According to Bible scholars just a few days after Jesus tells the crowd He is the Good Shepherd, He receives news from Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, that Lazarus was sick. The message said, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” This was a family that was very close to Jesus. I find it interesting that in verse 2 John inserts a statement that has not chronologically happened yet. He will describe it in detail later.
Verse 4 says, “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.” It was probably reassuring to John and the other disciples that Jesus said the sickness would not end in death, but they must have wondered what did He mean “be glorified through it”?
After a few days He tells the disciples they are going back to Judea. He says Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him up. To the disciples this must have been really confusing. I always love their responses when they don’t understand.
Verses 14 and 15 points to what it meant that He would be glorified through it.
14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
When they arrived, Lazarus was in the tomb and the mourning was in process. When Martha heard Jesus was there, she went to Him. The next few verses describe her deep faith in Jesus and the Father. I love verses 21 and 22.
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.”
Total faith in His healing power. Can you hear the agony in Martha when she says if You had been here? It feels gut wrenching to me. Even the statement “that the Father will give You whatever You ask” shows her deep faith, even though she has no idea what is coming.
She said she believes in the “resurrection at the last day”. Verses 25-27 are the core of the Gospel.
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
When Martha tells Mary Jesus is here, we hear the same statement of faith in His healing power from Mary. Verse 32 says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus sees their weeping verse 33 says, “He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Verse 35 says, “Jesus wept”. He knew what He was about to do, but the emotion and pain the death of His friend caused them moved His human side. He understands our pain that we go through because He witnessed it in His humanity.
Again, we have a moment in time in Jesus’ ministry were John at age 23 witnesses His Lord weeping over the death of His friend that He could have stopped. John and the others must have been so confused. What would you be thinking if you were John? However, at 80 as John recalls the scene, he could then understand Jesus words in verse 15, “for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.”
They take Jesus to the tomb and the mourning crowd follows. When He says to take away the stone Martha reacted. How many times do we see Biblical characters think they have to explain things to God. Do we ever stop and explain why something won’t work to God?
Jesus says, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” Jesus prays to His Father. Verse 42 says, “ 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.”
What is the crowd thinking? What are John and the disciples thinking? I think you could “feel” the anticipation in the crowd. What was Jesus going to do? Then comes the words that echo through time, “Lazarus, come out!” Can you imagine the gasps from the crowd? I would have been terrified. What is coming out?
Verse 44 sets the stage. “ 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.” Have you ever thought what it would be like to remove the wrappings off Lazarus? What would be under them? A skeleton with hanging flesh?
This story, like the story of the man born blind, changes Lazarus into a walking witness of Jesus power to all that knew him. Wherever he went, the healing power of Jesus was front and center.
The rest of chapter 11 describes people then and people now. There were people that believed who Jesus was and others that were stuck in their religion and wanted Him out of their way. The Pharisees plotted to kill Him. Some people today want to silence Jesus’ people and the Biblical truth. I will always have a hard time understanding those that reject the truth today and yet I know the Good Shepperd told us, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and My sheep know Me.” There will always be those who don’t want to be His sheep.
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