. You could kind of see, then, that a person who had been “dead” for four days, well, it was written off you wouldn’t see him again. When Jesus arrives on the fourth day, the people know there is no more hope for Lazarus in this life. But hope has arrived in the person of Jesus. He looks at the tomb and weeps, both for His friend and his suffering, but also that this is the state of humanity, that we have brought to ourselves death and destruction. He weeps that this is who we are, but He has come to set this right, He has come to die and bring back all that was lost.
When He commands then that they roll away the stone, those gathered knew this was bad. They thought Jesus was despondent over His friend and needed to see him. They had no idea; they thought hope was lost. They tried to stop it. A body decaying in the desert, in a closed room, in the baking sun, wasn’t good to smell very good. They tried to appeal to Jesus’ decency, but in the face of death, Jesus isn’t decent. He isn’t nice. He destroys death. He crushes it beneath His heel. He commands Lazarus to come out, to defy death’s hold on him and walk out of the tomb. And, since He is the Lord of all creation, since He formed all things through His Word, creation has no choice but to obey. Lazarus’ body reanimated, his stench being pulled back under his skin, his joints loosening, his lungs undulating in his ribs, his heart began to beat. Lazarus slipped his legs over the side of the table where he was laying, sat up, and began to walk in short, little hops. He was wrapped up tightly after all with grave clothes. He looked probably not unlike a mummy. But, when Jesus commanded them to unbind him, instead of finding a grotesque form of humanity, they found the beaming face of the brother they loved.
The Pharisees found out about this and began to plot even more about Jesus, how to put Him to death. But, to prove that God can speak even through the greatest of donkeys, their plan wasn’t really for their benefit, but all of humanity’s, as Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus would die for the entire nation and even beyond. He had no idea how right he was. Jesus would die for the entire world. He would die to bring them life and salvation.
I told you that the resurrection is laid out so well in this passage, and it’s true. The sad part is that Lazarus did die again. He’s not wandering the earth out there somewhere. But, if Jesus is the resurrection and the life, Lazarus had to look at death coming for him that second time with a little bit of glee. He knew what waited on the other side, and he knew that this was no issue for Jesus, the one who was resurrected Himself. Lazarus greeted death with no fear, but trusted in the Lord who is the Resurrection and the Life.
We sit in these troubled times. People are hoarding. People are freaking out. People are doing really stupid things, even disobeying their government just to have some semblance of security and normalcy. But not us. I think, yes, it’s tempting to fear the unknown. I worry more for my wife and kids than I do myself, but the virus is scary. I get that. But we should be looking at this virus as an opportunity to confess what we believe, that even though we die, yet shall we live. We do not fear death, but we have one who loves us as He does His friend, Lazarus. He loves you so deeply that He wept for you, at the tomb of Lazarus, and again in the Garden of Gethsemane. He wept for what your sin has done to you, and He wept for what you have chosen to do in sin. But He didn’t leave it at weeping. He went willingly to the cross that He might take your place. He went that He might bring into Himself death and sickness and decay and destroy it all. He went to crush death’s head along with Satan that you might be free.
We absolutely want to make sure that we’re taking care of our neighbor. Washing our hands, isolating when we’re ill, going as few places as possible. We don’t want to get sick for their sake, that we might not spread it to them. But, if we get sick, we should look at is as a just a reminder that this life is going to end, and this life should end. Yet, there is a life to come that is greater than this, a life in which we will not die again, a life that will never end, a life that is found in Christ.
Have no fear, my friends. That which we face in this life is no match for the God who formed you from the clay. He has defeated sin, death, and the devil, and He continues to do so, even in your own heart, that you might be raised on the last day with all who believe in Jesus unto eternal life. He has conquered death forever, and no matter what you contract, no matter how you feel, no matter the sickness or plague that confronts you, He has conquered it and will remove it from you forever when He commands you to come forth from your grave. That is His promise and it is always true. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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