John 11:1-44

John 11:1-44
Theme: Jesus is God and He Tarries for a Little While

I was laughing the other day with someone who told me that he attended a church recently where the pastor claimed to have raised five people from the dead. I wasn’t laughing because I don’t believe that raising the dead is possible. (In fact, the Bible promises that Christians will be witness to such miraculous events as we carry out the great commission taking the gospel where it has never been preached). What I was laughing about was the casualness with which the preacher claimed to have raised five people from the dead (and I’ve seen it before). Almost as if it was in passing like, “it’s going to rain today and by the way I resurrected five dead people.”
I guess the reason I’m skeptical about those kinds of claims is not because I don’t think that it happens (I just said I do), but because I would think that, especially in this day and age of internet and satellite technology, even if one person were resurrected in some far off obscure corner of the planet, it would make world news. When five people are resurrected, that almost constitutes a tribe. It would be on CNN, CBC, Time Magazine and every local newspaper for weeks.
But in Jesus’ day, a resurrection in Galilee did not translate into faith in Jerusalem. The Judean Jews of Jerusalem were the worse skeptics. Jesus could heal the lame, turn water into wine, multiply enough bread from a few loaves to feed 5000 men and up 20 000 individuals, but all that gets Jesus in Jerusalem is the charge of blaspheme and the threat of stoning. Good thing they didn’t have tazers or Jesus might have gotten tazed giving sight to the blind.
The penultimate, definitive miracle of Jesus’ ministry that points to the indisputable truth of the fact that Jesus claimed to be and really was the Son of God is the resurrection of Lazarus because it proved that his miracles were not magic tricks but the power of God. Only God can raise the dead. It’s funny how after science fails and all the machines and medicines a put away, people still have prayer because Prayer has worked!

Questions About the Text
As I read this text, it raised some questions in my mind, For instance,
In v. 3 the messenger describes Lazarus as “he whom You love is sick…”- does Jesus have a special love for certain people?
I mean, the Bible clearly teaches that God loves the world (John 3:16). Jesus’ entire ministry is so bound to God’s universal love that it is hard to think of it occurring otherwise.
And Jesus commands us to be just like the Father when he says in the Sermon on the Mount,
…love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt 5:44 ff).

It would be hypocritical for God to command us to love our enemies while God himself hates them. But Jesus actually points to God’s example saying he causes the sun to rise and sends rain upon the evil and the just and we are to be like our Father.
That’s why we commanded to love our neighbours, because God loves the world. But does that translate into there being no favouritism with God?
I think not! In fact the entire story of the Old Testament is a story of God’s special love for a single nation out of all the nations of the world. When God said to Israel, “You alone have I known [means a special intimate relationship] out of all the nations” (Amos 3:2) does that mean that he did not love the other nations?
And then look at Abraham, why did God call him out of Ur of the Chaldeas and not some other Aramean star worshipper? And then there was Moses; God had something in mind for him at least as soon as his mother put him into the Nile where he was discovered by the daughter of the very man who was trying to destroy Israel. Or how about David, he was the least of Jesse’s sons and yet he is described as the apple of God’s eye and we know from the life of David that God’s affection for him had nothing to do with David’s righteousness.
We even see it in the New Testament. Why did Jesus choose Matthew the hated tax collector? Or Peter the Apostle with the foot shaped mouth? Why did Jesus only heal one man of his paralysis on Solomon’s porch while ignoring the multitude of others lame and crippled people? And don’t tell me that God chose Paul to be an Apostle to the Gentiles because there was something that God admired in Paul- Paul was trying to destroy the church.
We see it here in John 11. There must have been plenty of sick people in the city where Jesus was ministering and yet he left them to go to the one whom he loved. He knows his sheep and he calls them by name.
Does that mean that because Lazarus was the one whom Jesus loved, that Jesus only loved specific people and that John 3:16 is only an overstatement [at best] or is there a contradiction in the scriptures? And while John 3:16 uses the Greek word agape love and John 11:3 uses Philo love, I don’t think that it means that Jesus had a lesser love for Lazarus than God has for the world. The context implies that Jesus had a specific unique love for Lazarus.
This is not a contradiction! It’s true we are commanded to love our enemies and our neighbours, and I strive to do that. But even the good Samaritan, the epitome of sacrificial love for neighbour would have loved his own children or parents or wife more intimately and passionately than He did that wounded stranger. He would never have left his injured child with a stranger the way he did with the unconscious man –but he’s still the good Samaritan.
And God does the same thing, He loves the world –YES! He loves the Hindu, he loves the Moslem, he loves the Buddhist, he loves the pagan and the atheist and agnostic, he loves the new ager, he even loves politicians. And there is a way in which I could look anyone in the eye and say, “Jesus died for you” even if they never accept that truth.
But only those whom God draws to himself and gives the spirit birthing soul saving gift of faith can truly benefit from the broken body and poured out blood of Christ and receive the love of God as sons and daughters- his chosen people.


I have another question,
In v. 4, Jesus says that Lazarus will not die, but then he did die- did Jesus make a mistake?

Let me point out that being Jesus’ special friend-the one whom he loves- does NOT entail special favour. In fact, it may mean that he will use you for his own ends even if it means tremendous affliction.
All of the Disciples met violent deaths. And think the way that the Romans persecuted Christians: if you did not recant Christianity, they wrapped you in wax and lit you on fire to die a slow death. The Persians would carve the flesh of Christians and eat it in front of them.
Don’t forget the missionary Graham Staines and his two boys who were burned to death in their car by an angry Hindu mob a few years back.
What Jesus says about the one whom he loves, is what he says about those early Christians, and those faithful believers in Darfur and China and India and Surrey Memorial Hospital is that end of this affliction is ultimately not death, but the display of God’s Glory! When Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave, the power of God over death was gloriously displayed as a foretaste of the glory that we will all see when Jesus comes for his church, the one whom he loves!
But Jesus stayed for two more days before returning to Bethany and the reason he gave was that the time was not right. There are only 12 hours in a day and for Jesus (v. 9-10) that meant that there was a specific timetable and he would not be pressured.

Application:
Today is communion Sunday and I don’t want to belabor this text too much, even thought there is so much more I would like to look at. But let’s look at some application and make it relevant to the Lord’s Supper.
There are two perspectives we can take from this text; the first is the perspective Lazarus and his sisters- waiting for Jesus.
How like them we are this morning when we take the Lord’s Table because after we have taken the bread and the wine, I always read 1 Corinthians 11:26; it says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.”
Part of the reason we are taking communion this morning is because we are waiting! We are waiting for the promised return of our saviour. And we know that he’s faithful because he came for Lazarus when the time was right.
Maybe you’re waiting for Jesus this morning because you’ve been praying for a miracle and you’re wondering why he tarries. Jesus is not the butler in the sky, he comes when the time is right for him, but he wants to teach us something as we wait and it has to do with the display of his glory, so don’t give up.
That’s one perspective and it relates well to us this morning. But the other perspective we can take is the perspective of Jesus’ disciples, the people closest to them. Do you get the sense that they were a bit hesitant to go with Jesus back to the very place where only a few weeks earlier Jesus nearly got tazed:
“Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?” (v. 8).
And don’t think Thomas’s statement “Let us also go, that we may die with Lazarus” (v. 16) was an expression of faith. There’s a reason they called him doubting Thomas and for all of Thomas’s tough talk, he was one of the first to abandon Jesus the night he was arrested and the last to believe that he was raised from the grave.
We can sometimes be like that. Feigning a willingness to follow Jesus but hesitant to leave our comfort and only willing if we can do it our way.
You see, although Jesus is yet to return bodily at the end of the ages, he is ever present in this age to lead us and unfold his will for us through the Holy Spirit. But how often are we willing to do it his way?
I believe that God wants to bring revival to this church and I hear it from the members that they want revival to come…. But on whose terms? Do you really want revival to come to this church? Because when revival comes it comes like a burning fire and God purges all of our hidden sins and brings to repentance and a deep desire for holiness, prayer, the word of God, fellowship and evangelism. If you want revival in this church, be sure that you know what you are asking for- count the cost and follow Jesus –or be a Thomas and talk tough but when the real deal comes, flee into the night.





Appendix: Other question that come up which I cannot answer in this message:
v. 19 the Jews refer to the same group who tried to kill Jesus. Does their presence at Lazarus’s funeral indicate that he was a person of importance?

v. 22 to 25 Martha indicates faith in Jesus, but then shows her limitations when she does not believe that Jesus can raise him.

v. 26 Jesus is the res and the life is the key passage.

v. 31 shows he wickedness of the Jews who knew how to throw a religious funeral, but could not receive the one who gives life and takes it away.

v. 33 Jesus was moved and we see his humanity

v. 35 was Jesus weeping for the same reasons that the others wept?