John 11:1-27--I am the Resurrection and the Life

John 11
English Standard Version

The Death of Lazarus
11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 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.”

5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 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 this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

I Am the Resurrection and the Life
17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

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Again, a lot of time has been skipped since the last set of passages when we saw Jesus in the Temple for the celebration of Hanukkah, but now it is nearing the time of the Passover (the Feast that is being mentioned at the end of this chapter).  Jesus and His disciples have stayed away from Judea and specifically Jerusalem for the most part, but now events are going to happen that are not only going to bring Jesus back--but on His timing still.

We open this chapter with a little background of who Lazarus is and why his family was so important to Jesus.  We hear more about Mary and Martha in other gospels, but John has felt little need to talk about them until now.  All that the message needed to say was "Lord, he whom loves you is ill" and Jesus knew they were talking about Lazarus.  The story then takes a strange turn as we would normally expect Jesus to immediately go to Lazarus to heal him or to simply speak from a distance and tell the person to have faith that Lazarus would be made well, but we don't see that.  Jesus just proclaims that the end of this illness will not be death, but that it's happening so that the Father and the Son might be glorified through it.  This sounds similar to what Jesus said just a few chapters ago about the blind man who had mud put on his eyes and was told to go wash in the pool of Siloam.  Jesus said that neither that man nor his parents sinned to cause him to be born blind, but that it happened so that He might be glorified.  So, we are expecting something big to happen in the same vein as the reaction to man born blind receiving his sight where people would say things like, "We have never seen anything like this before."  Truly what Jesus is about to do is something that has never been done before.

Jesus remains where He is for two more days after hearing the message until He decides that it is time to go to Judea (the town of Bethany is close to Jerusalem and we'll see that there are many Pharisees and teachers of the Law that were friends with Lazarus).  The disciples feel the need to remind Jesus about how things went the last few times He was in that area and that the Jews are still seeking to kill Him, even though it's been several months.  Jesus then gives them a strange answer to their questions referring to only 12 hours of daylight and those who walk in the daylight not stumbling because they can see clearly.  This is Jesus trying to hint to His disciples that His time is limited and He must go now while there is still time left and the whole plan has been revealed to Him and He's still in control of the situation and He knows it is perfectly safe for them to go to the funeral, but He's also pointing out something spiritual here that it is those who walk in darkness (like the Pharisees) who are going to stumble over what is about to happen.

Jesus is then clear with the disciples that Lazarus is not just "asleep" as He had used this idiom to indicate the death of the body, but not the death of the soul and He says more clearly that Lazarus was dead and that they must go the funeral and Jesus makes another strange statement that He is glad for their sakes that they were not there at the time that Lazarus was sick or immediately at the time of his death as Jesus wants something to happen that will help them believe.  Thomas, who a lot of us know as Doubting Thomas because of what he says after the Resurrection, is shown to be a pessimist (though maybe some would call him a realist).  Let's not miss what Thomas says though--though Thomas is almost certain that if Jesus goes to Jerusalem He will die (no doubt because Jesus has been telling them this for quite some time), Thomas says that they too should go with Jesus so that they too may die with Him.  This is not simply Thomas trying to be a "Debbie Downer," but he's speaking out of great loyalty.  It seems that there may have been some discussion among the disciples about if it was safe for them to go and if they should stay behind and Thomas seems to say "Where He goes, I go, even if that that means where He dies, I die."  We'll see Simon Peter make such a confession later and he usually gets praised for it, but I think this is probably Thomas's own way of making a similar proclamation.

By the time that Jesus gets to Bethany with His disciples, Lazarus had been dead and in the tomb for four days.  Why would Jesus wait so long?  Maybe He wouldn't have gotten there before Lazarus died if He had left as soon as He heard the message, but there's something bigger going on here.  The Jews had this belief that the soul hung around the body for a few days after death and wouldn't depart for heaven or hell until the third day.  By Jesus waiting this long, people will know that there's no chance of this being something where people simply thought Lazarus died, but he was just in a coma.  He was really dead, and everyone there knew it.

When Jesus gets to Bethany he finds that many of the Jews are there comforting Mary and Martha, the more prominent and wealthy the person, the larger the funeral and the more mourners there would be.  Martha hears that Jesus is nearby and she runs to meet Him as she wants to have a private conversation with Him away from everyone else.  Mary however remains in the house, probably feeling more hurt and betrayed and maybe just seeking to mourn alone in peace because wherever Jesus went there was a crowd.  Neither reaction is necessarily wrong and both of them will respond in faith in time, but we see that each one has their own way of processing the death of their brother and the grief they are dealing with and that Jesus is going to meet each of them where they are at and speak to them as individuals.

Martha meets Jesus and seems to be upset about Jesus' delay.  She is convinced that if Jesus just would have been there a little sooner then everything would have ended differently and she would not be in the middle of a funeral for her brother, but then she makes a most profound statement of faith--"But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you"  This is really amazing, and we just normally read right over it.  Stop and dwell on that for a second.  Would you be able to say something like this to Jesus in the midst of such pain and suffering?  I'm not sure that I would be able to.

Jesus immediately responds to her statement of faith by promising her that her brother will rise again.  She believes that Jesus is just simply talking about the resurrection of the dead to eternal life on the last day, not imagining that the thig that Jesus is going to ask for is the very thing that she wants--to have her brother back from the dead.  Jesus then makes the I AM statement that I used to title today's article, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”  Notice that Jesus wants to make sure that Martha understands eternal life is something that is found only in Him.  She again responds with a great statement of faith, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

I'm still not sure that Martha has any idea what is about to happen next.  This gives us some context for what is going to happen next, and it shows us that even though Jesus knows what is going to happen He still grieves when others grieve, and I'm sure that His humanity also grieved at the loss of His friend.  We'll talk about the grief as well as the greatest of all the seven signs in the gospel of John next time.