Sermon on John 11:17-37, Jesus Is the Resurrection and the Life

I encountered Jesus at the age of 16, or maybe I should say I began encountering him. He was speaking to me through a new acquaintance at school, a guy who was challenging what I believed (I claimed to be an agnostic). This guy got me thinking seriously about what it meant to be a Christian. Then Jesus spoke to me through an evangelist invited to our church to speak to the youth. He told us how he came to know Christ. When he asked us to close our eyes and bow our heads for prayer, he asked if any of us would like to receive Christ, and if so, to raise our heads and catch his eye, then bow our heads again. I had this unexplainable nervousness at that moment, I literally got hot and sweaty. Something was urging me to raise my head, but I didn’t and the feeling passed. I felt relieved to get out of there. The main church service was next and lo and behold they had invited this guy to speak to the whole church. I don’t really remember what he said, but he gave an invitation to come down to the front if we knew we needed Christ, and I went forward. He instructed us to talk to Jesus and ask him for his forgiveness. I did. That was my first encounter with Jesus and it was life changing.

I’m sure most or all of you here today have had an encounter with Jesus. I’ll bet it was different than mine in many particulars, but that it was also life changing. There’s just nothing or no one like Jesus. To interact with him is at once the loveliest and most unnerving experience. You can’t be neutral toward Jesus. He evokes a visceral response, either you’re drawn to him or repelled by him. Every encounter with Jesus is highly relational, as if everything that is most valuable is relational, like relationships are the stuff of life.

Today we’re going to look at a relational encounter with Jesus and two of his very best friends, Martha and Mary. It’s found in John chapter 11 and, if you would, let’s stand for the reading of this passage from God’s word.

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles away). 19 Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.

20 As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

23 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.

24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”

28 Having said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

29 As soon as Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out. They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.

32 As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”

33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you put him?” he asked.

“Lord,” they told him, “come and see.”

35 Jesus wept.

36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?” (John 11:17-37)

 

I’m not sure if you have the same experience reading this as I do. But one of the first things I respond with is questions.

• Why doesn’t Jesus go to Mary and Martha’s house?
• Why does Martha leave and Mary stays?
• How did Martha hear that Jesus was coming, and why go to meet him instead of waiting for him to arrive?
• Mary was weeping, but was Martha?
• Is Martha complaining to Jesus? Is Mary?
• Why were Martha and Mary so certain Jesus would have healed their brother?
• Why doesn’t Jesus say the same thing to Mary as he said to Martha?
• What does Jesus mean when he says the one who believes in him will live even though he dies, and, in fact, will never die?

For context, we need to know that what preceded this encounter was that Jesus was far from where Martha, Mary and Lazarus lived, and he received a message that Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, was sick. The exact message was, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” The text then reads,

4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. 7 Then after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.” (John 11:4-7)

A discussion arises with his disciples about how dangerous it is for Jesus to go to Judea, that he could be killed there. Weren’t the Jews threatening to stone him. But Jesus asserts that Lazarus has fallen asleep and he needs to go wake him up.

Does it not seem odd to you that because Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, he delayed going to them for two days? So when he arrives Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. And this sets the stage for this encounter.

Martha, Mary and Lazarus had been living in Bethany, which was a short distance from Jerusalem, just over the ridge of the Mount of Olives just east of Jerusalem. A lot of the pictures you see taken of Jerusalem today are taken from that ridge.

We’re told that many of the Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary, a really wonderful custom in Israel for helping grieving people. But John calls these people Jews, which is his common way of referring to Jesus’ enemies. I know, it sounds strange, since Jesus was Jewish, as were his disciples, and all the other people involved in this encounter. But that’s John’s way of letting us know that these were the very people dangerous to Jesus, the ones the disciples had warned him about.

And this probably helps explain why Jesus didn’t go to the house of his friends, Martha and Mary. It would not have been a friendly environment to meet with them in. And because Jesus was kind of famous, people in the village would recognize that he was there and word of that would spread that he was there, reaching the sisters in their house.

Why does Martha leave the house and go to meet Jesus? Hard to say. Maybe she is the only one who has been told that Jesus is in the village. Maybe Mary is too involved in conversation with her comforters to break away. Martha is certainly eager to talk with Jesus and she undoubtedly recognizes that the mourners in her house are not friendly towards Jesus, so she goes to him. Martha has a question for Jesus, a deep concern, something she is having trouble understanding? You know what it is, “Why didn’t Jesus come earlier?”

You’ve had concerns about Jesus, haven’t you? You’ve wondered why he hasn’t responded to a need you had that you had asked him to meet. You’ve been disappointed, even deeply hurt, that he hasn’t rescued someone you loved from dying, or healed a relationship that was falling apart, or provided you with something you desperately wanted. Martha’s no different from you or me.

But Martha doesn’t ask Jesus “Why didn’t you come earlier,” does she. Instead, when she reaches him, she says,

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

Isn’t that a fascinating thing to say? “Lord, I know that if you had come here when my brother was sick, you would have healed him. Your love for him and your ability to heal him would have resulted in his recovery. You wouldn’t have withheld a healing hand from him and we wouldn’t be having this funeral. We wouldn’t be sitting in our house crying, missing our brother. But despite our brother now being dead and buried, I am confident that if you ask God to raise him, God will do it.”

I mean Martha had to know of the widow’s son over in the village of Nain whom Jesus raised from the dead as they were going to bury him. She had to know about the ruler of the synagogue’s daughter who died and Jesus raised her off her death bed. The same could happen here. She doesn’t ask Jesus to do this but just states that she knows he could. It’s an indirect ask, couched in a really extraordinary faith in Jesus. What’s kind of nuts is, even some of Jesus’ enemies believed he could have healed Lazarus. Look at verse 37,

some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”

You and I probably have that same faith. We believe Jesus can do anything. Nothing is too hard for him. But that is also a bit of the problem we have. Like Martha, we believe he could have healed us or someone we love, so why didn’t he. He’s done some amazing things for us at times, but there were times when, though he could have done something miraculous for us, he didn’t. We’ve had loved ones die, we’ve had loved ones or ourselves live with illness, we’ve seen marriages end, we’ve seen children go off the reservation. Why does he do it sometimes but not all the time?

At this point in his encounter with Martha, Jesus doesn’t immediately offer to raise Lazarus. Instead he seems to be giving Martha a consolation. He says to her, “Your brother will rise again.” What does that mean? Does it mean Lazarus will rise again in a few short minutes when I go to his grave and call his name? Martha doesn’t seem to take it that way. She responds, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” And that is the standard orthodox belief, taught in the Old Testament, taught by the Pharisees, denied by the Sadducees, but they’re the minority opinion.

But then Jesus says that strange thing. You’ve got to admit, Jesus says a lot of strange things.

Edwin Stanton was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stanton’s management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory. President Lincoln was also a lawyer who got elected President over Edwin Stanton, but Lincoln was more of a backwoods, less refined type of person, who had a folksy way about him. Lincoln loved to tell stories to make his point. In the movie “Lincoln” by Steven Spielberg, during a particularly tense moment in the civil war with much hanging in the balance in the war room, Lincoln begins to tell a story to address the tension in the room. Stanton, as soon as he hears it, gets flustered, “No, you’re going to tell a story. I don’t believe that I can bear to listen to another one of your stories right now.” And he stomps off.

I wonder if Jesus’ disciples ever felt that way about the odd things Jesus would say. They could leave you feeling confused, perplexed, or downright angry. This one was a bit outrageous (verses 25 and 26):

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

How do you process something like that? How could any man rationally or without egotism say, “I am the resurrection and the life?” But when Jesus asks Martha if she believes this, she immediately says,

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”

That’s it. If Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, then this is not irrational or egotistical of him to say. But it still leaves the question, what is it saying? Here is Martha, concerned about her brother’s death, wondering if Jesus would ask God to return Lazarus’ life to him, thinking about the resurrection that may not happen for a long time, meaning she and her sister will have to grieve the loss of their brother for probably the rest of their lives.

But Jesus is saying that when it comes to the believer to die, Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Knowing him is knowing the resurrection and life.  The one who believes in Jesus, even if he dies physically, will live spiritually. Everyone who lives and believes in Jesus will never die spiritually. Knowing Jesus is knowing life, and knowing the reality of unending life, and better than that, unending resurrection-quality life! Do we believe this?

What did Jesus tell the thief on the cross as they were both dying? “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus understood that when his spirit left his body at his body’s death, his spirit would go to Paradise, to the place Jesus elsewhere (Luke 16) calls Abraham’s side, a place of comfort and reward, a place at the time that was in Hades, the underworld, but where the apostle Paul tells us is now in the third heaven. We would say now that our departed spirits go to heaven, where Jesus is.

Lazarus was a believer in Jesus. Jesus is telling Martha that Lazarus is enjoying life, life in Paradise. Lazarus is not really dead. Yes, he is awaiting the resurrection of his body and the joining of his spirit with his resurrected body, but he is very much alive. And Martha believes this because she believes Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, believes that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. She doesn’t have to grieve, like Paul says (1 Thessalonians 13) as those who have no hope. She has hope.

Jesus tells Martha that he wants to speak to Mary, her sister, and Martha returns to her home to get Mary.  She wants Mary to have hope also. But when Mary gets up to go see Jesus her comforters think she is going to the gravesite, and they follow her to continue giving her comfort as she grieves the loss of her brother.

Apparently Martha has not spent any time telling Mary what Jesus told her. Mary also, at seeing Jesus, says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!” She and Martha must have been saying the same thing to each other before all this, and so they both say it to Jesus. But Mary is weeping as she says this. It doesn’t say Martha was weeping, and perhaps she wasn’t. These are sisters but they are two distinct personalities. They are uniquely different.

Jesus doesn’t say anything to Mary, like he did to Martha. He sees her crying and sees the Jews, those who oppose him, also crying, and he begins crying and he gets angry. That is the import of the words, “deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.” These words are always used elsewhere of indignation and hot anger. The commentator Meyer rightly says,

He was angered, then, at the Jews, when He saw them lamenting with the deeply-feeling Mary, and professing by their cries (of condolence) to share her feelings, whilst at the same time aware that they were full of bitter hostility to Him who was the beloved friend both of those who mourned and of him whom they mourned.

You can’t profess to be friends with Martha, Mary and Lazarus, but hate the one they love and who loves them. And you likewise can’t be a true friend and not be moved by your friend’s emotions of sadness. Jesus knows that he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, and yet he weeps with Mary. He didn’t weep with Martha because she wasn’t weeping, but he weeps with Mary.

This is the really cool thing about our encounters with Jesus. They aren’t copycat. Like Martha and Mary, we’re unique individuals, and Jesus’ interaction with us is always unique to who we are. We can’t expect that our encounters with Jesus will be exactly like someone else’s. Just because you speak in tongues when you encounter Jesus, doesn’t mean I will. I once had an encounter with Jesus that left me speechless. That doesn’t mean you should be left speechless in your encounter. Jesus doesn’t deal with everyone the same way. And so, neither should we.

Now Jesus asks where Lazarus is buried. But wait, isn’t Jesus God? Isn’t God all-knowing? Jesus shouldn’t have to ask. But this is a failure to understand how Jesus was living out being both God and Man. He wasn’t exercising his deity at all. That’s why, for example, he didn’t know when he was returning to set up his kingdom. Only the Father knew the time of his return. He chose not to access his divine knowledge. And when he did miracles, it wasn’t him accessing his own divine power, it was the Holy Spirit’s power he was accessing, as he depended on the Holy Spirit. That’s why to claim that he was casting out demons by the power of Satan, Jesus said that was blaspheming the Spirit and it wouldn’t be forgiven. It was the Holy Spirit who gave him, at times, knowledge that he couldn’t otherwise know, like that the Samaritan woman at the well had had five husbands and she was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband. Jesus was living in dependence on the Spirit just as we can and must. He was showing us how a human can live in connection and relation to God.

We know what Jesus did next. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He did not resurrect him, but we might say resuscitated him. Lazarus did not get an imperishable body, made perfect in every sense. Lazarus would die again some day. Jesus was actually the first one truly resurrected. And he became what Paul calls the firstfruits of all who will be resurrected (1 Corinthians 15). Unless we are alive when Jesus comes back, we will all see our bodies die and see our spirits go to heaven, waiting for the day when Jesus comes again and resurrects our dead bodies and rejoins our spirits to our bodies.

Why did Jesus delay coming to Lazarus, when he could have healed him and spared everyone who loved Lazarus the tremendous grief? He had a greater purpose for Lazarus. In this case it was to show Jesus’ power over death. Healing was powerful, but raising someone from the dead played an even greater note. Some believed that a person’s spirit hung around for three days after death, so Jesus waited four days to raise him. This was no halfway miracle, but a mighty demonstration of God’s power through the Messiah.

Our youngest son is a pastor in the Boston area. He recently preached through Romans. In Romans 8 Paul tells us that the sufferings we are experiencing in this life are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us. And that when we are suffering and don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit prays for us according to the will of the Father. He doesn’t always, or maybe even often, pray for the removal of our suffering. I can speak firsthand to that. He didn’t remove my suffering when I had my gall bladder attack and pancreatitis, some of the most unbearable pain I’ve ever felt. The Holy Spirit prayed for me to endure this suffering and even learn from this suffering. He wanted me to grow from this experience.

My son said God is asking us to trust Him in our suffering. God, he says, asks, “Do you love me, do you trust me, and am I enough for you?” “Do you love Me,” yes Lord, I love you. “Do you trust Me,” yes, Lord, I trust you. “Am I enough for you,” yes, Lord, you are enough for me. This is what He was asking Martha and Mary. His purpose for our suffering is not always to deliver us from it. When he doesn’t raise our loved one from the dead, we may not know what His purpose is, but we know His purpose is good. We love him, we trust him, and he is enough for us.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life. There really is no death, no spiritual death, with him. He will weep with us and our loved ones over our physical death, but rejoice over us in our spiritual life with him in heaven. He is life and to know him is to know only life. Your encounter with Jesus always leads to life. It always leads to the stuff of life, real relationship, relationship with Him. Have you encountered him yet?