Episode 1. Out of the Grave
A few months before Jesus was crucified, He did an amazing thing. He brought a man back from the dead, back to life. Lazarus. A new life. Out of the grave. And yet the irony was that that act was the …
The Bible is a huge, sweeping story of God’s engagement of humanity; God coming after you and me out of His love and mercy and compassion for us.
Did Jesus Miss the Boat?
Many people; perhaps most, know the story of Lazarus, this dear friend of Jesus who was critically ill – I mean, he was on his death bed. Jesus is off ministering somewhere else and the message comes: ‘Quick, come and heal your good friend Lazarus’. So what does Jesus do? Well, He seems to ignore it and He gives this excuse:
“When Jesus heard it, he said this illness doesn’t lead to death, rather it’s for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”
Now we are going to pick up this story, the next stage, and what I am hoping you will do with me is to take a particular perspective. I am hoping that you and I can walk together in the shoes of people around Jesus at the time – the disciples, the family, the friends of Lazarus. We have seen Jesus do these amazing miracles, we know He’s the Messiah. God promises us a Saviour of Israel but He’s not entirely what we expected. He keeps calling Himself the Son of God which is just a little worrying because it appears heretical and to top it all off, He keeps talking about the fact that He has to die on a cross.
So there are bits we don’t quite understand, bits we would rather ignore and now … now a message comes that Lazarus is dying. We are there – one of the disciples, walking with Jesus, trying to understand what is going on. And just like the rest of the disciples, we are utterly perplexed when He delays, by a couple of days, to go to Judea. We simply can’t understand. What’s He up to? Lazarus is your friend, he is really sick; he is dying! Hello Jesus! What are You doing?
Ever wondered what God is doing and why He is letting these things happen in our lives? Well, you and I aren’t the only ones! His disciples felt like that too, from time to time and this was one of those times. So here we are, what happens next? Starting at John chapter 11, beginning at verse 11:
“After saying these things, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awake him up’. The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has just fallen asleep, he will be all right’. Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
“Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him now’. Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us go, that we may die with him’.“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
“When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask for’. 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. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’“She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’ When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you’. And when she heard it, she got up and quickly went out to him.
“Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were there in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
“When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’.
“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in his spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see’. And 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 have kept this man from dying?’”
There … right there is the sixty four thousand dollar question! Why couldn’t Jesus have stopped this? The disciples were asking it. He had after all, delayed in coming. So Lazarus was already dead for four days, well and truly now ‘on the nose’. Mary and Martha were asking it, why hadn’t He done it? Why hadn’t He saved their brother, who was after all, the man and their livelihood? And the towns’ folk who knew what Jesus was capable of, they were asking exactly the same question. Why Jesus? Why did you miss the boat? Why did you leave it so long? You could have saved him! If You had been here he wouldn’t have died!
Why did Jesus miss the boat here? Well, the reason … the reason can be found in Martha’s beliefs and, in fact, in everyone else’s too. See, she believed in the resurrection of the dead; to live with God eternally. She believed in an eternal life one day but she didn’t believe in a new life for Lazarus, here and now. She didn’t believe in a resurrection life here on earth and actually, nor did any of the others.
While they were all carrying on over what could have been if Jesus had hurried up, Jesus was doing what He had always told them and always planned to do. He was about to bring Lazarus back to life, here and now. An actual miracle. This happened; this is an historical fact – it’s not some allegorical tale. Lazarus was dead in the flesh; stone dead; on the nose; in the tomb for four days and as we will read later, Jesus brings him back to life. But that was always Jesus plan. Not just to bless them but to teach them something.
When our life is so bad, so broken, so lost, so dead – as mine was – when we finally let go and die to the flesh; die to the self, Jesus comes along and gives us a new life and that brings Him such great glory. The one thing that I never expected, frankly, of Jesus, was the one thing that Martha, the disciples and the friends of Lazarus never expected either – a new resurrection life, here and now. A fresh, brand new, vibrant life on this earth, in this body.
This true story of Lazarus is meant to teach us something – that Jesus always meant for us to die on this earth and for us to be raised up again by Him, on this earth. Born again from above through faith in Jesus, into a new life. The very same power that raised Jesus is the power that raises us out of the death of our sin, into a new resurrection life; the life Jesus always planned for us – starting here, starting now.
Lazarus Rising
So this point – the last thing that Martha and Mary expected – was to see their brother alive again in this life. But Jesus had different plans. John chapter 11, beginning at verse 32:
“When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
“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 have kept this man from dying?’”
There it is … there was the question. That’s what we looked at earlier! What is Jesus up to? Well, here it goes, John chapter 11, beginning at verse 38:
“Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone’. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because 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 looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’.”
Now, again, let me say this, this is a matter of historical fact. Some people want to reduce this story down into an allegory – it didn’t really happen; it’s a fable that brings some meaning to our lives today. In response to that approach, let me say this, ‘Rubbish, absolute rubbish!’ This is a true story! Either it happened or God is in the business of deceiving us, because the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – are of a narrative style; the sort that you would find in news stories in a newspaper. Factual accounts. That’s how they are meant to be read.
So, this actually happened but as with many of the things that Jesus did, there’s a symbolic dimension. When He healed people on the Sabbath, only to be criticised by the religious leaders, He was teaching people something about who He was and what God is like. When He hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors, again to be criticised by the religious establishment, He was teaching us about the grace and the love of God. So here, when He raises Lazarus – timed as this is just before His own death and resurrection – He is teaching us something about God and the spiritual principle of death and resurrection.
Sadly, what we do sometimes is to segment the Bible stories and read them, kind of in isolation – this story is about this; that story is about that – but something taken out of context can be distorted into a lie. That’s what the devil does when he uses the Scriptures. No, the Bible is a huge, sweeping story of God’s engagement with humanity. God coming after you and me out of His love and mercy and compassion for us. You and I, dead in our sin, saved by God through His Son; to be given a new life. And this Lazarus story is a graphic, real life representation and picture of what this looks like. Coming as it does, at this absolutely critical point in Jesus journey toward the cross.
Jesus had wept over the death of His friend, as God Himself weeps over the death of each person He creates, in their sin. God is a God who loves and feels and laughs and weeps and cares and we are made in His image, after all. He is, apart from our sin, just like us. We, apart from our sin, are just like Him. He feels, He’s moved, He aches, He rejoices and here, He sets the stage to show us who He is through His Son – both through His tears and through His well directed power; a power that overcomes the absolutely impossible.
Honestly, when I was dead in my sin, as Lazarus was dead in that tomb; when my flesh was rotting and the stench of my sin filled the nostrils of God, the last thing I could imagine; the absolute last thing I could believe for was a new life. I couldn’t imagine being raised from the death of my sin, into a vibrant, exciting new life in Christ, here on earth. It was simply beyond my imagining. I didn’t hope for it; I didn’t expect it. I simply gave my life to Jesus out of an impulse of love. The new life; the resurrection life – out of that rotting stench of my sin, was a complete and utter surprise to me; the vibrancy, the joy, the peace, the hope, the sense of anticipation at what God is doing and the part He has allotted to me to play – a complete and utter shock.
“Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because 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?’”
And that’s why faith is so important. God is a completely, utterly, surprising God. I mean, would you have dealt with Lazarus this way had you been God? No! Would you have let Jesus die on a cross, had you been God? No! Would you have let you and me rot and die in our sin until we came to our senses? No! Our plan is always the quickest and easiest path, from A to B; step on it, business or first class, thank you!
But God’s thoughts aren’t our thoughts; His ways aren’t our ways because when God is our help; when God saves from sin and death; when God does the absolutely impossible by pouring His Spirit into us and giving us a new life, as He did with Lazarus, then God gets the glory. And it’s so much better; so much more wonderful; so much richer and more enduring that way than had we been able to do it ourselves or had we done it the easy way.
And as we emerge from the grave of our sin, bound in the grave clothes of the past life, with sin that clings to our flesh, God’s command over our lives is the same as His command over Lazarus: ‘Unbind him and let him go!’ ‘Unbind her and let her go!’ We can’t live our new lives bound up in the grave clothes of the past. It’s a new life to live; a vibrant life; a full life; an abundant life; a life that brings glory to God. That’s what this story is about.
So Let’s Kill Jesus
When I was young, I remember that I wasn’t one of the beautiful people amongst the crowd at school. Instead of being a talented sportsman, which gives you immediate ‘beautiful person’ status here in Australia, I was shortish, a little on the dumpy side, pretty academic and I played the piano. All in all, not a cool look. And the more successful I was at school, the more the other kids gave me a hard time.
My mother told me it was because they were jealous. I remember thinking, ‘It just doesn’t make sense to me. Why would someone give you a hard time and pick on you because they are jealous?’ But as I grew up; as the grey hairs started to appear, I discovered, you know something? Mum was absolutely right! People, instead of having an ‘abundance’ mentality, a lot of them hate it when someone else gets the limelight; when someone else gets the accolades, particularly when that someone else isn’t one of the beautiful people; particularly when that someone else is just a little odd.
And actually, people do terrible things through jealously, which brings us back to the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Now, earlier we saw how Jesus did just that. An amazing thing!! Bringing someone back from the dead is something that people didn’t expect. Bethany was a small town in the First Century. Everyone knows who Lazarus is; that he actually died. They were there at the funeral. They saw him interned in the tomb four days earlier and Jesus now raises him from the dead.
Okay, we are standing there. What’s our reaction? Come on, what’s your reaction? I think I would have been utterly amazed; completely and utterly gobsmacked; blown away. I would be looking at this Jesus and wondering, ‘Who is this Man? How could He do that?’ It would open my heart to listen to what He was saying and to hear from God. At least, I think that is what my reaction would be. I hope it would be.
So what was the reaction on the crowd? Well, let’s take a look. John chapter 11, beginning at verse 45:
“Many of the Jews there, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. [There it is a pretty normal reaction – just what we’d expect] But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’
“But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to put him to death. Jesus therefore, no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.
“Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?’ Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.”
Do you see the terrible irony? God sent us His Son … He sends His Son to the earth and it’s the religious leaders; the leaders of the strictest of all the sects; the Pharisees who plot to kill Him. Why? Because they were jealous! He was stealing the limelight. He was taking their disciples and therefore, taking their income from them. He was turning their safe, cushy little religious world upside down. And so from that day forth, they plotted to kill Jesus. So not only is the raising of Lazarus, which in Jesus own words, ’brought glory to God’, not only is this amazing miracle a sign post to what was to come – the death and resurrection of Jesus – but it’s the turning point that brings those event about.
The Pharisees had been looking for a way to get rid of Jesus for a while now, but this raising of Lazarus was the straw that broke the camel’s back; it was the act that set in motion the events that would cause Jesus to be glorified by being nailed to the cross – all because of the jealousy of the Pharisees. Jesus had done only good. He was exposing religious hypocrisy which threatened these religious leaders. He was healing, preaching, setting people free from the yoke of religious oppression, telling them about God in a fresh, amazing new way, bringing the Scriptures to life, bringing people close to God. He was only doing good and that … that is what triggered His death – His goodness – because His goodness threatened the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Scribes.
And friend, still today He is being misinterpreted. The number of people who have no idea about who this Jesus is, what He said, what He did, what He is still doing today; that ridicule Him, that are threatened by Him, that want to belittle Him and want to belittle our faith in Him. In many parts of the world, if you confess to be a believer of Jesus, you will be persecuted, even killed. There are some people listening to this programme today, in secret, for that very reason. This Jesus was persecuted for His good and to a greater or lesser degree; those who follow Him today will be persecuted or at least, ridiculed.
That shouldn’t be any surprise to us because God’s goodness, the bringing of new life, eternal life – that is precisely what got Jesus nailed to the cross – jealousy. Jesus comes along, He does good and those who aren’t good, are threatened by Him. What I discovered when I accepted Jesus into my life is that not everyone around me was all that thrilled. Not everyone around me was excited when I decided to go to Bible College to study for a Ministry Degree. Not everyone was over the moon when I tossed in my rather lucrative career as a Management and I.T. Consultant to go into full time ministry. Because the goodness of Jesus shines a light into the evil of this world. It was true back then and it’s still true today.
Friends, as we head towards Easter, I just pray that we remember: the road for Jesus to the cross wasn’t an easy road. It was a difficult road; it was a painful road; it was a road of sacrifice for you and for me.
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