Jesus is The Resurrection & Life

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to.

The Raising of Lazarus in John 11

St. John chapter 11 verses 1 through 53. Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, of 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 you're going to go 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 the 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's fallen asleep, he'll recover.

Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest and 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 twins and said to his fellow disciples, Well, let us also go, so that we may die with him. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for 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, Well, 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. And 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 arose 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. And when Jesus saw her weeping, 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? And they said to him, Well, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So the Jews said, See how he loved him? But some of them said, Well, 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's been dead for four days.

Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So he 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 so that they may believe that you sent me.

And when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. And the man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth.

Jesus said to them, Unbind him. Let him go. Many of the Jews therefore who had come with Mary and had seen what he did believed 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 together and said, What are we to do? This man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. And then 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 only for the nation, 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. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. To help us frame our gospel text today, there's something very specific I'd like to tease out from the text.

David and Goliath as a Picture of Christ's Victory

So I would like to begin in an odd place. Do you remember the story of David and Goliath? We all know the story. A little kid with five rocks and a sling defeats Goliath. Actually, God defeats Goliath through David.

And that's all a picture, if you would, of Christ conquering the real Goliath that we face. The unholy trinity of sin, death, and the devil, whose dominion we were born under and who we are powerless to free ourselves from.

And so when we look at 1 Samuel chapter 17, when David is on his way to the battle lines to bring cheese and things to his brothers, he hears the giant Goliath taunting the armies of the living God, basically defying them.

And so David is incensed and he's actually brought before King Saul. And we read in verse 32 of chapter 17, David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. Talking about Goliath. Your servant will go and fight this Philistine.

And Saul said to David, you're not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him for you are but a youth. And he's been a man of war from his youth. But David said to Saul, hear the words, your servant used to keep sheep for his father and when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth.

And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them for he has defied the armies of the living God.

I mean, imagine young David. This is quite the story if you think about it. Imagine young David, keeper of sheep out there in the country amongst the stars and up wanders a lion or a bear and absconds with one of his little lambs.

David rolls up his shepherd's sleeves and goes to war to snatch back what has been snatched from him. That's a picture if you would of what's going on in our gospel text here in John chapter 11. And I'll tease it out as we get to that portion of it.

I want this at the beginning to kind of help you see it because this is exactly what's going on. And then we'll relate this if you would to the story of David and Goliath in a very interesting way. So we turn back to our gospel text in John chapter 11 verse 1.

Here's what it says. 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 Man may be glorified through it.

All well and good. But you'll notice as we've just read the story out, Lazarus does die. But that's not the last word. So Jesus is up to something. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And one has to wonder if the reason why verse 5 exists in this text is because what Jesus does next seems to be contrary to that love that this text states.

So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Now I have children. And when my children were little, sad to say, but the people at the emergency room got to know us on a first name basis.

And so you know this, that when a child injures themselves, you go into emergency panic mode. I think of the one time that my son, well, he took a toy that we had for our dog, Cookie, and it was kind of a bone on a rope.

And he decided he was going to reenact the story of David and Goliath. And so we were in the backyard one day and he was whipping that thing over his head. And he let it go. And that bone struck my daughter, Christina, in the head.

And oh man, what a sickening sound that was. And I knew as soon as it struck her that we were going to the emergency room. There's no way around it. So I literally picked up Christina, grabbed her hand, put it over where I knew she was going to start bleeding, and then rushed her into the bathroom and shut the door.

Of course, Barb seeing what had happened, she was in full panic mode. What's going on in there? What's going on in there? Honey, you don't really want to be in here. You don't want to see this. And Joshua, of course, was in a panic.

And so I brought her, put her in the bathtub, tried to get the bleeding under control, put a washcloth on her head, applied direct pressure. And by the time I was done, I realized we're going to need to go to the hospital because, well, there's got to be staples or stitches or something here because this was quite the gash.

And so I said, honey, get my keys and wallet. And then what I did is open the door, said don't look, and took her, put her in the car. And of course, she wants to know what's going on. I said, don't worry, I've got it under control.

And then we drove off to the emergency room and said, hey, Chris, how's it going? Oh, Christina, what are you doing here today? It's kind of sad, but that's the truth. But we all know that when there's an emergency, you spring into action.

By the way, finishing up the story, it looked like a murder scene inside the bathroom. And Josh thought he'd killed Christina, and he was very happy later to find out that he hadn't. So you know that we're okay.

No social services did not come out after that, so I was very thankful for that. Okay. So here Jesus is given the news that the one he loves is sick, and rather than putting the siren on top of his donkey and heading off quickly to go and save Lazarus, he cools his heels for two days.

This seems contrary to love. Like I said, Jesus is up to something. So he stayed for two days longer in the place that he was. Then after this, he said to his 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 a day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble. Because he sees the light of this world. If anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.

Talking about the Jews who wanted to stone him. So after saying these things, Jesus said to them, and here's something really weird. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. Have you noticed when you read the New Testament that often times in describing believers who have died, it refers to them as those who have fallen asleep.

Now there's a false teaching out there that's called the doctrine of soul sleep. And the Jehovah's Witnesses teach this as well as the Seventh Day Adventists. And it's an error. This idea that somehow our soul just sleeps and so dying is pretty much going to sleep and not being cognitive at all of what goes on.

Paul himself dispels this concept by telling us that to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord, which he says is far better than actually being here and laboring and toiling for the kingdom.

And so we are clearly resting in our death, and we are present with the Lord and with the saints and the angels before his throne. The book of Revelation makes that clear. So we have some cognizant idea of what's going on in heaven after our death, but over and again it describes the Christian's death as sleep.

And here Jesus talks in this way, and we'll find out why in just a little bit, but I want you to kind of keep this thought tucked away in your head. So he says, Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.

Now the disciples are clearly clueless here, and I love these little details where the disciples totally don't understand what's going on. It's really embarrassing, but it's very helpful for me, and I hope it's helpful for you, because have you ever noticed that being a disciple of Jesus and understanding what scripture says, oftentimes we're a little slow to get it?

Yeah. So you're in good company, and these texts help us. So the disciples said to him, Lord, he's fallen asleep. He'll recover. Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest and sleep.

So then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died, and for your sake I'm glad that I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go to him. And here is probably one of the most boneheaded things I've ever heard any disciple of Jesus said.

So Thomas Cole, the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go so that we may die with him. What? This is like overcooking your piety by about half. It sounds really profound, but shows that he's kind of utterly clueless as to what he's talking about here.

But he's making an effort. We'll give him an A for effort. We'll give him zero for content. We'll give him the thank you for coming to school and breathing award. Text continues. So 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 out 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. Wow. That is some faith.

Very amazing here. Even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. This is a woman who has profoundly deep faith in Christ. So much so that she even trusts that if Jesus says the word, if God gives him the ability, her brother is going to live again.

That's clear what's going on here. But she's very cautious. But she's also extremely well catechized. So Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

Wow. Put a star chart on her catechism chart. This woman knows her stuff right on. Indeed, what she said is true and shows that she has a very good understanding of what's happening in Scripture and what it teaches.

So Jesus said to her, this is where Jesus pushes just a little farther beyond what she understands. Jesus said to her, ego eimi. I am the resurrection and the life. Wow. The resurrection is a person. Life is a person.

It's as if Jesus is saying, listen, the resurrection isn't some abstract concept. I am the resurrection. Life is not some abstract philosophical concept or experience. I am life. Indeed, he is our resurrection.

He is our life. He is the life. He is the resurrection. And now consider our minds to be blown. And that's the idea. Jesus is our all in all. And then Jesus continues, whoever believes in me. Whoever believes in me, comma.

A little bit of a note here. Why was the Gospel of John written? It says so in the closing chapters of the Gospel of John. These things were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name.

All of this was written down so that you would believe. So whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And Jesus pushes just a little farther beyond that. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this? Amen, sister. Amen. Yes. And so this is the reason why Jesus says of Lazarus, he is asleep. Think of it this way. When you were baptized, according to scripture, passages like Romans 6, when you were baptized, you were united with Jesus in his death and his resurrection.

Is this true or not? Yes, it's absolutely true. If you have been united with Jesus in his death and resurrection, can Jesus die again? No. Neither can you. So you are regenerate. You have been made alive in Christ and though your body lives, yet you live.

In a very true sense, you never die. And you can't because you've been united to Christ in his death and resurrection. So Jesus says, though he die, yet he live. This is true. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this? So you notice both statements are true. It seems kind of paradoxical. So we can say of all of the saints in our graveyard, we can say of all of the saints in our graveyard, they are resting silently in peace.

And they are sleeping. And at the same time, we can say, well, they did die. Both statements are true. How is that possible? It seems kind of paradoxical and somewhat contradictory. Yeah, I don't know.

I just know that Jesus doesn't lie. Both statements are true. How? I don't get it. But hey, he's the Lord of life. He is life. He is the resurrection. He gets to call the shots. He's God in human flesh.

So Jesus says, do you believe this? And this is a great question for us. We've already heard from our younger sister this morning. And so I ask you all, do you believe this? Yes. I know you do. I seriously doubt that you'd be here this morning to hear these words of Jesus if you didn't believe.

I mean, baseball starts today. We have important things.

And I.

Will already be saying a prayer for all of you who root for the twins. And the rest. Lord, help them and comfort them in this time of trial. So do you believe this? She said to him, wonderful words. Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world.

Martha's Confession and Mary's Grief

Next part. And watch the contrast between Martha's confession, Martha's statement and Mary's. There's a little bit of a difference. So when she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary saying in private, the teacher is here and he's 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 sheep 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. This is tough. This is really tough. What she's saying is true, but notice there's no but.

She is weeping as one who does not have hope. But does Jesus chastise her for this? No. No, he does not. So Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping. And boy, the English here is so weak, but I can't even think of a proper way of pulling this into English.

He was deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled. The Greek word there literally is agitated. He's agitated. He's angry. He's upset. And when you read the verbs in the Greek and you see what's going on here, the immediate question comes up.

Who's he angry at? Who's he agitated by? Is he upset that Mary has said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died? Is he upset because of her lack of faith? No. That's not what's going on here.

He's deeply troubled and then we come to every young Sunday school kid's favorite memory verse because you get credit for a whole verse for two words. Jesus wept. So there's Mary weeping. The Jews weeping.

Jesus is upset and he's mad and he too weeps. What is he weeping about? What is he angry about? Well, think of it this way. Remember back in Genesis when God creates the heavens and the earth. He does it in six days.

He calls all these things forth. He creates man in the image of God and he literally blesses all of creation and he calls it what? Very good. Is this what God intended for us? The pain, the suffering, the sickness, the death.

How many of us have had people stolen from us by death itself? It's awful. Whether it's your favorite grandmother or grandpa, your mother, your father, your wife, your husband, your child, your best friend, somebody you went to school with.

Each and every one of us have had the lion of death. Think of it that way. Come and snatch and eat whole those whom we love. And we know it's just a matter of time before we become the prey. We know that.

And so in the midst of all of this, when we lose somebody, those are the darkest days of our life. We go into deep mourning and all of the world just seems to pass by us while we're there stuck, literally bleeding from inside of our hearts.

And everything is dark and days just go so slow while we mourn and lament and miss those whom we love. And Jesus in the midst of all of this, he doesn't chastise us. He's angry and upset and he too weeps with us.

He has gone through all of the same suffering and understands our weeping and our mourning in the face of death. But remember King David. Remember King David. When a lion or a bear would come and snatch one of his little sheep, what did he go and do?

Boy, if a lion came and stole one of David's sheep, that was a career limiting move on the part of that animal. Last thing it ever did. Think of Jesus now springing into action in that same way. And so he was greatly moved and troubled and he says these words, where have you laid him?

And I almost see Jesus in this text. It's very focused, very insistent. Where have you laid him? Where have you laid him? I'm going to go do something. So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, well could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?

Indeed he could have. So then Jesus deeply moved, upset, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. I want you to imagine if you would that this cave itself is like the mouth of death.

Teeth and all. And it has swallowed its victim whole. And there's Jesus about to knock out its teeth and steal what it had stolen from him. And he says, take away the stone. Martha the sister of the dead man said, Lord.

She's trying to talk some sense into Jesus. By this time there will be an odor for he's been dead for four days. Or if you read it in the King James, Lord, he stinketh.

He stinketh. I love that translation.

So watch what Jesus does. He's very focused here. Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? Well that was a take away the stone. So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and he said, and now he's praying to his father and he's praying out loud so that we can listen in on the conversation.

And it's for our sake. Father, I thank you that you've 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. And there it is again.

That they may what? Believe. This is a powerful sign that Jesus is going to give. One that shows us that he truly is the resurrection and the life. So when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice.

And you could almost hear the anger. Lazarus, come out! And you've got to imagine the scene. There's the cave. The stone's rolled away. Everyone's thinking, okay, Jesus is in charge here. This is a little different.

And he prays so that people might believe. And then he commands Lazarus to come out. And I'm pretty sure that resurrections don't happen in a split second. I'm sure that once Lazarus comes alive, it takes a wee bit of time for him to orient himself.

And if you look at your bulletin cover, that's no state to, well, be doing push-ups and jogging in. He's going to need to be set free from being mummified, which is what he is at this moment. So Lazarus, come out!

And you can almost imagine the people there looking on, going, is he going to come out? Can Jesus raise somebody from the dead? And then that awkward pause gives way to, oh my goodness, there's the stirring inside the cave.

To, oh! No way! Uh-uh! Did that just happen? You've got to be kidding me! And poor Lazarus comes hopping out, right? Because he's all bound up. And so the man who had died came out. And listen, it says, his hands and his feet bound.

Think of them like ropes, if you would. Bound with linen strips, his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, and listen to these words, because Jesus is not only commanding them to take the linen strips off.

He could have easily said, could you take those off him, please, and give him something to eat. But that's not what he says. Listen to what he says. Unbind him! Let him go! Jesus isn't just talking to them, saying, take the strips off.

He's speaking to death itself. You unbind him! You let him go! How dare you take one of my sheep! Whoa. And this is exactly Jesus' disposition towards you and me. Because Jesus is going to return on the last day.

And he is going to, with the shout of the archangel and the trumpet of the archangel, announce his return. And you, if you are out there in that graveyard, he's going to announce to death, you let them all go!

Every one of them! They're mine! And what does death have to do when the resurrection and the life shows up and says, unbind them, let them go. Death has to let them all go. Not one captive will remain unfree.

And so this is a picture, even of our resurrection. And that's what the Valley of the Dry Bones is all about, that we heard in Ezekiel 37. It is a picture of the great resurrection on the last day. And you heard those comforting words, that these bones are all of Israel.

Brothers and sisters, you have been grafted into Israel. Because you are in Christ, and Christ is Israel. And so this is the great promise of the great resurrection of us all. And what's the result of this miracle, this sign that Jesus gives?

Well, the next verse says, many of the Jews therefore who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, they believed in Jesus. And they, like Lazarus, like you and like me, they too will be raised from the grave.

Because Jesus has the power to call all from the grave. But then you hear of that blindness that we heard about last Sunday. That self-righteous blindness. I don't know how else to describe this. Some of them went to the Pharisees, and they told them what Jesus had done.

As if somehow Jesus has done something wrong. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered to council together. And you can just imagine. It's like, we've got to have an emergency council meeting here.

Jesus just raised somebody from the dead. We've got to put a stop to this.

This doesn't make any sense.

And so they said, what are we going to do? This man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, what kind of ignorant talk is this? If we let him go on like this, everyone's going to believe in him.

How is that a bad thing?

Okay, what are these people thinking?

If we let him go on like this, everyone's going to believe in him. And here's the rub. And then the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation. Oh, I see. So if everyone believes in Jesus, you're going to lose your place of authority and your political power and all your money.

Who are they concerned about?

Themselves.

But I want you to think about this. I mean, why wasn't there somebody there speaking sense to these people? Wait a second. Hold on, guys. Haven't you noticed we're all dying? Haven't you noticed that even the Romans die, too?

Although the Romans have conquered us, they haven't conquered death. Who cares about the Romans? The real enemy that we face is death itself. And I mean, the wages of sin is death. Don't you think it would probably be a good thing if we all believed in Jesus?