Victory Over Death [John 11]

Victory Over Death (John 11)

The timeframe is between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Passover when Jesus would become the Lamb of God, the acceptable sacrifice that would take away the sins of the world. Jesus was "hiding" from the Jews over in the area where John the Baptist had been baptizing. Crowds were coming to him and seeing the miraculous and believing in Him.

His friend Lazarus got sick and his sisters sent word to Jesus while He was hiding from the Jews -- "Sir, you should know that your friend lies ill." He and his sisters lived in Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem where Jesus had been at the Feast of Tabernacles declaring Himself the Son of God while torches were being juggled in the background.

The Feast of Tabernacles is typically towards the end of September. Passover is typically early April. Sometime during this six months Lazarus died. And Jesus was out and about doing the miraculous.

John 10:40-42 Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Here he stayed and many people came to him. They said, "Though John never performed a miraculous sign, all that John said about this man was true." And in that place many believed in Jesus.

What did John say?

John 1:29 "Look, the Lamb of God , who takes away the sin of the world!

Psalms 69:6

May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, the LORD Almighty;

may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel.

In this account of what Jesus did, there are four voices to look at: Martha, Mary, Lazarus, and Caiaphas.

MARTHA

Probably the oldest of the sisters, she was the matriarch of the family. She made sure things got done.

Her brother died. What did she say to Jesus?

At another event in these friend’s lives, Mary was at the feet of Jesus listening and Martha was getting the work of the meal done. She complained to Jesus.

Luke 10:38-42 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

41 "Martha , Martha ," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

So -- what did she say to Jesus after her brother had died?

John 11:21-22 "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

John 11:24 Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

John 11:27 "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

And at the tomb

John 11:39 "But, Lord," said Martha , the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."

Martha is a pragmatic religious woman. She knew the hope in tomorrow but not necessarily the practical or impractical application of that hope for today. She believed, but...

John 11:40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

That statement by Jesus was directed at Martha. We could take that exact statement and send it out into the distant tomorrow with all sorts of prophetic fulfillment that we have yet to see but know will come sometime. Meanwhile, the stone was blocking the tomb in the today and her brother was dead. But Jesus was about to show something different than hope deferred..

MARY

Mary had what some would call a checkered past. And there is some confusion as to the Biblical account in John 11 when Mary is identified as the woman with the perfume. Was this referring to the account in the next chapter or to a past event. Also, in the Gospels, there seem to be varying accounts connected with perfume on Jesus..

Luke 7:36-39

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. 37 When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume , 38 and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is-that she is a sinner."

If the account in Luke is the same woman as Mary, one can understand the devotion she had for Jesus. This same action was done, according to John, by Mary during this time just before the Passover when Jesus was crucified (see John 12)..

Anointing oil was most commonly used on a person’s head -- a time of celebration, festivity -- not a time of mourning or death. That is another type of anointing.

Mary’s emotions come out

When Lazarus died, she stayed home. Martha went to find Jesus. But Jesus called for Mary as He came near.

John 11:28-32 And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Emotional Mary said the same thing as Martha did to Jesus -- "If you had been here..." Both Martha and Mary had learned many things from Jesus; many of the same things. But they apparently did not understand what Jesus had taught. They had not understood that He is the resurrection and the life. When the disaster hit them, their faith was only for the future unrealized. Can you relate? I can. I believe, but...

LAZARUS

Lazarus was dead. As such he didn’t have much to say. And he had been dead for four days. There is a Jewish tradition that has it that the soul of a person hangs around the body for about three days in the event it can go back into the body. Jesus waited for the fourth day to make sure everyone knew without a doubt that He was dead.

I can fairly safely say Lazarus did not ask Jesus to be raised from the dead. There is a chance that he was just starting to enjoy where he was. Do you think later on he might have asked Jesus why he couldn’t just have stayed there? But the command in a loud voice from the Son of God was heard -- and he obeyed. Did he have a choice?

But you still don’t hear any words recorded from him. Yet, his "voice" may have been the loudest. How often do you get to see a living, breathing, and talking dead man?

John 12:9-11 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, 11 for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.

They wanted to kill a formerly dead man because he wasn’t dead anymore. That is a loud voice.

CAIAPHAS

One more voice in this account should be of interest. That voice belongs to Caiaphas, the high priest.

John 11:49-53 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

Caiaphas is not new on the scene. He was around when John the Baptist was preaching in the wilderness and telling about the Lamb of God.

Luke 3:2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert.

He was the key instigator in the plot against Jesus and is the one Judas went to to betray Jesus. And he was very political.

Matthew 26:3-5 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. "But not during the Feast," they said, "or there may be a riot among the people."

But during the situation around the resurrection of Lazarus, Caiaphas was prophesying. That means he was being used as a spokesman for God. This is difficult for us to deal with. We tend to think that prophets in our lives are super holy spiritual types. Caiaphas was not. He was simply in the right location at the appropriate time. This messes up a lot of our preferred teaching. But Caiaphas was not the first. "unsaved" person to declare the word of God.

Saul, the first king of Israel, was prophesying with the prophets.

1 Samuel 10:11 When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets , they asked each other, "What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets ?"

And earlier there was Balaam. Even his donkey spoke the word of God in Numbers 22.

Did unbelieving Caiaphas actually believe? He had the evidence. This Jesus was going around doing remarkable miracles. And now a dead man was raised from the dead. It is difficult to kill someone who has power over death. And Caiaphas must have believed that Jesus could rise from the dead or else why would he want guards around the tomb of Jesus. He believed more in the resurrection than the disciples because he took action. But this JESUS AS LORD thing was more than he could stomach.

FOUR VOICES

Four distinct voices can be associated with this account of the resurrection of Lazarus.

-- Martha the pragmatist with her statement, "If only you had been here, Jesus."

-- Mary the emotional with her statement, "If only you had been here, Jesus."

-- Lazarus the dead, but now alive. (Did he say, "If only you had left me alone"?)

-- Caiaphas the High Priest spoke the very word of God. "One man will die for the nation."

But what did Jesus say?

John 11:4 When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

Even after almost three years of teaching by Jesus, his disciples did not understand. And the healing again, was for the purpose of glorifying God’s Son.

John 11:14-15 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

Again, what was going to happen -- the miraculous -- so that they believe in the Son of God.

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

The resurrection of Lazarus showed the authority Jesus had. The resurrection of Lazarus shows exactly what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he said "believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead."

The resurrection of Lazarus showed the human emotion side of the Son of God -- the Son of Man. He cried. He wept. He cared.

John 11:41-44 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

I SAID THIS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PEOPLE STANDING HERE, THAT THEY MAY BELIEVE THAT YOU SENT ME. This was the purpose for the resurrection: belief in Jesus as the Son of God.

Four statements:

-- Unbelief expressed by a pragmatic believer.

-- Unbelief expressed by an emotional believer

-- A resurrection of a man dead for four days.

-- A false High Priest prophesying.

What statement would it take to convince you to believe that Jesus is the Son of God -- the Lamb of God -- who will take away the sins of the world? John has been writing down the evidence for us.

Soon after the resurrection of Lazarus, Jesus would be coming into Jerusalem with the celebration that is usually reserved for the Feast of Tabernacles. We call it Palm Sunday. The people were crying out Hosanna but Caiaphas was plotting his murder. And Caiaphas knew about the resurrection of Lazarus.