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John 11:1-37 Jesus At a Funeral
As we just heard, Jesus had a friend, a close friend, named Lazarus, who was sick and he lived just outside of Jerusalem. Now we met his two sisters already when Jesus visited their home and Martha tried to nag Jesus into ordering Mary to help her with the chores.
Jesus said Mary had chosen the best thing and it would not be taken away from her. Mary would be most remembered for what she did in a few days, pouring expensive ointment on Jesus' feet and wiping them with her hair.
Jesus said she did it to prepare him for burial. Now their brother, a close friend, whom they call He Whom You Love, is sick. Jesus has healed all kinds of people, including a man born blind, just in chapter 9.
Now surely he can heal his friend, Lazarus, if he hurries. But he doesn't seem to think he needs to hurry. He says in verse 4, this illness does not ultimately lead to death. That's not where it will end.
It is for, notice that in verse 4, it, the sickness, the illness is for, notice the sickness is for something. It has a purpose. You know, it's not just bacteria or viruses randomly attacking Lazarus, you know, nature out of control, run amok with no rhyme or reason, nobody in charge of it, no one directing it.
It is for, not death, but he says the glory of God. This sickness is, Jesus says, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now today, skeptics, doubters often say, you know, there's two things that cannot both be true.
Either God cannot be all powerful, like determining what every sickness is for, in charge of every disease, can't be that all powerful and loving. Either he is all powerful, he's in control of the bacteria and the viruses and everything, and he doesn't really love people, he doesn't care, he won't stop the suffering caused by the diseases, like Lazarus' illness, either he's all powerful, doesn't care, or he is loving, he really does care, he wants us to be relieved of suffering, you know, he's on our side, but he just can't stop it.
He can't stop the diseases and the disasters and the death. He lacks the power. So in other words, either God is all powerful, glorifying himself by showing his power, or he loves us. It can't be both.
Now they insist that this is logically an unbeatable dilemma. Checkmate, they'll say, confidently, case closed, nothing more need be said. But the dilemma, so-called, has one enormous flaw. It doesn't come to terms with, first, who we are, who we are, as sinners, that is what we deserve for sin, or who we are as creatures, that is, we're not the creator, the universe does not exist for us, it is a revolve around what is good or bad for us.
So the dilemma kind of assumes that God is to be judged by how he treats people, that man is the measure of, even of God himself, of good or of evil, good, they assume, is what is good for us. But here we see the opposite, that what is good is what brings glory to God, and yet, incredibly, unless you think, well, God just does what glorifies himself without caring whether it's good or bad for us, God mixes with his glorifying himself a love for us.
And this chapter, in Good Friday, is about both glory and love. Well Jesus has a sick friend, one he especially loves. Only one disciple is described as the disciple whom Jesus loved, John, the writer of the gospel here, of the story, and only one friend is described as he whom you love, Lazarus.
In verse 6 we're told that Jesus loved Martha and her sister, Miss Mary, and Lazarus. And then, look at that, verse 6, one of the strangest, most mind-blowing sentences in all the Bible, at least to the modern mind, there, in verse 6, Jesus loves Lazarus, so therefore, in other words, because he loved Lazarus and his two sisters, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer.
Think about that. He didn't hurry to be with him. He doesn't rush. He delays two days precisely because he loves Lazarus and the two sisters. The two-day delay was motivated by love. Why? Because that makes no sense to us, does it?
If God loves us, he acts to relieve our suffering. Now, we insist. How can he love me, if you're Martha or Mary or Lazarus himself, and let Lazarus die? How can you let him be in the grave two days longer, but let Mary and Martha cry for two more days?
How can he love me and let my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my wife, my husband, my child, myself, suffer and die because he loves me? That almost sounds like an insult. What are you talking about?
But Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and so, because of that love, he waited two days. Then, finally, he announces in verse 7 that they're going back to Judea. That's the whole area, that region in the south where Jerusalem was.
Bethany is right nearby there. We've seen in Luke that Jesus had already set his face. He's determined to go to Jerusalem. Here in John, at the end of chapter 10, Jesus had proclaimed, I and my father are one, and the religious people picked up stones to stone him, so he left the whole area, crossed the Jordan River.
When Jesus says they're going back to Jerusalem, here in verse 8, they say, the disciples, you know, what in the world? The leaders there, back there, are seeking to kill you. Now, Jesus knew that, of course.
What the disciples didn't know was that that was precisely what Jesus was going back for. The cross wasn't an accident, you understand. It wasn't something Jesus kind of stumbled onto unforeseen, just got out of hand, it was totally unexpected.
No, he knew what was coming. So Jesus answers in verse 9, are there not 12 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.
I think he means what he said earlier in the Gospel of John, John chapter 5, that the son, me, cannot do, can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, that the son does likewise.
Here the disciples are protesting, why are we going back there? It's dangerous, don't you know? I mean, he's telling them, hey, you know, just like I follow the father, you should follow me. Here the disciples should walk to Judea with him, just like Jesus follows the father.
They, or we now, still today, should follow him even if it leads us to death. He is, after all, the light of the world. If we don't follow him, if we try to save our lives, try to go our own way, you know, live for the cash or the pleasure or the stuff, in love with this present world, then we're walking in, what he says here, the night, we're walking in the dark, and we will stumble.
And so Jesus is going to Jerusalem, he's set his face to go to the cross because that's where the father is leading him. Now the disciples expect there to be trouble. Now they try to stone you before they protest.
Why go there? If God loves us, surely we think he wants to give us luxuries and comforts and health and wealth, doesn't he? He's going to guide us away from suffering, isn't he? Jesus announces in verse 11, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.
Now, the disciples are looking for any excuse to get away from trouble, still eager to avoid anything that could threaten them, so they leap at that news. If he's sleeping, that's good, he'll recover.
So we don't need to go back into enemy territory, too dangerous down there. No, Jesus meant he was dead. He compares it to sleep because it's temporary. And so he tells them plainly in verse 14, Lazarus has died, and for your sake, I am glad that I was not there.
Notice there's another, here, another utterly bizarre kind of mind-blowing linking of ideas. Lazarus, this friend whom I love, has died, and I'm glad, what's with that? I'm glad my close friend has died?
Why, what most people in this world think is the worst thing that could ever happen to you, must be avoided at all costs, I'm glad. Jesus said, so that, this is the reason he's glad, so that you may believe.
They're believing, they're coming to glorify God, really believing that Jesus is worth more than their lives. That is so worthwhile, it's worth Lazarus dying, so Jesus is glad. So let us go to him, let us go to a funeral where we, too, for all we know, could die.
So Thomas, you know, the famous doubting Thomas, says to the other disciples, let us also go that we may die with him. I think he's meaning to be cynical here, kind of just resigning to his fate, we're going to die.
Soldiers, you know, like soldiers bitterly facing a battle, joking that ours is not to reason why, but ours is to do and die. But Thomas is half right, isn't he? One of them is going down there to die, and he's doing it so that, Thomas, doubting Thomas, you may believe, love seeks what is best for the one loved.
And what is best for us is that we glorify God, that we believe in Jesus. The funeral was in full swing, when Jesus was getting close, anyway, neighbors, friends, his relatives all over the place, mourning, wailing, seeking to console Martha and Mary, you know, sympathizing with them.
Jesus arrives at Bethany, he's coming to the outskirts of town, just outside of Jerusalem, and he finds Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days already. He's certainly dead. But here we see Jesus at a funeral.
What do you think Jesus would do at a funeral? How would Jesus act at a funeral? Martha went out to see Jesus. Martha's a straight talker. You can see that about her. If she thinks Jesus should tell Mary to get busy with the chores, she said so.
If she thinks Jesus would have healed Lazarus if he were there on time, she says that too. And so when she says in verse 22, even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you, she means it.
Although maybe just to a point, you know, to what's within reason, we'll see. She hasn't, one thing though we know, she hasn't fallen for this false dilemma that either God must be all powerful, just concerned about glorifying himself and so unloving to us, or he's loving, but he's not powerful.
He really can't do much for us, that dilemma. She hasn't fallen for that, has she? So Jesus says in verse 23, your brother will rise again. And that was their faith. It was the common thing to believe that in the end, the dead will rise.
The prophet Daniel had said so. She believes it. Other mourners were probably telling her the same thing, way to console her. You know, your brother will rise in the last day. So Martha can respond. I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.
And yes, that too. But Jesus was purposely ambiguous here, isn't he? When he says your brother will rise. And here, though, considering what's coming, wouldn't you expect Jesus to say, ah, but he's going to rise now.
I don't mean the last day. I mean today. Wouldn't you expect him to say that? What does he say instead? Remember, he loves Martha and Mary and Lazarus and his disciples. And so he wants them to believe.
Not just to believe a doctrine, you know, to get their eschatology, their doctrine of the end times right, that the dead will rise. You should believe that. He wants her to believe in him. And so Jesus says in verse 25, Martha is saying, my dead brother will rise at the resurrection.
It's the doctrine people were trying to comfort her with. Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. Don't just believe the doctrine. Believe in me, Jesus is saying. Believe that I am the one who raises the dead.
I'm the one who has life in myself, in my words, who gives people new life so that they live forever. Whoever believes in me, though he die, notice that he or she will die physically. Jesus does not deny that.
He doesn't try to cover it up like we do today, you know, shoving death off to nursing homes and hospices, embalmed bodies and expensive caskets laid in sealed vaults as though we're trying to lock the dead away.
Believers will die, though he die. Jesus went to a funeral and said that believers will die. Yet, despite death, shall he live? And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. It's not ultimately death won't be the end of their life if they believe.
That's why when Jesus loves someone, he may not hurry to heal them yet. He may even be glad in a bittersweet way if someone near them dies, if it results in them believing, because if they believe, they won't die.
So Jesus lets some people die so people will believe and not die. He asked Martha, do you believe this? Remember, he loves Martha. And so because of that love, he has let Lazarus die so that she may believe, so that God may be glorified.
Martha says, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who is coming into the world. Love has led to death, which has led to faith, which leads to glory. Where will that lead? Next, Jesus deals with Mary.
He hasn't quite reached the funeral yet. Martha had rushed out on the road to meet Jesus and now goes back to get Mary so both of them would bring Jesus to the funeral. What do you think Jesus would do at a funeral?
Mary's back there at the funeral sitting with the mourners. So Martha, now believing, to a point anyway, goes to Mary, whispering in her ear, the teacher is here and is calling for you. She hurries to him, still on his way outside of town.
The other mourners follow her, thinking that she's going to her brother's tomb. When Mary reaches Jesus, she falls to the ground at his feet and like her sister, says to him tearfully, desperately in verse 32.
Now this is the second time that he's heard this. Second time that the creature, the sinner, not understanding how God can be both all-powerful and all-loving when they suffer. How could he let it happen?
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. You think Jesus could be insulted, is he? Jesus looks down to her. Mary, this faithful follower, this one who had chosen the better part, whom he had defended earlier, listening to his word now, she's sobbing, she's heartbroken.
The other mourners are wailing. Jesus sees this desperate, pitiful scene and at the end of verse 33, says he groaned. The phrase that's translated as deeply moved in spirit doesn't really do it justice, that word.
It wasn't just inward, just feelings that he didn't show. He wore his heart on his sleeve. You could see and hear what he felt. He was affected and he showed it. That word is used for the snorting of a horse when it's agitated.
Jesus is agitated. In a way, he's angry, he's outraged and greatly troubled. Outraged at what? Troubled at what? At their unbelief? That's what some try to say. Is he angry at them? At Mary herself for not believing?
Not believing what he hasn't even promised yet? That he will raise him then and there? Is he snorting in indignation because they aren't dancing around with tambourines, having a celebration because they should know that Jesus is going to raise Lazarus?
Okay, I'm mocking a little bit. I'm exaggerating. Maybe some will say, I guess, well, they're mourning like those who have no hope. You know, maybe a few dignified tears and the somber words are okay, but not this being wracked by grief.
You know, like Job's friends. We still have a lot of Job's friends today. We have people who today think that we shouldn't mourn, at least not too pathetically. We shouldn't doubt. We shouldn't question.
More like C .S. Lewis writing a book called The Problem of Pain, apparently before he had experienced too much pain himself. In that book, he wrote, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains.
It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. All true and brilliantly put, but a little too neat. As Lewis himself would find out when his own wife died, prompting another book, A Grief Observed. Here, Jesus is observing grief.
And he's outraged. Not at the grief. Please, let's put that otherworldly, detached Jesus away. The Jesus that's unloved or unloving, that's unmoved by our pain, who's just indifferent to our passions.
Put that idol of our philosophies away. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Jesus observes a grief. Grief in someone we're told he loves is outraged and troubled because he enters into that grief.
He is, after all. Who is he? He's a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. So, grieving with him, he asks them where they've laid Lazarus. They take him to see the tomb. So now, he's at their funeral.
By the tomb. What do you think Jesus would do at a funeral? Well, verse 35 tells us. Here's exactly, precisely what Jesus does at the funerals of those whom he loves. Jesus wept. Now we're observing grief.
The Son of God himself, grieving. You thought being a Christian was a way to avoid all grief? Be relieved of all suffering? Just insulated from all sicknesses and tragedies and loneliness and tears? All of that?
You're missing the reality of now. You think the faith is all about Easter and you can just skip Good Friday. You've gotten ahead of yourself. Now, we have grief. Now, we have funerals with tears and the dead.
Sure, they may be asleep. We can say that. Their death may be temporary if they believe in Jesus. But for now, that's where we are. We are at the tomb side. We're weeping. Not just observing a grief, but now we're becoming thoroughly acquainted with it.
The mourners observe grief. They observe Jesus' grief. His weeping. And they remarked in verse 36. And clearly, notice this. He is grieving for them. With them. Because they look at him and they say, see how he loved him.
There was no doubt that Jesus loved his dead friend. Maybe they didn't think he had the power to do anything about it. Others, though, remembered he had the power. He could heal a man born blind. Surely, then, with the power, he could have healed Lazarus if he had come on time.
Maybe then, since he has the power and didn't heal him, maybe he doesn't really love Lazarus after all. You know, they were puzzled. It's a dilemma, isn't it? If he could heal him but didn't, he must not love him, right?
There is that dilemma again. Either he loves but couldn't help, or he could have helped but doesn't love. But Jesus did love him and his two sisters. Now becoming thoroughly acquainted with grief. And he had the power to heal him.
He had the power to shelter Mary and Martha from the tears of loss. He didn't because he loved them. He was glad, in a way, that Lazarus died so that others might believe. He wanted what was best for them.
That they would believe and believe not just right doctrine but believe in him. That they would glorify God by now believing that Jesus is the solution. That he will be the end of their grief. That he is the one who will put an end to the death that they grieve over.
They're coming to glorify God by really believing that Jesus is so worthwhile, so important that it's worth Lazarus dying for, worth Mary crying over. It's worth whatever you have to go through. That sounds callous.
Sounds like an otherworldly just some spiritual cheap words. Just an excuse to let people suffer for some so-called spiritual goal. Is that what it sounds like? If it does, keep in mind that Lazarus would not be the last one to die so that we may believe.
Indeed, he's really here only a foreshadowing of the one who will soon knowingly go to his death. Death on a cross, not on a sickbed. The one who had set his face to go there already. Who's gone back to where he knows they want to kill him.
And he will die not by some illness, but brutally at the hands of barbaric men. Barbaric men being used by the hand of God to place on him the penalty for our sins. The sins that mean we have no right to judge God by how he treats us.
God sent him there on that good Friday. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken by God, smitten and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his stripes, we are healed. So here we are observing a grief. Observing the one who bore our griefs. Here we are with Mary and Martha at a funeral remembering the one who died.
That's Good Friday. We know this isn't the end of course, that Sunday will reveal the rest of the story. We know now that we grieve as those with hope. We know that because Jesus both glorified himself and loved us.