John
11:17-44 (NIV) 17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had
already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less
than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to
Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When
Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed
at home. 21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been
here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even
now God will give you whatever you ask.” 23 Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know 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
will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by
believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes,
Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is
to come into the world.” 28 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.” 33 When Jesus saw her
weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply
moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then
the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them
said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man
from dying?” 38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the
tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take
away the stone,” he said. “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.” 40 Then
Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of
God?” 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and
said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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.” 43 When he had
said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 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.”
Lazarus has died,
and in John’s gospel we see how Martha, Mary, and Jesus cope with his death.
Martha copes with her loss with a vain effort of faith. She still has a certain
confidence in Jesus. She finds some comfort in His presence with them. She is
still able to hold on to some small hope that what she has been taught about
the resurrection is true. But she is struggling at best, trying to fight back
that terrible sense of despair and hopelessness that death so often brings.
Then Mary speaks the same words as
Martha, but with a different spirit. Here the words are not so much an
expression of slipping faith as complete despair. Mary doesn’t struggle. She
doesn’t try to hope. She caves in to the pain, the grief, the despair,
prostrate on the ground because she has been overcome by the devastating loss
of her brother.
Again, I think we
can sympathize. However we sought to cope we know what it feels like to be
beaten down by our grief, to lose the struggle to maintain our balance, our
composure, and our calm. And we know what it is to turn to someone, not because
we want or expect anything from them, but because we have got to turn
somewhere, to someone who might at least by their presence take the edge off
the sharpness of our pain. When Jesus saw her and the Jews who came with her
weeping, He was moved and the emotion ran deep. Then Jesus said, “Take away the
stone.” The raising of Lazarus is the last and seventh sign in John’s gospel.
The sign is not a message that condemns Martha and Mary for the reaction to the
death of their brother, but neither is it simply an act to comfort them by
restoring their loss. This is not a resurrection to eternal life. This miracle
is reviving a person to mortal life that once again would be lost.
The seventh sign is
a visible, living message meant to give Mary and Martha and all on-lookers then
and all on-lookers for all time to come a new understanding of death and of
life, and a new foundation for their faith. Now Jesus is going to show them in
an unmistakable way what He meant: place your confidence in me and not in the
finality of death. This is the work of death – to erode or even explode
confidence in God, and death had succeeded with Mary, Martha, and the crowd. At
the command of Jesus, in response to His call, Lazarus, the dead man, came out.
The God who creates life by the power of His word now restores life by the
power of His word. That is the confidence Jesus calls and commands and creates
in us to believe. Our body may decay in the ground, but our life is not beyond
the life-giving power of His word.
The revival of
Lazarus was also a resurrection of faith and hope and confidence in the minds
and hearts of Martha and Mary and at least some of the crowd. This resurrection
of confidence is more than relief from grief. It is more than release from
fears. This confidence is given as the foundation for our obedience to God. Obedience
grows in resurrection soil. Obedience is saying yes to the call and command of
God that gives life.
We are all called
to be Lazarus, to come to life at the command of Christ. That is the message of
the miracle, a message that no one guessed in their grief. Certainly death will
continue to bring pain to our life. The miracle did not even relieve Jesus of
those deep feelings of grief. Will this miracle leave a residue of confidence
and a readyness to respond to the commands of God that give us life? Most of us
are probably acquainted enough with our own mortal weakness that we are not
going to leap to a “yes” answer to that question. But perhaps a new beginning
can be made in the sincere and simple response of “Yes, Lord, I hope.”
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope March 30, 1986
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
No comments:
Post a Comment