28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So 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 also have kept this man from dying?”

38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

• John 11:28-44

This story is so rich—we will not be able to look at everything today. In particular, the moving display of Christ’s emotion (one of the most sensational details in the story) is something we will set aside and examine in our Christmas Eve service. Today, we will examine the miracle of the raising of Lazarus itself.

Three vantages of the raising of Lazarus:

• The onlookers
• Lazarus
• Jesus

The Onlookers

From the beginning of the chapter, the outlook for Lazarus has been dire. Jesus intentionally waits until Lazarus has died before He goes to Bethany. Lazarus has been buried for four days. The burial has taken place and the home of Martha and Mary are now full of mourners. When Martha summons Mary to come because Jesus wishes to speak, the crowd of Jews follow and witness the touching pathos of Christ as He weeps with Mary. John tells us:

So 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 also have kept this man from dying?” - John 11:36-37

How could Jesus have let this happen? We, the readers, know what Jesus intends to do. He has told us already (John 11:13, 23).

They do not say, “He opened the eyes of the blind…I bet He has power to raise the dead!” The foregone conclusion of the onlookers is: Lazarus has died and will never come back. The raising of Lazarus is the last miracle Jesus performs in John’s gospel before the resurrection. The first miracle was the wedding at Cana. There, Jesus steps in to perform a miracle just in the knick of time. They run out of wine and before the couple is publicly humiliated, Jesus transforms water into wine. Here, Jesus’ timing is too late.

The sisters had held out hope that Jesus would rush to their side when requested, but He didn’t. And so, their brother died. We don’t know what wrestlings and turmoil Mary and Martha experienced in those four days. The few words of theirs they share is: If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. We can only speculate what tone that was said in. The crowds, however, give us more insight into their state of mind. They look on and say, Couldn’t He have done something about this? If He really is so powerful, good, and loving…then how could He let this happen?

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” - John 11:38-39

Martha had assumed that Jesus was visiting the tomb just to pay His respects. You could imagine the shock and alarm that rushed over her at Jesus’ request. To open the tomb would be defiling it and everyone there (for inside is the body of a man, dead four days). To open the tomb would be painful and humiliating: to have to smell her brother’s body decomposing?

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. - John 11:40-41a

The fact that they obey Jesus’ command at this point is a remarkable sign of the authority Jesus possessed—what He is asking them seems crazy. Yet, they believe that whatever is about to happen, God’s glory will be revealed.

And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” - John 11:41b-42

When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” - John 11:43-44

Surely, the first flash of reaction in the audience must have been terror, not unlike a horror movie: to see a corpse arise, shrouded in burial wraps, and stagger out of a tomb would illicit cries of terror and revulsion. Yet, with Jesus standing there, the fear subsides and wild unbelief and terrible joy washes over everyone. Jesus has done the impossible already. He has fed 5,000 with a handful of bread. He has calmed storms. He has healed paralytics and the blind. But never has He done anything so powerful, so personal.

Death is that great robber baron who plunders us all, leaving us penniless and heartbroken—he carts off what is most precious to us: those we love. But to as see our Lord stop that great enemy in his tracks, walk back, and hand back over our dear ones; no other miracle compares.

What do we learn?

Do you remember what Jesus told His disciples when He first heard that Lazarus was ill? “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.” (John 11:4). It did not lead to death, but it did lead through death. Sometimes, God’s providence will lead you through the valley of the shadow of death. Into what is dark and perplexing and does not make sense in the moment. You may say, Lord, if you had been here, this terrible thing wouldn’t have happened. But this story teaches us that no pain or suffering is ever a pointless end in itself. It may lead through, but it does not end in death.

And then later, He told them that Lazarus was dead? “Lazarus has died, 15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe,” (John 11:14-15). Jesus is not glad that Lazarus died in itself. He weeps at that. Jesus loves Lazarus! He did not stop loving Lazarus when He let him die. But He is glad that through His miraculous power that will be displayed in restoring Lazarus to life, the Onlookers will believe and glorify God.

What do Mary and Martha (and the rest of the Onlookers) gain from Jesus’ decision to wait until Lazarus had died, rather than rush to his side and heal him from his sickness? They see Jesus has the power not only over sickness, but death itself. They receive their brother with a kind of joy they would not have had Jesus only healed him from the sickness and prevented his death. And so they now possess a depth of faith they would not have had, if Jesus had done what they thought Jesus should have done.

And so, in the face of all our tragedies and heartbreaks, when the story does not turn out how we thought it would; when God does not act the way we thought a loving, good God would act—we are invited to…trust not the Lord with feeble sense but trust Him for His grace, behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.

Lazarus

When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” - John 11:43-44

You have to love John’s dramatic insistence on how dead Lazarus was: nine times Lazarus is reported as dead. Lazarus’ entire identity is that of a dead man. Martha is described as “the sister of the dead man” (John 11:39). John doesn’t tell us Lazarus walked out of the tomb, but The man who had died came out.

Can you imagine what this experience was like for Lazarus? One moment, he is languishing in his illness, perhaps burning with fever or laboring to breathe, and he slips away. Blackness steals over him. Only to suddenly wake up. He has no idea where he is, how he got there, or what has happened…all he knows is that His Lord has summoned him. And he obeys.

Jesus is calling out to a dead person. Lazarus lacked the ability to obey Jesus’ command to come out. He was dead. He couldn’t even hear Jesus! But that doesn’t stop Jesus. He doesn’t walk into the tomb and perform CPR. He doesn’t give Lazarus medicine. He just uses words. Like He did back in creation of the world when He spoke “light” into the dark, and suddenly there was light! In the same way the author of the story can create simply with His words, Jesus, the author of life, uses His word: His call creates what it commands.

The raising of Lazarus is a powerful illustration of what our God does. He has authority over death: both spiritual and physical death.

Spiritually, we all are Lazarus. Dearly loved, dearly departed. Paul describes us before we met Christ as “dead in our sins” (Eph 2:1). “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved,” (Eph 2:4-5). We are alive in Christ, we obey because He summoned us to. And this grace that made us alive at the beginning of our faith, will carry us in spiritual walk. Paul goes on to describe that after our spiritual new life is granted, this power enables us to perform good works that God has prepared for us ahead of time (Eph 2:10). The power that brought us to life continues to work in us! If Christ’s call creates what it commands, that doesn’t stop at new birth. If death is not powerful enough to stop Christ’s call, then neither are your sins, neither are your weaknesses, doubts, uncertainties. You may struggle and fail and fall. “Though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again” (Prov 24:16). Why? Because Christ is there with His powerful word, summoning you to rise!

This reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in Tolkien’s Return of the King. Faramir has been struck by the shadow of death and is on the verge of death. Aragorn, the long lost king has returned; only he isn’t merely a conquering king, but a healer. He kneels next to Faramir, places his hand on his brow, and calls Faramir’s name:

Suddenly Faramir stirred, and he opened his eyes, and he looked on Aragorn who bent over him; and a light of knowledge and love was kindled in his eyes, and he spoke softly. ‘My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command?’

‘Walk no more in the shadows, but awake!’ said Aragorn. ‘You are weary. Rest a while, and take food, and be ready when I return.’ ‘I will, lord,’ said Faramir. ‘For who would lie idle when the king has returned?’

Physically, (unless the Lord returns) we shall die. But what would have death been for Lazarus after this event? He has already died! And He is loved by the One who has authority over death itself. And what is death to us? For those in Christ, death now becomes our servant, our means by which we are delivered from the pains of this world and translated into the glory and joy of another.

A Christian knows that death shall be the funeral of all his sins, his sorrows, his afflictions, his temptations, his vexations, his oppressions, his persecutions. He knows that death shall be the resurrection of all his hopes, his joys, his delights, his comforts, his contentments. - Thomas Brooks

Jesus

What would have been going through Jesus’ mind as He approached the tomb? In John’s gospel, this story is at about the halfway point of the book, but we are nearing the climactic conclusion of the story. As we will see in the following weeks, the raising of Lazarus will prove to be a decisive event in the narrative which will set in motion the wheels of Jesus’ death. Up to this point, the Jews have tried to kill Jesus twice (stoning attempts, see John 8:59, 10:31; cf. also 5:18). But those were immediate reactions to Jesus’ teachings. After Lazarus is raised, Jesus understandably draws much larger crowds, and the Pharisees and chief priests make the decision to begin plotting the death of Christ (see John 11:45ff).

Jesus’ death is the ominous minor key played at the very beginning of the chapter and at the very end. At the beginning, the disciples’ feared that Jesus would be risking His life by coming so close to Jerusalem when He just barely had escaped the Jews there in chapter ten who tried to arrest Him (see John 11:8). And at the conclusion of the chapter, we read of the Jews’ schemes to execute Jesus. Jesus knows what will happen, knows that this wonderful miracle will bring about His own death.

If you remember the first chapter of John’s gospel, some of the first words we hear Jesus speak are words addressed to His first disciples: come and see (John 1:39). Those words become significant in John’s gospel—not only because sight is a metaphor for belief, but the specific phrase “come and see” is immediately recycled by His disciples as an invitation to others to become one of His disciples, to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him. After Jesus invites the first of His disciples with come and see, we see Philip use the same words when speaking with Nathanael: “Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see,” (John 1:46). The woman at the well in John 4, whose testimony leads to many of them believing, opens her invitation to them with “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did…” (John 4:29). “Come and see” is the invitation to a life of discipleship. So, I was struck for the first time ever as I was studying the passage this week that those words appear again in our story, only they are not used by Jesus, nor are they given by a disciple of Jesus to another person to consider Jesus. They are given to Jesus.

And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” - John 11:34

When followers are told “come and see” they are being invited to see a person and told to follow Him. And then they are told that to do so will look like dying, giving up their lives. Why should they trust Him? Because when Jesus is told “come and see,” He is being invited to see a tomb. When Jesus is told to “come and see,” the sisters are speaking more truly than they realize: they are summoning Jesus to take up His cross, to die. Jesus will intervene. He will save Lazarus. But it will come at the cost of His life.

The similarities between Lazarus’ burial and Jesus’ can’t be ignored: a tomb, several days, burial cloths, a stone rolled away, resurrection from the dead. This story is here to prepare us for the far more stunning act of His own death and resurrection.

But we are also seeing a dramatic picture of what our redemption will cost. As Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus, He knows that in a few days He too will be placed in a tomb. As Jesus summons Lazarus to come out, He knows that by doing so He will take Lazarus’ place. And therein is the marrow of the gospel, isn’t it? The great exchange: Jesus dies so we can live.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Cost of Discipleship, tells us: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him “come and die.” When Jesus calls us to “come and see,” to deny ourselves, take up our crosses—He isn’t calling us to something He isn’t willing to do Himself. He isn’t summoning us somewhere He hasn’t gone. He goes before us and is the One who transforms death into resurrection.