Raising of Lazarus: Sickness

In John 11:1-5, we see the introduction of a sick Lazarus. It is clear from the description that Lazarus was Mary's brother, and that Mary was the woman who had anointed Jesus with ointment and cleaned His feet with her hair. I know that Mary doesn't get a lot of verses of scripture allotted to her, but she really should have gotten more. How much love, humility, and devotion do you show someone by using your hair to clean someone's feet? Even when some groups do ceremonial foot washings today, we use hands, washcloths, and towels. We don't use our hair to do it (even for those who are blessed with an overabundance of hair)! Yet that is clearly what Mary did.

Lazarus' sisters sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was sick, and reminded Jesus that He loved Lazarus. When we read that today, we probably think that Jesus would know who He loved, so what was the point of trying to push Him in that direction? And yet, when we pray for our needs today, many times (or most times) we find ourselves doing the same thing. This is especially true if the situation involves something that could kill or destroy us, or take or destroy the life of someone we care about who we know is a Christian. Our prayers tend to be sprinkled with phrases like look at the number of lives the person has touched, look at their ministry and how much more they can do for you, or similar phrases, extolling the life of the person in trouble like God doesn't already know and could judge far better than us what the worth or future worth of our life or the life of someone we love actually is. Truly, God knows all of our needs (Matthew 6:25-34).

Jesus reassures the people who came to Him to let Him know about Lazarus that the sickness wasn't unto death, but that God's glory would be shown to all.

Raising of Lazarus: Delay

In John 11:6 we see that Jesus made a completely conscious decision to not immediately either go to be with Lazarus or to speak words of healing immediately without going. How many other times did Jesus learn of someone was suffering some illness or affliction of Satan and He simply spoke some words and dealt with the situation? This isn't a quiz, as I'm sure someone is going to research the answer and say n times - why didn't you just give a number? And I didn't do the research to give the number because the Bible itself says that Jesus did many other works that weren't recorded in the gospels (John 20:30-31). So we can't get an exact count, and He's been working through the lives of Christians and the Holy Spirit ever since His resurrection, so who knows how high the number is today other than God.

Regardless, He deliberately didn't act immediately, and He had a specific purpose or reason for that choice. I make this point clearly because sometimes the answers to our prayers come immediately, sometimes the answer is no because we are asking amiss (James 4:1-7), and sometimes the answer is yes but just not yet. This third answer was the one God and Jesus effected when He told the people that Lazarus' sickness wasn't to death, but didn't heal Lazarus immediately, and intentionally delayed until Lazarus was dead before proceeding.

I'd like to also point out that although it took some time for the messengers to reach Jesus, just as it took some time for Jesus to travel back to Bethany once He decided it was time to go, either the sickness was very quick moving or the sisters and friends of Lazarus had waited until the very last minute to try to contact Jesus. How often do we wait until things are at their very worst before praying about something? How many times could God have changed circumstances in our life or improved our health with less effort if we had humbled ourselves to ask earlier rather than relying on our ability to change our own circumstances or modern medicine to do its work?

I want to be clear that I'm a fan of modern medicine. I'm very, very glad that we don't live back in New Testament times (or earlier). The garden of Eden might have been great if we lived in it and didn't sin, but after that, disease and tough living were the norm for millennia. That is still true for most of us. If you haven't been filled with the Holy Spirit, don't know anyone who has, or have issues with sin or something else that stands between you and God, then prayer (James 5:16;1 John 1:9) might not help you until you get right with God.

Sometimes God just knows best or has other plans for your life that might involve you dealing with modern medicine. Perhaps He wants you to be a witness to medical staff or someone in the hospital. Perhaps He knows your future if He does heal you, knows you are saved now, and just wants you to come to heaven while you can. You never know. But if you pray, and God doesn't heal you, then don't be afraid to seek out modern medicine. It's can be very expensive but they have come a long way since the early days of medicine. And maybe it's what God wants you to do.

But I also firmly believe that Christ came to empower believers through the Holy Spirit to change their world to bring glory to God. We need to pray for each of us to have a greater unity with God so that God's works can be done through us via the Holy Spirit and we can testify to the effects of the prayer of righteous people (James 5:16) or acts of divine healing through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:9,28).

This in no way limits God from doing whatever He wants to do without us. I'm not saying that nothing will happen without a believer involved. But it is so much better if something happens and a believer has been used to effect it and can testify immediately to the power of God to those who have witnessed it. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, and indeed the baptism of the Holy Spirit, was given to give that power to witness (Acts 1:8).

Raising of Lazarus: Death

John 11:7-15 records what went on when Jesus said it was time to go to take care of Lazarus. The disciples were rightly worried because the Jews had just tried to stone Jesus and they were afraid they'd try again. Jesus pointed out that there was no point in delaying. In a physical sense, there was no reason to try to sneak into Bethany under cover of darkness to avoid being seen by His enemies. It was better to travel in the light where you could see where you were going, but also so you were less likely to suffer at the hands of robbers or others.

On a spiritual note, he is also saying that our lives are carried out in light, and when we are dead, we aren't able to go from place to place and do work. That there is a spiritual side to it is clear because Christ immediately says to the disciples that Lazarus was sleeping and Jesus needed to go awake Lazarus from sleep.

The disciples took this to mean that Lazarus was better and wanted an excuse to not go face the wrath of the Jewish leaders so soon. But Jesus had to let them know that Lazarus had died, and that Jesus was glad that Lazarus had died. They probably thought that that was an insensitive comment - not politically correct and all speaking so of the dead who was your friend after all.

But Jesus meant that if He had gone immediately to Lazarus' side while Lazarus was alive, Mary would have requested Jesus to heal Lazarus, would have been mad if He didn't, would have been horrified if Jesus had simply let Lazarus die and be buried with all the work and expense that that involved and then resurrected Lazarus. No, staying away was the only way for this to happen to provide a recent proof in the mind of everyone who mattered that someone could be dead and buried for three days and be resurrected whole. The entire episode elapsed as it did to help give proof of His eventual death and resurrection, but they wouldn't see that yet.

After Jesus made the decision, Thomas told the rest of the disciples, let us go with Jesus and let us all die together. That sounds like someone with no faith (unless I see... John 20:24-27), but how many of us today are just like Thomas? Unless God does this for us right now so that we can see it happen with our own eyes, we aren't going to believe. There are so many people out in the world who take that attitude. Even if they hear of something miraculous that has happened, unless it can be reproduced on demand when they want it, they refuse to believe.

Maybe they've asked God for something at some point in time and He didn't come through like they thought He would or didn't answer at all. So they've given up believing. Thank God for Jesus response to Thomas at the end. He came back and told Thomas to come, see, touch, and believe. Then He went on to say blessed are those who don't see something supernatural first hand but still believe (John 20:29). When God does something to change your life, testify about it. Don't hold back. Testimony is just like God's word. It never returns without making an impact. And your personal testimony is yours. You are a first person witness to what God has done in your life or through your life.

Raising of Lazarus: Faith and Resurrection

When Jesus arrived (John 11:17-44), Lazarus had died and had been buried for four days (one day longer than Jesus would stay in the grave). Many had come to comfort Mary and Martha. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she ran to Him, but Mary stayed behind in the house. This is a reversal of the previous time they were together. There, Martha was fussing about Mary paying attention to Jesus and her doing all the work. Now Mary is watching over the house with all the mourners and Martha is running to Jesus.

Martha makes a tremendous declaration of faith. She says that she knows that if Christ had been present, He could have kept her brother from dying. But she makes the further statement that she is confident that even now Jesus could ask God and bring Lazarus back to life.

Jesus says that her brother will rise again, and Martha declares she understands that he will be resurrected at the last day - at the rapture of the church (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). But Jesus makes a huge declaration that He is the resurrection and the life, he that believes on Christ will live, even after death, and will have eternal life, and asks Martha if she truly believes this concept. She declares her faith that He is the Messiah, although she doesn't really commit to believing how this might immediately help Lazarus. She does acknowledge God's full plan for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and through Him all other believers, though. After this, she goes and tells Mary privately that Jesus is nearby and wants to see her.

When Mary heard from Martha that Jesus wanted to see her, she immediately left the mourners and went to see Jesus. When the people who were with her mourning saw her quickly leave, they followed her thinking she was going to the grave to mourn. When Mary arrives, she flat out tells Him that if He had been there, none of this would have happened and she broke down in tears, as did all those around her. Seeing her state, Jesus was of a sorrowful spirit in what He had had to put her through and He wept as well. I know that the verse delineations are arbitrary, but John 11:35 is marked as the shortest verse in the Bible. It has the distinction of showing the heart of God to those who are suffering, and particularly those who have had to suffer for the cause of Christ. Those who have had to suffer for the cause of Christ are always on God's mind. Every martyr, everyone who has been hurt or beaten or jailed for living or preaching the gospel message is loved by God and Christ.

If you don't take anything else from this passage of scripture, remember that Jesus wept. When the answer to prayer doesn't come immediately, or soon enough, or is no, you need to know that it still affects the heart of God when His children are suffering. I think that when God has to allow something to happen to those He loves to either make sure they get to heaven, or to prevent something worse in the future, or because they are caught up in a path of judgment on evil and have not listened to His promptings to go someplace else or do something else to keep the tragedy from affecting them, God is sad.

If we could see God's heart in the midst of all of our troubles and the world's troubles, we would say like the Jewish people who looked on Jesus, that God does in fact love us. He loves us in spite of all the evil and problems of the world. But having given man free will - both for evil to be done and for us to ignore His directions to save us from coming problems - sometimes He can't fix everything and we have to go through stuff He and we wish we didn't have to go through. And when that happens, I truly believe that God is just as sad as Jesus was with what Mary, Martha, and Lazarus had to go through.

Some of the Jews even had the thought to question that if Jesus had been present, maybe Lazarus wouldn't have died in the first place. Whether this was said with a truly wondering heart, or whether it was said to try to turn the people against Jesus is a question that only God can answer. They certainly didn't expect a resurrection.

But Christ asked to be led to the grave, and when He arrived, asked that the stone would be rolled away from the tomb. Martha, ever practical, pointed out that there would be an intense odor because Lazarus had been decomposing for four days already. But Jesus reminded her that He had told her she would see the glory of God. So they took away the stone from the front of the tomb. It doesn't say if there was a bad odor or not, but I'd expect there was.

Jesus prays to the Father for allowing this miracle in order for everyone who was around to know that Jesus was instrumental in what was about to happen. He ordered loudly for Lazarus to come forth, and Lazarus did, still bound in his grave clothes. Jesus ordered them to be loosened so he could walk freely and it was clear that Lazarus was made whole again, both physically, mentally, and in all other ways.

When I was younger, a speaker came to the church who recounted when he had led a group of kids down to Central America to do a missions trip. While in route, they came across an accident on the highway. First response units were there, and the EMTs were working on one of the victims of the accident, but there was one body to the side of the road covered with a sheet, already pronounced dead. They felt led to pray over this individual, and the person revived and lived. I heard the account many, many years ago, and that's all I remember of it. But God is still in the resurrection business. Those who don't want to believe in God would say the person would have revived anyway and God wasn't involved. But the EMTs had pronounced the person dead and covered them up. They probably didn't make a mistake. Christians were led to pray, they did so, and the person lived. You can believe in God and change your life to something better, or you can scoff. Scoffers don't end up in a good place if they scoff too long.

Raising of Lazarus: Good Consequences

The account doesn't really dwell on the good consequences of this miracle. Clearly, the outcome was good for Mary and Martha. Lazarus came back to life and was healed to boot. I can't say how Lazarus felt about the whole situation. To go from the paradise compartment of sheol where he'd been in fellowship with all the righteous dead from all of the earth's history back to earth to face the rest of a difficult life must have been quite a shock to the system. Possibly, God even gave Lazarus a choice about what he would do, and Jesus was waiting to return to Bethany until the Holy Spirit communicated the will of the Father to Him.

Regardless, John 11:45 states that many did turn to Jesus and fully believed on him due to this one miracle. As I said earlier... be filled with the Spirit and be willing to be used of the Spirit. Just realize that if you start raising people from the dead or have a significant healing ministry, you're going to get noticed. And praise God for that.

Raising of Lazarus: Bad Consequences

But realize, that people who are used of God also get negative attention. In the remainder of the chapter, John 11:46-57, we see the Jewish officialdom turn even further against Christ. They were afraid that the people would turn to Christ fully, and they would become unnecessary. The Romans might deem them unnecessary and eliminate their religion if nobody was following the Jewish leaders anymore. Caiaphas prophesied that it would be better for Jesus to die rather than allow this to happen. From that time on, they actively sought out ways to have Jesus killed, and Jesus stayed out of their way until the time was right.

We think of Paul and his orders to go out and harass the Christians, but really, it started with Caiaphas in these verses with a commandment that anybody who knew were Jesus was should tell them so they could take him. They knew that Passover was coming and wondered if Jesus would show himself at that time so He could be taken.

If you stick out as a Christian in this world, whether in a Christian country, or a country where Christianity is forbidden and its followers are rounded up for reeducation or death, you know you will be noticed. All that I can say is that you will stand in good company when you get to heaven.

Making a difference for Christ is just as important today as it was in Roman times. There are those who hate Christians just as much today as the Jewish leaders hated Christ in His day. But I also know that taking that stand for Christ, wherever you are at, is just as important today as it has ever been. The hatred for Christianity is just as strong. Just this weekend, a suicide bomber killed 20 and injured more at a church in Syria. The bomber and the church members probably face an entirely different eternity (and I only say that because only God knows the hearts of the people who were attending the church service).

There are far more people who are lost today than lived in the time of Christ, and the means of reaching each one is so much easier today than it was then. The population of the entire planet at the turn of the millennium of Christ's time (1 CE) was around 255 million people according to Google anyway. Today, there's about 8 billion more people (2025 estimate). Only around one-third of those claim to be Christian, and of those who are, how many truly are? There is truly much work to be done.