John 11:17-27: I Am the Resurrection and the Life

Well, this is our last in the series on the I am statements of Jesus, where Jesus reveals his identity.

You may have been in conversations where someone remains pretty tight-lipped, and it's pretty hard to get to know someone when they're tight-lipped.

And yet Jesus isn't like that.

He reveals himself, he discloses himself even in the profoundest of ways.

And so we see that here in once again John chapter 11, 17 through 27.

John 11 · chapter mention

Jesus reveals himself as the resurrection and the life.

So here now the reading of God's holy word.

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Bethany was near Jerusalem about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him.

But Mary remained seated in the house.

Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this?

She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for uh revealing uh your word to us.

We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have disclosed yourself to us.

And Holy Spirit, we ask and pray that you would be pleased now to do a work of renovation in our hearts.

Lord, we ask and we pray that you would do a work of renewal within us.

And that your word would take root within us in new and ever-deepening ways.

We ask and pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, as you just heard the reading of this profound series of circumstances, I wonder if you notice something of the angst in this passage.

A close reading reveals that there's a lot of emotion here.

There's a fear, there's concern, there's frustration, there's a lack of patience, tears.

All these things are what illness and grief often bring with it.

And so in the broader context, Jesus is met here with the news from Mary and Martha.

And the news is that their brother Lazarus is ill.

And we're told that this family was very dear to Jesus.

They loved him and he loved them.

And they'd sent word to Jesus, and the hope was that he would come and that he would be able to heal their brother as he had shown himself to be able to do in other situations and circumstances.

And so they sent word to Jesus.

However, Jesus says to his disciples in his midst at that point in time that he was going to do something profound in their midst, and that this illness wouldn't lead to death.

And so he remains where he is for another two days.

Well, in the meantime, Lazarus goes from bad to worse, and he eventually gives his last breath.

Those from Jerusalem come to pay their respects and their condolences to Mary and Martha.

And when Jesus finally arrives four days later, he's met by Martha, who just can't help but express her disappointment that Jesus hadn't arrived earlier.

Jesus says to Martha, Martha, your brother will rise again.

She says, I believe that he'll rise again on the last day.

And Jesus says, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this, Martha?

She says, Yes, Lord.

I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

But then in her concern for Mary, she goes and she fetches Mary and she brings him to brings her to Jesus.

And when Miri arrives, she expresses the same disappointment, the same grievance.

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

And Jesus looks and he sees the tears in Mary's eyes.

And then he looks around him and he sees the tears in the eyes of those who were with him.

And he's deeply moved in his spirit.

And then seeing the tomb where Lazarus' body lay, he's moved to tears along with him.

Some of the Jews, seeing this display of emotion and affection, say, wow, how he loved him.

But others take the form of questioning, like, okay, if he could heal other people, why did he not choose to heal Lazarus?

Then Jesus, deeply moved, again comes to the tomb and he asks for the stone to be rolled away.

Martha suggests that this is a bad idea because his body had already begun the process of decomposition.

But calling upon the Father, Jesus cries out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

And miraculously, in clear sight of all that were present, Lazarus comes out, bound by the linen strips of his burial.

And Jesus says to him, Unbind him and let him go.

A remarkable demonstration of the power of God.

And yet we go on to read that many people seeing this believed in him.

And it's also belief that Jesus would have from us once again this morning.

Jesus would have you and I to know his identity as the resurrection and the life and to trust him.

And we see that primarily in three ways.

The first is that Jesus would have you trust his sovereignty over death and decay.

Jesus would have you trust his sovereignty over death and decay.

Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus to come and heal their brother in their fears of his declining health.

And it makes me think how many saints have called upon the Lord for healing?

The healing of loved ones with the same faith as Mary and Martha.

A loved one is hospitalized.

A loved one is taking the critical care.

A loved one faces some kind of illness.

And a cry is lifted up for this person for healing.

Many times over, God has chosen to extend lives through the collective prayers of his people.

We read it, King Hezekiah pleaded to the Lord to grant him longer life, and the Lord fulfilled his request, granting him another 15 years.

The Apostle Peter was in prison by King Herod.

Herod had already put James, the brother of John, to death, and now Peter's life was on the line.

But by miraculous intervention, he was led out of the prison cell by an angel.

And it was because of the prayers of the saints of Mary.

And so it wasn't long before Peter was knocking on the door of Mary, saying, Let me in.

God's done something miraculous here.

God is still doing that today.

Many of you can testify to that.

Whether it's cancer, whether it's struggles with other health, whether it's God preserving your life or an accident or some form, God is still doing this today.

And he often is pleased to do that through means, the means of medicine and other forms of treatment.

Now he doesn't need to.

Sometimes he bypasses means altogether.

But God has often granted such requests.

But when it comes to the mystery of why God chooses to respond to death and decay in some ways and not in other ways, towards some people and not other people, we're reminded here that his thoughts are above our thoughts, that his ways are above our ways.

Did God love Peter more than James to preserve his life from Herod?

No.

We're sure that he loved them both.

What we do know is that God always carries out his plans in the best interests of his people and for his glory, even if we don't fully understand the why in this life.

And that isn't to say that grappling with that reality isn't hard for us.

It can be really hard.

However, in this case, Jesus does both.

Jesus sees fit to extend Lazarus' life, but it comes in the form of a deadly delay.

Lazarus dies.

And it's that delay that causes these women confusion and deep disappointment.

Sometimes God may choose to delay an answer to our requests for his glory and for our good.

Do you know something about that?

Do you know something about his delay in answering your requests for mercy?

Here's what we shouldn't do in such times.

Don't equate his delay with his will to deny.

You see, God is not quite timing things right in terms of your apprehension perspective.

Don't equate his delay with his will to deny.

Faith is willing to fetch things from his hands, but it isn't discouraged by leaving them in his hands.

And so faith watches with hope until he answers in his perfect timing.

My friend, don't be quick to move on for the things you have asked from God.

Unless you have a clear answer, keep looking to the horizon for his intervention.

Your answer will come in his perfect timing.

And so Jesus would have you trust his sovereignty over death and decay.

Second, Jesus would have you trust that his life is at work in you and toward you.

When Jesus arrives, Mary and Martha meet the Lord with deep disappointment, each in their own state of grief.

Martha is a little more outgoing, she's more spirited, she's more impulsive and forward.

And so she comes to Jesus the moment she heard that he was arriving.

She's quick to come out and lay her requests before Jesus.

She's quick to lay out her disappointment to Jesus.

Mary, though, she's more reserved and inward and poised and quiet, and so she stays at home.

Perhaps it was out of a contemplative concern to situate herself in a place of familiarity, as oftentimes grieving people will do.

Perhaps it was a way of recounting memories.

Perhaps she was so dispirited that she couldn't bring herself to have the same enthusiasm to come to Jesus as Martha.

We don't know.

But what we do know is that she was, both of them were deeply attached to Jesus.

The hearts of both of them were filled at this time with sorrow and loss, disappointment and hope, all mixed together.

And yet each of them behaves in their own characteristic way.

Friends, grief doesn't always look the same.

I think this is instructive.

Being part of the church of Christ means that we will come across people who are grieving, and some will show grief like Martha, and some will show grief more like Mary.

But the thing to remember here and to see is that Jesus receives both of them in their own unique and characteristic way, according to their own inward character, and so should we.

The big thing above all is that they love Jesus and they know that they can come to him in their grief.

Likewise, we see that Jesus here doesn't get defensive when we express reverent yet honest disappointment at loss.

He sees beneath the hurt that we experience and looks to nurture our faith.

And so we see that nurturing of faith here in verses 23 and 24.

Jesus says to Martha, Your brother will rise again.

Martha replies, I know that he will rise again and the resurrection on the last day.

Jesus says to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

You see, Martha had a belief that God was powerful enough to raise the dead on the last day.

She believed that.

Here she was being asked to believe Jesus' goodness in the midst of a huge disappointment.

She had initially sent word to Jesus that her brother was ill and the high hopes that he would come and that he would heal her.

He would heal him.

And now, in his delay, her brother was dead.

I think Martha represents many a Christian who may never question a doctrine.

That's not their particular temptation.

They accept the gospel as true.

They're willing to confess the essentials of the Christian faith.

But when it comes to being in a particular position of or a particular trial or grievance, such faith is easier said than done.

And what that tends to do is it tends to have an impact on what we come to expect of God.

Have you ever noticed how disappointment can impact your prayers and your faith?

What can often happen is that our requests begin to take the form of generalities.

We want to keep things in the abstract.

They lose their specificity.

Why?

Well, because we don't want to hope too much so that we can't be disappointed again too much.

We believe we're in the company of Christ, but we begin to believe that we care more than he does.

And so we lose a sense of a real expectation that he'll fill the prescription when we make present requests for his mercy.

Is your faith grieved by disappointment?

Is it preventing you from boldly and specifically asking God for things today?

My friend, gain confidence before God once again by looking to Jesus.

Take another look here.

Do you see in this passage how his love is working to pursue Mary and Martha, pursuing them in the midst of their disappointment?

Do you see that he is more for their faith to grasp?

He's working for them, he's working.

And so we can trust Jesus to be the I am.

Don't trust your feelings.

He is trust him.

He is actively working.

And because he loves you, he never stops interceding for you day and night at the Father's right hand, even at this very moment.

Jesus is in heaven, ruling and reigning, interceding for you at the Father's right hand.

Now there are times when in his wisdom he will deny a specific request.

But that doesn't prevent him from answering thousands of others and converting your heavenly inheritance into current coin.

He has more life to impart to you.

Every Tuesday afternoon, as a staff, we we meet and we spend time praying for you, for this congregation.

Praying for various needs within it.

And then after that, we spend time recounting all of the answers to prayer that God has done.

And it's one of the highlights of the week.

To recount and to see just how God has been active in our midst.

Because we worship a living God, we have a living faith.

Jesus would have you to trust that his life is at work in you and toward you.

And then finally, Jesus would have you trust him for the resurrection that awaits you.

As we know only too well death is unavoidable in this life.

But when it comes to times of great loss, when we see others experience loss and even experience it ourselves, we're encouraged here to draw upon Jesus' tears for consolation and comfort and to go to his wounds.

Edward Shelito writes, The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak.

They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne.

But to our wounds, to it God's wounds can speak.

And not a God has wounds, but thou alone.

All other religions have an eschatology.

That is, they have a teaching on end times, what will happen at death, whether it be a reincarnation with Hinduism and Buddhism, or whether it be no life at all, as in atheism.

But only Christianity has a God who has wounds.

You may ask, what does it matter that God, our Lord, has wounds?

Well, it means he cares about your tears.

It means he has the greatest sympathy toward you in a world where decay and death were never meant to be.

He cares about your tears.

But it also means that he fights for you in the face of that death and decay.

This Greek word in verse 33 rendered deeply moved or deeply troubled by Jesus.

When Jesus is deeply moved or deeply troubled, it suggests an anger or outrage or emotional indignation.

A theologian B.B.

Warfield said it like this the emotion which tore his breast and clamored for utterance was just rage.

John helps us to understand that the external expression of our Lord's fury was markedly restrained.

Its manifestation fell far short of its real intensity.

What he's saying here is that Jesus was not only sympathetic toward the pain, he doesn't only respond to grief with sorrow, he also came to wage war against it and came to destroy it.

And so Warfield goes on to say this.

He says, the spectacle of distress of Mary and her companions enraged Jesus because it brought poignantly harm to his consciousness the evil of death, its unnaturalness, its violent tyranny.

He contemplates the general misery of the whole human race.

And burns with rage against the oppressor of men.

Inextinguishable fury seizes upon him.

His whole being is discomposed and perturbed.

It is death that is the object of his wrath, and behind death, him who has the power of death, and whom he has come into the world to destroy.

Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but this is incidental.

His whole soul is held by rage as a champion who prepares for conflict.

What John does for us in this particular statement is to uncover to us the heart of Jesus as he wins for us our salvation.

Not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe.

Jesus smites in our behalf.

He has not only saved us from the evils which oppress us, he has felt for and with us in our oppression and under the impulse of these feelings has wrought out our redemption.

When someone close to us suffers, or we experience the death of a loved one, what happens?

We want to show our sympathy for that person, right?

We want to show that we care.

But there's also a deep urge within us at the same time, the urge to want to do something to remedy it.

We want to be able to reverse the effects that are causing the pain.

The problem, though, is that we're powerless to do so.

And I think that's why, I think that's why sitting with someone in their grief can be so hard.

We feel that tension so acutely.

And it's like I want so bad to be to be able to remove and reverse the pain of loss that has come upon you, that you're experiencing right now, and I have nothing that I can do about it.

You see, to have someone grieve and console us is comforting, but it isn't, in the final sense, reassuring.

On the other hand, to have someone who is reassuring, but who lacks heart to sympathize with us is dehumanizing.

In Jesus we have both.

He is man, and so he has wounds and can sympathize with us in our grief.

But he is also divine, and so he came with power to defeat death itself.

Only Christianity has a God who will not only weep with you, but who has also gone to battle the death that confronts you.

And that is a glorious and staggering reality, is it not?

And so the Apostle Paul writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort that we ourselves have received from God.

What he's saying here is that in light of the cross, suffering and affliction have a place in this world of death and decay.

And being comforted by Jesus, we are agents of his comfort to those who face grief and loss.

And so there is a ministry of comfort at the bedside.

There's a ministry of comfort in the hospital ward.

Or when tragedy strikes, or when the fear of death is faced hit on in conversation between friends.

There's also ministry in the face of death and decay.

Because Jesus put death to death, we no longer need fear death.

She told him which songs she wanted sung at a funeral.

She told him what scriptures she would like to read and what outfit she would like to wear and be buried in.

She requested to be buried with her favorite Bible.

As the pastor prepared to leave, the woman suddenly remembered something else.

There's one more thing, she said excitedly.

What's that?

said the pastor.

This is important, the woman said.

I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.

The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing quite what to say.

The woman explained, in all my years attending church socials and potluck dinners, when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, Keep your fork.

It was my favorite part of the meal because I knew something better was coming, like velvety chocolate cake or deep dish apple pie.

So when I when people see me in that casket with a fork in my hand and they ask, What's with the fork?

I want you to tell them, keep the fork.

The best is yet to come.

Now that's a bold testimony.

Thomas Brooks, English Puritan pastor, reminded his listener that for the believer, death not only ceases to be our conqueror, but death actually becomes God's meek helper.

He said, remember this: death does in that moment which no graces, no duties, no other ordinances could do for a man in his lifetime.

Death frees a person from those diseases, corruptions, temptations that no duties, nor graces, nor ordinances could do.

Every prayer, then, when we shall die, shall have its answer.

All hungering and thirsting shall be filled and satisfied.

Every sigh, every groan, every tear that has fallen from the saint's eye shall then be recompensed.

That is not death, but life which joins the dying man to Christ.

There is only one who has conquered death.

Jesus Christ.

Through Christ and the power of the Spirit, we have this life already in us.

And so when our bodies enter that final sleep, the sleep that after the dark of night brings forth with it a new day, we will arise to enjoy that new, glorious, eternal day.

In all of its fullness and beauty.

For you, Christian, death is no longer a doom, but a door.

A door to more of Christ, and therefore a door to unspoiled paradise.

This is the power and promise of the great I Am.

Let us pray.

Oh Father, we praise you and we thank you.

That you are the resurrection and the life.

Lord, who else would we come to?

You have the words of eternal life, and you are that to us.

And so, Father, we are so thankful that you have extended your comfort and your sympathy.

And yet not only that, but you have extended your very life for us so that we might be agents in this world of your comfort, of your care, and of the hope of the gospel.

Lord, we thank you that you are the source of life.

And so, Father, we praise you and we thank you.

Help us to be such people.

Help us to be such agents and to carry your name forward for your glory.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.