The Raising of Lazarus

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If you'll take your Bibles, please, and turn with me once again to the
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Gospel of John, Chapter 11. The Gospel of John, Chapter 11.
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Before we once again consider this passage of Scripture together, let us join our hearts in prayer and ask the
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Lord to bless our time. Indeed, our gracious Heavenly Father, as we open your word once again, we confess our absolute dependence upon your
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Spirit, both of the proclamation, the hearing, the understanding, the application of your truth.
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We confess that we handle divine revelation, divine words, divine intentions and purposes in giving these words to your people.
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And so we would pray that we would handle your word aright, that you would meet with us, Lord, that you would protect us from distraction, and Lord, at the end of this hour, we would be better servants.
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So, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for it is in His name that we pray, Amen. As most of you know, we have been for quite some time working our way through an unusual sermon series based upon a
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Greek papyrus, a papyrus of the New Testament known as P45.
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It contains portions, it used to contain all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts, but it doesn't anymore.
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I know after 1800 years, I'm not going to have most of my parts either. So we can forgive it for being somewhat fragmentary today.
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But what we still have is indeed one of the many treasures that have been given to us by the
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Lord from the early church, a reminder of the fact that people have loved and honored the word of God for many, many, many centuries now.
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And we are looking at each of the chapters that are represented by that papyrus, and we are in John chapter 11.
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We have been looking at this chapter for a while. We haven't been seeking to go rushing through it.
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Most of us know the story, we know what takes place.
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But it's interesting, I think if you asked most Christians, so what's the primary story of John chapter 11?
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I think most believers are going to go, well, that's the raising of Lazarus.
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And that would be, I think, an appropriate sort of summary statement if you're just going to put one thing.
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John chapter 10, that would be the Good Shepherd discourse. John chapter 9, the man born blind.
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John chapter 8, you can sort of identify one little thing. But as I was looking at the text once again this week,
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I was struck by something, and I want to start with that, because if I don't,
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I will probably forget to mention it to you. That's what happens as you get older, I guess.
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But I was looking at it, and I was looking at, you know,
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I was thinking about the fact that we sort of stopped at a cliffhanger last time, as if anyone was really confused as to what was going to be going on.
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And we had just arrived at the tomb, and we were talking about Jesus' response to the
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Jews, and his interaction with Mary and Martha, and the fact that he was greatly disturbed within himself, and that actually that term isn't normally used of feeling grief or sadness.
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It's anger. It's a great disturbance of one's soul.
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And so we were looking at all of that, and it's proper to look at those things, and we'll look at them again as we look at it.
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But sometimes we get a little bit too close to the text, and as I was just sort of reviewing the whole thing,
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I sort of stood back, and I recognized something. We have a tremendous amount of discussion in preparation for Jesus' coming to the encounter with Mary and Martha.
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We have the whole discussion of what he says with the disciples, and then they travel there, and then the description of what's going on, and the mourners, and the conversation that takes place with both of the sisters in different contexts.
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Then they go to the place of the burial, and then you look at the rest of the chapter.
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Have you noticed something? The resurrection of Lazarus is just sort of, it's done.
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Four verses, boom. The rest of the chapter is the amazing reaction to the resurrection of Lazarus, and not the kind of reaction that you would expect.
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I mean, think about it. If you and I were writing this story, if, you know, a lot of people try to tell us the
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Gospel of John is the least historical of the Gospels, and it really is just trying to give us a theological, a later theological redefinition of Jesus, and the exaltation of Jesus, and things like that.
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But if you and I were writing this story, I don't know about you, but I would spend a lot more time on the resurrection itself, because that's what people want to hear about, right?
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People want to hear about the great exercise of power, and they want to have a little bit more of a buildup, and something more about the excitement that takes place, and all that type of stuff, right?
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And then, you want to hear more about Lazarus. I mean,
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I'm certain that there were reporters from the Jerusalem Post, even back then, that came rushing up to him, and they wanted to know about what it was like to be dead.
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Could you tell us? What did you experience? What did you see? And I'm certain there were people that wanted to publish his story.
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I mean, those stories are pretty popular today, until they get retracted by people. But still,
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I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of, I was dead, and now I'm alive stories.
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Something tells me there's going to be some more of them. And so, we'd expect some type of information from Lazarus, and Lazarus's interaction with Jesus.
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And what was the first meal like after you rise from the dead?
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How do you go from, Lord, he stinketh, to sit down next to me at the table?
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I mean, what really is that process? And how do you get back into normal life when you just spent time in the grave?
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These are things that people want to know. And isn't it interesting? Not a single word about it.
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Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There are so many times when, if we were writing the story, the
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Bible would have many, many chapters that it, thankfully, does not have. We would want to know all about Jesus's childhood.
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And that's what the Gnostics ended up doing. They ended up writing all these silly Gospels that talk about Jesus's childhood, and strange things like that, to try to fill in the blanks that we would like to speculate about.
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Nothing is said. So, you've got this huge work -up, all the discussion about what
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Jesus is going to go and do, and things like that, and then we get to it, and it's just sort of like, oh, that was quick.
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And immediately, the focus moves away from Lazarus, and away from Mary and Martha, and directly onto the reaction of the
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Jewish leaders. And when you think about the flow of the Gospel of John, we've seen the
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Jews picking up stones to stone Jesus in John chapter 8, when he says, if you continue my word, my disciples just know the truth, truth shall make you free.
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And he uses the I am phrases of himself. John chapter 9, once again, you then start seeing people who are following Jesus, or have been healed by Jesus being persecuted.
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John chapter 10, pick up stones again, because of what Jesus said about being the good shepherd, I and the Father are one.
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John chapter 11, Jesus continues to do what he does. He raises Lazarus from the dead, right near, within a very brief walking distance of the center of power of the
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Jewish hierarchy. And when that resurrection takes place, immediately
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John starts to speak about how they respond. Even to the point of saying that Caiaphas, the high priest, prophesies about what?
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About Jesus's coming sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary.
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And then chapter 12 takes us into the final portion of Jesus's public ministry.
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And then chapter 13 and onward is that private ministry of the Lord Jesus to his disciples.
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And so it does fit in the flow. But what it tells us is the actual resurrection of Lazarus, as incredible as it is, is a part of the whole narrative that John is communicating.
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And that is, Jesus intended to do the things that he did.
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See, many people today try to tell us, ah, you know, there's just so many differences between the synoptic gospels,
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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, that we just can't really take
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John seriously as a historical document. But if John is the last gospel to be written, and there seems to be good reason to believe that it was, then it would seem to me that John would already be aware, at least, obviously, of the preaching and teaching of the early church, if he wasn't aware of the very content of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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So there wouldn't be a reason, necessarily, to repeat things.
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And what might have changed in the situation of the early church that would prompt
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John to reveal many things that Matthew, Mark, and Luke had not chosen to reveal in their particular gospels, especially a lot of the ministry of Jesus to the disciples themselves?
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We have speculated about this. It's the best that we can do. I think maybe someday we will know. I don't know, but it's certainly possible that that would be something that we would get to learn in the eternal state, some of the backgrounds of these things about God's word.
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But it does strike me as a real possibility that one of the reasons for John's emphases, plural, that we see here is to emphasize the reality that, no, in comparison to what we see in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, maybe some had come along and had made statements along the lines of, well, you know,
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Jesus couldn't really be the Son of God. He really couldn't be the Messiah because look at what
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Rome did to him, and look at the shameful way of his death, and all these things.
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Maybe one of the things that John wants to communicate is the reality that, from the beginning, this is exactly what
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Jesus' intention was. We know in other gospels he set his face to go to Jerusalem, but everything along the way was a part of this purpose that he was seeking to fulfill.
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We might want to have all sorts of other information provided to us about the resurrection of Lazarus, but instead what we get, what the inspired author is seeking to communicate to us is, even when you see the very power of God made manifest in defeating death, look at the reaction of the unbelieving heart.
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We have so many people today say, oh, if I could just see a miracle. Well, these people saw a miracle.
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And even when we get to the point where it says, some who saw these things believed, it's that interesting use of belief that isn't the ongoing belief, it's that surface level belief that in the gospel of John, there's never any commendation of it.
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There's never any evidence that this is true, saving, abiding faith. Even seeing these things wasn't enough.
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It wasn't enough. Hadn't Jesus already said all the way back in chapter three, that there was something else that had to happen.
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You had to be what? Born from above, born again. There is a need for spiritual change in the heart and mind of the individual.
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And so we come to the story, and we noted last time that Jesus had wept.
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We had seen that some in the crowd had said, but some of them said, verse 37, could not this man who opened the eyes, the blind man have kept this man also from dying.
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So Jesus again, being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. And so we have already spoken about the importance of the recognition of the emotional reality of Jesus's humanity.
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That Jesus was not just a zombified human indwelt by some type of deity, as unfortunately a lot of people think, that it would be a gross rank heresy from the
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Christian perspective. Jesus was the God man. His humanity was just as real as his deity.
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We believe in the hypostatic union, the relationship of the divine and the human with Christ in such a fashion that there is no intermingling of the two.
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Jesus is not half man and half God. Many people have great confusion about these issues.
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That's why we've spent so much time, as we have in Sunday school, especially in the church history section that we're doing, on these particular definitions as they came into existence and how they are biblical in their origination and in their concerns.
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But we see here the reality that Jesus Christ was not, even though he is in control, even though he has said beforehand what he's going to do, he still enters in, must enter in to the reality of the sadness of death and anger toward unbelief and anger toward the impact that sin has upon people's lives and even walking amongst the unbelievers.
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Some of the commentaries would say, well, you know, those who were saying, could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man also from dying?
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You know, maybe it was just speculation on their part. Well, I don't know about you, but especially at the time of death, there are just some things you don't need to be saying.
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And at the very, very, very least, these would be insensitive words.
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But in light of really the whole flow of John chapter 11, I tend to think that there was a hurtful intention on the part of the people who said these things, because the very next line is, so Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb.
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And then we have the description of the tomb. It was a cave and a stone was, you could say, lying against it, pushed up against it, sort of sealed up against the mouth of the cave.
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We have all seen pictures of these things from, well, at least I did from my childhood in reality.
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I can still remember those flannel graph pictures of this particular incident.
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And even though most young people today have only seen video versions of this, we didn't have video versions back then.
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I actually think it was probably best to use the imagination, that thing that isn't used very much anymore, but to picture what took place in this situation.
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And so we do picture it in our minds. And we know, because Jesus is going to talk about the crowd that is surrounding the individuals, that this was not a private gathering.
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That there had been many Jews that had come from Jerusalem. You had the professional mourners. You had the friends.
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Obviously, there does seem to be indication that Lazarus and Mary and Martha were very much known amongst the people.
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And so you have these individuals who are there. This is not going to be done privately.
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We don't know how many there are. This probably wasn't a big wide open area.
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Most caves are not on a massive flat plain or something like that. But there were many witnesses.
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This was a public situation. You have the disciples. You have the family.
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You have the friends. You have the mourners. Many others probably who have come along. It would have been a crowded scene.
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And so many are coming just thinking that, well, there's going to be some mourning. There's going to be some weeping.
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This is what happens during this time period in that culture. And so Jesus comes.
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And instead of anything regarding maybe saying some kind words or something like that,
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Jesus doesn't come and preach. Jesus comes to the cave, comes to the tomb, and he says, remove the stone.
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Now, immediately, let's just, we all know what's happening. We all know what's going to happen.
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So it's really easy for us to skip over these things and miss, I think, some of what the original authors, the original author intended to communicate and what some of the original readers would have thought.
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I mean, what kind of a person comes to a freshly sealed tomb?
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The interment's already taken place. The prayers of the Jewish people and the mourning rites have already taken place.
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And you come along and you say, remove the stone. That'd be like someone coming after the funeral is over and going to the graveside.
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And the casket's already been buried. And say, remove the headstone, dig it up, take it back out.
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What an amazing thing. What were people thinking? Well, we know that Martha, dear, beloved
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Martha, Martha of the details.
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If we were going to come up with a name for her, Saint Martha of the details. Maybe that's what we would call
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Martha. She said to him, so I can't prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I just have a feeling, knowing most ladies and how they approach issues like this, that she did not call out from across the crowd to Jesus and say this.
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Okay, Lord, by this time there'll be a stench. I don't think she did that. I think she's right next to him and probably sort of doing the,
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Lord, it's the fourth day and there will be an odor. Now, it's a fully understandable concern, but I don't know.
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I sort of sit there and go, don't you think Jesus would be aware of this? You know, obviously she has this conversation with Jesus, but really hasn't made the connection as to Lazarus is going to rise again.
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And we mentioned at the time of that conversation, she was a perfectly orthodox
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Pharisee, as far as her theology is concerned. It wasn't a part of the
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Sadducees. She believes in the resurrection. And that resurrection is yet future. This is part of the eschatology.
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And what Jesus is talking about doing is messing up eschatology and nobody messes up eschatology.
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Not about you. I don't even argue about eschatology, let alone try to mess it up. But that's what
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Jesus was doing. He was messing up the eschatology here because Lazarus is going to rise at the last day as all the faithful people who have believed in the true
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God and trust in him will. And so when Jesus says, remove the stone,
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Martha's not really tracking here. Lord, by this time there will be, yes, a stench and odor for he has been dead four days.
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For literally it says, for it is the fourth day. And we mentioned before the fact that there are a couple of references in Jewish sources to a common belief, wasn't necessarily a biblical belief, but a common belief amongst the people that the soul of the departed would stay near the body for three days.
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And then when they see the countenance change, that is the beginning of the decay of the body, the soul would leave.
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And so that fourth day was understood to be, well, nothing is going to happen after this particular point in time.
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And so Jesus says to her, and again, given the fact that later on it says he says in a loud voice that everybody could hear, maybe he says this to her privately in the same way that she has spoken to him.
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Jesus said to her, did I not say to you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? Well, you go back into the conversation that is recorded for us earlier and that wasn't recorded.
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There wasn't anything about the glory of God in the words that were recorded for us. But that's just another indication of the fact that what we have in scripture are what the author is intended to give to us.
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They are not MP3 recordings. They are not transcriptions with some kind of stamp on it that says
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I have transcribed every single word that was said between these two people between the hours of such and such and such and such. Some people want to try to force the biblical text into these types of parameters.
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It was never intended to have that kind of form. In his conversation with Martha, he had talked about believing and he had talked about himself as the resurrection and the life.
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But he had also at some point said something concerning seeing the very glory of God.
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And what would be the glory of God? Well, in this context, it's going to be the exercise of divine power by the
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Son of God. There is going to be a demonstration of the perfect unity between the
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Father and the Son. And isn't it interesting? We've talked about this before. But remember back in John chapter 5.
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One of the key elements there in John chapter 5 is the perfect unity that exists between the
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Father and Son. They are distinguished from one another. There is no confusing them. You're to honor the
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Son even as you honor the Father. The Son only does what he sees the Father doing. There is this unity that exists between the
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Father and the Son. And then we saw how that leads directly into the words of Jesus in John chapter 10.
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When he says, I and the Father are one, it's because if you're in the Son's hand, you have eternal life.
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If you're in the Father's hand, you have eternal life. The Father and the Son are unified and bring about the eternal life of God's people.
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Well, what are we about to see? We are about to see the Son pray to the
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Father, acknowledge who the Father is, distinguish himself from the
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Father, and then the Son will say, remember in John chapter 5, there is a day coming when the dead will hear the voice of whom?
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The Son of God. And those who hear will be raised up. Now you're going to have the same thing happening here on a small scale, as an early example of what will eventually be true on the worldwide scale, a cosmic scale in the resurrection of all the dead here is going to take place.
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And it's not going to be the Son off by himself. If Jesus had not done what he did in verse 41 in raising his eyes and praying to the
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Father, I think there'd be a problem here. But he prays to the
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Father. He acknowledges the Father and he acknowledges the perfection of his relationship with the
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Father, the unity that is theirs. And this is how we can see the glory of God in what is going to take place.
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Not just simply the exercise of divine power in the defeat of death. God creates life.
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He can bring back to life. But the real glory is to see that the incarnate
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Son of God has entered into his own creation. And as the incarnate
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Son of God is in perfect harmony with the Father and is accomplishing the
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Father's will, which will actually end up bringing the Son to the cross.
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This resurrection is not a detour from the cross. It's not a bump in the road.
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It's exactly on the road that God intended the Son to travel. And the glory is seen in this powerful one who can raise the dead, then giving his own life.
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Have you ever thought about the irony? How blind do you have to be to be
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Caiaphas, who knows that Jesus can raise the dead, but you want to kill him?
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Think about that for just a second. He can raise the dead. So let's kill him.
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You think maybe there might be a flaw in your plan someplace, Caiaphas? You think maybe there might be the possibility that something's going to go wrong with this idea fundamentally at the end?
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Well, as Paul mentioned to the Corinthians, if the rulers of this age had understood, they would not have done what?
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They would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The Lord of glory has to allow himself to be crucified.
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But they were literally blinded in a sense, and engage in a foolish action trying to kill the author of life.
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That's not something that's going to go very well on any level. So Jesus says to her, you will see the glory of God.
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So they remove the stone. Evidently, there must have been some young men standing right next to the tomb.
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And so when Martha gives the nod, says, go ahead, do what he says, whatever words were uttered.
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Can you again put yourself in the position of the people that were there? I'd be moving away from the tomb personally.
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I don't know that I'd want to be standing right there. You don't want to be between.
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What was the space like between Jesus and the opening of that tomb?
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I've often thought, what were the disciples thinking? They've sort of fallen out of the picture here.
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We don't hear much about them at this point. But they were there.
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And Jesus, remember Jesus just a few verses before was talking about, I'm glad I wasn't there for your sake so that you might believe.
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But which one of them or were all of them going, wow, this is really public.
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And can you imagine what would have happened if Jesus had stood there and called
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Lazarus forth and nothing happened? How long?
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Now, I've often wondered, how long did it take between Jesus saying,
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Lazarus, come forth, and all of a sudden you start seeing some, it's dark in there.
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It's not like there were lights or something. And I'm sorry, but given the description of him, he did not come bolting out of that tomb.
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Okay, so there was a time lapse. How long was it before you start, do
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I see something? Oh my goodness. And here comes, and his face is wrapped, and his legs are wrapped, and his arm, not easy to move.
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He didn't come bolting out of there. But what were the disciples thinking?
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As that stone is rolled away, are some of them going, we've never seen anything like this.
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And there's people all around. And if this doesn't work, I don't know what they were thinking.
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We're not told. We know they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said,
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Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I thank you that you have heard me.
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I knew that you always hear me, but because the people standing around, I said it so they may believe that you sent me.
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This is a truly interesting prayer when you think about it.
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It is a prayer that is explicitly stated to be for the benefit of the people standing around.
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And there's really no introduction. There's no end.
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It's just the brief statement, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. And I knew that you always hear me, but because the people standing around,
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I said it so they may believe that you sent me. That's not a huge statement of theology.
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There's not much explication of any of this. There really is the assumption that as people are going to hear these words, as people are going to be listening to what is said, even the people that were there, there's an assumption on the part of how much
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John gives us and what Jesus himself said, that these words need to be interpreted within the context of everything
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John is saying. If this doesn't give you the clear indication that you should not isolate passages of Scripture and try to come up with just something out of just one text,
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I don't know what would. Because there is so much assumption behind these words.
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You're supposed to have already read John chapter 10. You're supposed to have already read John chapter 9 and John chapter 5 and John chapter 6.
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You've got to have that background because if you had just been some guy from some other country and happened to be traveling through and said,
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I wonder what's going on over here. I'm sort of bored. I'm ahead of schedule. And you're staying around watching this. You wouldn't have had a clue what any of that meant.
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You wouldn't. Well, what does it mean? Well, when did the father hear the son?
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I mean, it's referring, it sounds like it's referring to some kind of past tense thing.
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And he expresses a confidence that there is always this idea of being heard.
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There is a perfect, uninterrupted communication between the father and the son.
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There's no sense of what we see so often in the
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Psalter. Why do my words go unheard? Why are the heavens like brass above me?
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None of that. There is an intimate, personal communion that exists between the father and the son.
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And the son has perfect confidence. I know you always hear me. I am aware of the reality of the perfection of our relationship, our communication, our fellowship.
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It has been eternally that way. And it remains unbroken. I think that when
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Jesus says, because the people standing around, I said it so they may believe that you sent me, this is the point.
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Why, if Jesus had simply rolled the stone away, Lazarus, come forth, would there be somehow a lesser element of this miracle?
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I don't think so. It would still be an amazing, incredible thing. But as I said,
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I think it's seeing the glory of God, and it's the unity, the intimate cooperation of father and son, which has been the theme all the way through the
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Gospel of John and will be to its end, that is seen in these words.
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Jesus says these things, and notice he says, so they may believe what?
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That I am the son of God? No, that you sent me, that you sent me.
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So this is another way in which there is a protection built into John's presentation that it's against any idea that Jesus is some separate deity out there doing his own thing for his own glory, anything like that at all.
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Jesus is doing what the father sent him to do. And so there is this prayer, and it is obviously meant to be heard by those around him.
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Verse 43, when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice,
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Lazarus, come forth. There was no stopping now.
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Once the words were uttered, and they were uttered in a loud voice, no one who was there could mistake what
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Jesus's intention was up to this point. He could have blessed
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Lazarus. He could have just simply said, I wanted the stone opened so that my great love for Lazarus could be expressed to him.
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I wasn't here at his funeral, and I just want to know, want everybody to know what a faithful servant of the
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God of Israel he was, et cetera, et cetera. But now the intention is clear.
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For many, there have been confusion. They don't know what Jesus said to Mary and Martha. They didn't hear him saying,
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I am the resurrection of life. They don't know why he's opening the tomb. Now they know.
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Now they know. And there is this silence.
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What's the disciple, what's Peter thinking? What's John thinking?
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Mary, Martha? Are all of a sudden they running the things in their mind that Jesus has said to them?
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Realizing now what he intended to communicate? Hoping against hope?
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Incredulous themselves? What are the Jews thinking? This is not how this is supposed to happen.
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All right, some of them thinking about the raising, the rare instances where someone was raised back to life in the
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Old Testament by some of the prophets. And there are those few moments where people are wondering, what's going to happen?
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Is it possible? It's interesting that in the original language, when it says come forth, the very next word is from the same root.
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And coming forth, the man who had died. And then the description of him, bound hand and foot with wrappings.
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And his face was wrapped around with a cloth. So it's not like he had been abiding his time in there.
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He was wrapped for his death.
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He had been wrapped. And so this is not how you help someone get better. You know, you don't wrap their face, the cloth.
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It's sort of hard to breathe. But it's okay if you're dead. No one really matters at that.
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They don't complain about it at that point. So here he comes out of the tomb.
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He ain't going far. Like I said, when you think about how the arms were bound and stuff, you could barely be moving.
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But what did that look like as slowly this figure comes into the light of day from the blackness?
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No one had ever seen this before. Everybody recognized the wrapping.
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Everybody recognized what it meant. Were there gasps?
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Were there screams? We're not told. Did anybody faint?
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I wouldn't be shocked. Anybody run away? Well, I don't know.
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All we're told is Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. And I can guarantee you the first ones to him were
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Mary and Martha. First ones to him were Mary and Martha. They're going to be the ones that are going to help him.
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They're going to be borrowing clothing and everything else. I mean, what must that have been like?
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We're not told. Did they go back inside the tomb to have some privacy?
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Did they? We don't know. Unbind him and let him go.
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And so you're standing there and you're watching this and you see the family rushing to him. And what do you say?
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How do you even react to something like this? If you don't know who
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Jesus is, you would think the natural thing would be, I need to find out who this is.
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What is this man all about? But all the unanswered questions, all the things we would like to speculate about, not a single word.
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Instead, what's the transition? Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he had done believed in him, but some of them went to the
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Pharisees and told them the things which he has done. Now, like I mentioned, when you look at verse 45, it is interesting that there,
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I think, is an intentional parallel here to what happened in John chapter 2.
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When Jesus changed the water into wine, there were people who saw this and seeing it believed on him, but Jesus did not believe himself to them because that faith was that point action.
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It wasn't that ongoing type of faith. And that's what you have here too. When they saw what he had done, they believed in him, but certain of them, and the them there would not be the ones who had believed, but simply of the
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Jews that had come to Mary. They went away.
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Now, it's interesting. Lazarus comes forth, they go away. Is that intentional or it's just a description of the fact that to go to the
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Pharisees, they had to go someplace else from where they were? Don't know. But certain of them went away to the
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Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Now, do we have warrant to automatically think the worst of these individuals?
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Well, in light of what ends up happening, I think we probably do.
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Because why else would they, I suppose on one level, okay, maybe you could have people that are just really, really religiously dedicated to the system of Pharisaic theology and worship in the temple, and so they go, you know,
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I think our religious leaders need to know about this. Let's go tell them.
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Okay, that's a possibility. But at the same time, you just have to go, what should be the reaction of any believing
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Jew to seeing death banished right before their eyes? I mean, these are people that have been looking for the
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Messiah. These are people that have been recognized that for 400 years, the voice of God has been absent from Israel.
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Something's going on. There should be rejoicing. Just as there should be rejoicing when
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Jesus healed the man with the withered hand. Ah, but it was the Sabbath, so that's a bad day to do it.
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Well, shouldn't you rejoice that God has given this grace to one of the children of Abraham? Well, now you've seen death.
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It's one thing for a withered hand. This guy was dead. New life has been given.
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Death has been defeated. What should be the reaction to that? What should be the response to that? If their first response is,
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I think the religious leaders might need to know about this, you might not have the right priorities.
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And it just seems to me that when John can so quickly narrate the event and immediately transition into what happens as a result, that this shows us that it's
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John's intention for us to see the resurrection of Lazarus as a part of what takes us directly into the end of Jesus' public ministry.
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That brief period of intensive ministry to his disciples in John 13 through really the high priestly prayer in chapter 17 in John 18 is a betrayal of Jesus.
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This is all a part of the same narrative that is being given to us.
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And the reaction of the very people of God to seeing
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God bringing new life should be very humbling to us.
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It should amaze us. In fact, it should be a warning to us that people that can have so much light can sin against that light and become so hardened that even when they see
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God moving in an incredible fashion, what's their reaction? Is it to rejoice?
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Or because someone's moved their cheese, they become upset. This isn't how we're supposed to be doing things.
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They go away to the Pharisees and they tell them what Jesus did, not what the
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Father and the Son in unity together did. But that Jesus guy is causing problems.
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He's sort of acting outside of your authority. You might need to be concerned about this.
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And we will see what the response from the chief priests, the
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Pharisees, and the Sanhedrin is this evening when we have the opportunity of looking at that text of Scripture.
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And so Lazarus comes forth and the Scripture mercifully and kindly does not tell us anything more.
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All of our speculations we have to keep to ourselves. Now, you could get to run up to Lazarus someday and ask, well, maybe.
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I don't know. I'm not really sure how things like that are going to happen. I don't think anybody else does either. Will Lazarus enjoy telling these stories?
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I don't know. Will there be a sanctified holy way of fulfilling these interests in the future?
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I don't know. But the Scripture doesn't tell us. We don't need to know. We may get to know as a privilege, but we don't need to know.
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All we need to know is Jesus did what he did in perfect harmony with the Father. And the glory of God was demonstrated.
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Death is under the control of God. And Jesus demonstrated that when he called
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Lazarus forth from the tomb. Let's pray together. Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for that day, the events of that day when the
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Son of God demonstrated himself to have great power in perfect unity with yourself.
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We thank you that death is an enemy that has been vanquished.
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We thank you for the mercy and grace that you extended in that instance that gives us hope for our own future.
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The Lord, as we consider these things, may we realize that Lazarus once again, a day in the future, experienced physical death.
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It was not that final resurrection that we look forward to. And yet, for every believer in you, while we face that physical death, that spiritual death, we do not have to fear because of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us.
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May that be the confession of each person in the sound of my voice. May you reveal the glory of Jesus Christ to each and every one.
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Draw your elect people unto yourself. Glorify yourself in these events as they've been narrated once again.