God's Last Words

“Who Killed Lazarus?”

John 11: 1- 45

 

        A man had become quite sick and was now lying home in bed. His doctor had come to examine him and had brought with him another doctor for a consultation.

       After the examination, the doctors retired to the next room to discuss the sick man’s condition. Quickly the man called for his young son and asked him to eavesdrop at the door and tell him what the doctors said. Later the man asked his son, Well son, what did they say?”

      The boy, somewhat perplexed, replied, “Did, I can’t tell you that. I listened as hard as I could, but they used such big words that I can’t remember much of it. All I could catch was when one doctor said, “Well, I guess we’ll find out what the problem really was at the autopsy.”

       A five-year old girl came home from her grandmother’s funeral in a car with her other grandmother. “Where did Grandma go?” she asked. “We believe she went to be with God,” the other grandmother replied.

      “How old was she?” asked the girl. “She was eighty years old,” her grandmother told her. “How old are you?” “Eighty-three,” said the grandmother. The little girl thought for a bit, then said, “I hope God hasn’t forgotten you!”

      Today we’re going to talk about Jesus and Lazarus. There are a number of puzzling issues about this story: Why did Jesus wait to go to Lazarus? Why did Lazarus have to die (he could have been healed as a miracle, right)? And one we usually pass over because it doesn’t wash with the facts: Jesus tells us and his disciples that Lazarus’ illness will not end in death; yet he spends how many days in the tomb?

Listen to the story: 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." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"

Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has 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 (called 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. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.  Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, 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. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

And 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 believed, you would 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." (NRSV)

 

      Stories about raising the dead are rare in the Old Testament, occurring four times: Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son; Elisha’s raising of the son of the Shunammite woman; Elisha’s body touching and then raising a dead man; and the witch of Endor’s bringing back Samuel out of the grave at the request of King Saul.

       The Gospels record only three references to resurrection. This recounting of Jesus’ friend Lazarus’s death and his resurrection is the most dramatic one, other than the Easter Story itself.

       The most puzzling aspect of this recounting is Jesus’ apparent lack of concern and failure to have any sense of urgency about the whole situation. Later on, as He gets closer to the tomb itself, and deals with the family, He seems to ratchet up the empathy and at one point is physically moved to tears. Why?

       Consider how angry or puzzled you would be if it were your husband, wife, child, or parent lying there and you knew that Jesus could have prevented the pain and suffering had He been a little faster. Could this pain be prevented? What killed Lazarus? Adam and Eve killed Lazarus if anybody did. Jesus couldn’t prevent it.

        But there are complications to the story and plot.

        Some of the complications include the fact that Jesus was threatened with stoning the last time he visited Lazarus’ home territory, and Jesus again gives them “what’s going to happen is for God’s Glory” spiel, so why hurry.

The thing that’s important here is lost in the distracting questions: Jesus is showing the disciples and us that He has control over life and death. In fact, Jesus is in the process of redefining what physical death is. Jesus calls it “falling asleep.” And if you “fall asleep” then you can be awakened. Jesus demonstrates that He has the power to call us awake, even after time has passed.

      Could this story be a reminder to us that after His resurrection and ascension, and in His fashion as God the Father wills, He will return and call those who sleep in Him, awake? Could it be that simple?

      There was a busy Hospital emergency room that had a regular visitor, Billy, a cute two-year-old with freckles and tousled blond hair. For a year Billy had been in and out of the ER with what the doctors diagnosed as asthma.

      The source of the illness was a mystery to the doctors. Billy didn’t have asthma as an infant, there wasn’t a family history of asthma, and there weren’t obvious signs of allergies that would cause it. But the symptoms were asthmatic. Sometimes they treated Billy and sent him home; other times he would end up in the pediatrics ICU because his breathing was so labored.

      This continued for about a year, and the staff grew fond of Billy. One day he came yet again with breathing difficulties, and one of the medical interns decided, on a lark, to look up Billy’s nose. He found a black jelly bean that Billy’s brother had put there a year before. What came out with the jelly bean wasn’t pretty.

      They had treated Billy for the wrong condition for almost a year. In light of that circumstance, the ER put signs on the walls of the emergency room that said, “Look for jelly beans.” When you’re working in the ER, properly diagnosing a problem can be the difference between life and death.

      A black Jelly bean didn’t kill Lazarus – being a human in sin did, but Jesus has the cure for death. Listen = Luke 12: 22-23: Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I tell you, don’t worry about your life, what you will eat; or about the body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.” (HCSB) Amen.