Blood-Bought Disciples

The Death and Resurrection of a Man – Five Sermons

Part 5: “A Passover Prologue”

(John 11:45-12:12, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, July 26, 2009)

John 11:45-12:12 See page 898 in your pew Bibles.

What did the high priest say about the death of Jesus?

A: “It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” (John 11:50)

The problem and the solution (11:45-54)

It is one of the horrors of Nazism that the leader of the movement thought that his nation and the world had a Jewish problem, and that the solution to that problem was extermination. It is also a fact that many nations and groups throughout the centuries have come to the conclusion that the church is the problem and that it must be stopped at all costs. This is nothing new. Man has a nasty tendency to conclude that he has a God problem, and that God has to go. After the miraculous resurrection of Lazarus from the tomb, one of the chief priests of the chosen people of God came to the conclusion that Jesus was the problem, and that he had to be eliminated in order for there to be any peace and security in the Jewish nation.

The specific problem with Jesus was most recently connected to the amazing healing of this man named Lazarus. This friend of Jesus had died, and he was in the tomb four days when Jesus called him forth from the tomb alive. This was such an amazing miracle, one that was undeniable because of the large number of witnesses who saw this take place, people who had come to comfort the sisters of Lazarus in their time of loss. Many of the people who saw this believed in Jesus. Others were still opposed to Him, and they were deeply concerned, since this amazing miracle was undeniable. Certain leaders among the Pharisees and the Jewish ruling council expressed their concerns in terms of political stability, claiming that the Jesus movement would threaten the peace of the nation, forcing the Romans to come and establish a more severe order because of the following that Jesus was winning.

It was at this moment that Caiaphas expressed a position that was more profound than he realized. He criticized the others among the rulers who seemed to be captivated by their worries. To Caiaphas, the solution was self-evident. Jesus would have to be eliminated. He said to that group, "It is better for you that one man should die for the people." Caiaphas meant that Jesus was expendable. His assassination was a necessary unpleasantness, after which life could return to normal. John tells us that this man was operating as a prophet when he spoke these great words. John's point is that the high priest's words admitted of another meaning, one that tells the story of the Bible in one simple sentence: "It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish." This one Man, the Son of God, would die as an atoning sacrifice in the place of others who deserved death. He could accomplish in his one death what none of us could ever have accomplished in ours. He could take away our sins, since he alone had no sins of his own. His sacrifice could cover an eternal penalty, and make peace for us where there had only been the frightful expectation of divine judgment.

In saying this Caiaphas had prophesied unwittingly about the good that would come from the death of this one man, not only for Jews, the nation that was Caiaphas' chief concern, but for all of the children of God scattered abroad throughout the world. What Jesus did in his death was good for all of them. Because he perished for us, we will not perish, but live. In speaking against Jesus as an enemy, he had inadvertently testified to the wonder of God's plan to save His people through the death of His Son. Not only that, all of his efforts toward bringing about the death of Christ, rather than working against the plan of God for the establishment of His kingdom, would actually serve to further the plan of God, since the death of Christ was God’s settled decree for the salvation of the elect, both of the Jews and of the Gentiles.

To Caiaphas, the problem was Jesus; His power in healing Lazarus, and the reaction of many observers who believed in Him as the Messiah King. The solution was obvious. Jesus had to be eliminated. To God, the real problem is our sin. This demands divine justice and deserves eternal destruction. The solution is the death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for His people. The commonality between these two views is found in this: Jesus must die.

Jesus and the Passover (11:55-57)

This one death would come at the time of God's choosing, the Jewish feast of the Passover. This feast had been part of God's Law for His people for centuries. It had always been a feast celebrating the winning of life for a people through the shedding of the blood of the Passover lamb. This ritual was first instituted when God's people were being rescued out of their slavery in Egypt. The blood of the lamb was to be put above the door of the homes of the Jews. When God came in judgment against the land of Egypt, executing His wrath by taking the firstborn of every family, He would pass over those homes that had the blood above the door. In every other home, the firstborn would die, but in the blood-protected homes, everyone would live.

The reason that Jesus would die in connection with the Passover, is because that feast was always pointing forward to His death on our behalf. He is the Passover Lamb that truly has taken away our sins. He came as the firstborn of God, His only-begotten Son from all eternity. This firstborn of God who had no sin took the weight of our sins upon Himself so that we might live as those who have been credited with His righteousness. His death for us as the Passover Lamb is the beginning of the life of the New Covenant. It is a liberation from the bondage of our sin. For all of these reasons it was fitting that the central events of all human history would take place in the final Old Covenant celebration of this feast.

The Anointed One as Passover Lamb (12:1-8)

Six days before that feast, Jesus is again in the town of Bethany with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Here is the brother who had so recently been placed in a tomb for four days, now alive and eating with all the guests around the table. Mary understands something that she displays here in a most dramatic way. She understands that Jesus is going to die, and at great expense, she prepares his body for burial by anointing him.

This causes some controversy that is very revealing. Judas Iscariot, who will soon betray the Lord, is indignant about the use of about a year’s wages on this extravagance. We are told by John that he is not really concerned about the poor, though that is his claim. John plainly reveals that Judas was a thief, and that he used to help himself to the funds that he was supposedly guarding. Jesus defends Mary, and testifies again to the fact that Mary knows well: Jesus will soon be gone. Jesus will soon die. He will die as the Lamb of God and secure our liberation.

Lazarus – An Epilogue, Jesus – A Prologue (12:9-12)

We have come to the end of the Lazarus story. There is a man around the table eating with Jesus, a man that our Lord publicly raised from the dead. The facts about Lazarus were so plain, that no one could deny them. Many people were taking another look at Jesus because what had happened to Lazarus was so obvious. That’s why the religious leaders decided that they not only had a Jesus problem; they also had a Lazarus problem, and the only solution was to eliminate both of them.

The story of Jesus will continue. This great miracle is a prologue to the most powerful death and the most stupendous resurrection in the history of mankind. Christians are those who have been led to see that the Son of God came to build His Kingdom, and that He did this at the cost of His life. We have been purchased by the blood of the Passover Lamb.

Application: Who is the problem? What is the solution?

Caiaphas was a very important man. He came to the conclusion that Jesus was the problem, and that Jesus needed to be eliminated. Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus, had a different opinion. She had come to see that Jesus would die, but that his death was the solution, not the problem. The problem is in man. The problem is in us, for we insist that we will not be under God’s authority. We are easily swayed by this kind of lie: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” What is the liberty that you seek? Do you want autonomy from God?

God knows our real need. He sent His Son for us. That has to mean something to us. We need to see Jesus as the solution that owns us. That is the only good reason anyone would give up a year’s wages to testify to the coming death of a man. In fact, that is the only good reason why anyone would ever live out a Christian profession of faith involving any kind of true gospel sacrifice. The privilege of gospel living comes to those who believe that they are blood-bought. True gospel living comes to those who see Jesus as Mary saw Him. If your vision of Jesus allows you to live as an autonomous spiritualist, you need to pick up your Bible again and take another look at Jesus.

Christian living comes when we see that one Man died for the people of God, and we embrace this truth as those who can no longer live as autonomous individualists. We are not our own. We were bought with a price. The problem was in us and not in God. We’ve got to go; not God. God will not be eliminated. We see the death of the Son of God as those who know that Jesus owns us, and we want to hear His Word, to believe, and to follow.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What is the problem with Jesus? What is our problem? What is the solution?

2. Explain the feast of the Passover. Why is this relevant to us today?

3. What was Jesus’ explanation of Mary of Bethany’s unusual action?

4. What was the impact of the death and resurrection of Jesus’ friend Lazarus?

I Need a Savior This Great

The Death and Resurrection of a Man – Five Sermons

Part 4: “Lazarus”

(John 11:38-44, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, July 12, 2009)

What happened when Jesus spoke to His deceased friend?

A: The man who had died came out. (John 11:44)

The tomb (38)

Jesus was deeply moved again when He came to the tomb of His friend Lazarus. As we saw in an earlier verse, there is a special Greek word used here. It is the same word that was used when Judas became indignant about money and said something harsh to a woman who was showing extravagant honor to Jesus. He was moved. Jesus was moved about something here. How was He moved? The primary emotion in this word is anger. Jesus is angry about death. It is dangerous to be angry all the time. That is not our goal. We are told by the Apostle Paul, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” That is a good rule. Paul says, “Be angry, but do not sin.” There is a kind of anger with which a resolute man might stir up his soul for some good purpose. It is the anger of someone who has something to do, something that requires action. To get angry in order to do something necessary and right is not a bad thing. It is a gift. Once the person has accomplished the thing that he needed to do, he does not need to be angry anymore. He can have peace in his soul and let the sun go down all by itself. He has taken care of the problem. Jesus is angry about death, and He is going to do something about it.

The tomb is a place of burial. Burial of a body, biblically, can be a statement of faith. This is what it was in the case of Jacob, and his son Joseph, who both insisted that their remains be buried in the land that God had promised them. They believed in the promise of a place for them, a promise that could not be taken away by death. They wanted their bodies buried as a statement of faith in the coming resurrection. This is what we learn in Hebrews 11:22. “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, … gave directions concerning his bones.” What exactly were those directions? We read in Genesis 50:24-25. “Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’ Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.’” (Read also Hebrews 11:13-16.) So burial is very solemn statement of faith, according to the Bible.

This is not everyone’s experience of the tomb. The tomb can be a place of bitter misery and hopelessness. It is a reminder of our present mortality, and often it is a place where we remember our regrets and disappointments at least as much as we remember good things about someone resting in that place. Jesus has come to the tomb of His friend Lazarus. He did not come accidently. He delayed His arrival in Bethany until after His friend Lazarus had been dead for four days. He did not come to the tomb privately. This was a very public visit. And He had this anger about Him, the resolution of one who was going to do something in front of an assembled crowd of mourners.

Take away the stone (39-40)

So what is Jesus going to do? We are not kept in suspense any longer. He gives the word firmly: “Take away the stone.” When some action is very good and necessary, it is great to see it actually happen. There is no reason to take away the stone unless a living man is going to walk out. Martha, one of the sisters of Lazarus expresses concern. Decay… The decay of this world is not a funny thing. It testifies to us that something is not right here under the sun. We long for a world where God will not let His holy ones see decay. Decay is very sad.

But Jesus did not command that this tomb be opened for anything less than a glorious result. He says to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” He had talked to Martha about belief. He said, “Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.” If Lazarus believed in Jesus, then when his body died, he began to live in another place, with Abraham and Abraham’s God. He saw something of the glory of God in that place. Jesus said, “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” We would expect these words to be about the place of glory that David had called “the house of the Lord” in Psalm 23, where he wrote, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Those who believe will see the glory of God. Martha believed. She would see the glory of God. We just didn’t think she would see it now in this world of decay. “Take away the stone.”

Father, I thank You (41-42)

So, they took away the stone. And Jesus prays. It is not a normal prayer. It seems like a follow-up prayer, a prayer that someone would pray after He had already prayed. It is the kind of prayer that someone might say who was so sure that He would be heard, that He could already speak of the thing requested as fully accomplished. It is a prayer of perfect faith, of perfect thanks, from One who was perfectly heard, and who knows that He was heard.

This prayer is for the ears of the crowd listening to Jesus as He prays to His Father. There are people who are witnesses to this sixth sign contained in John’s gospel. Lazarus is suddenly not as much the issue. The grief of Mary and the concerns of Martha are not the point. We are suddenly back to the issue of John’s gospel, the big thing that brought Jesus back to Bethany four days late, the late arrival that set the stage for this very wonderful miracle. The issue now is not Lazarus, but Jesus. Who is He? Where did He come from? How are we to respond to Him? He is the Son of God. He came from His Father in heaven. We are to believe that the Father sent Him.

Lazarus, come out (43-44)

Death makes quite a racket in the ears of our souls, but Jesus speaks louder than death. “The voice of the Lord,” says the Psalmist in Psalm 29, “The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.” “The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!’” And now the voice of the Lord has something to say. He speaks in front of Mary and Martha. He cries out in the hearing of the assembled friends, the mourners who have come to comfort the grieving family. He shouts down the corridor of the centuries and reaches even our ears today with words of resurrection power: “Lazarus, come out!”

And Lazarus came out. The man who died came out. The man who had been dead in the grave for four days came out. His hands and feet still had the linen strips around them. He had a cloth on his face that they used on dead bodies. “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Why should death let Lazarus go? Death is no match for Jesus Christ. Lazarus has more to do on this earth in this present age. He is back from another realm. Death is forced to let him go because of the voice of the Lord. Moses went to Pharaoh so many centuries ago, when God was freeing a people from bondage. He said, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.” Paul, writing on the coming resurrection, quotes from the Old Testament prophet Hosea, “Death, where is your victory?” Death is a mighty adversary. It spread throughout all the posterity of Adam. But now death shows a weakness. It cannot withstand the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Death cannot win.

Jesus is angry about death, and He is going to do something about it. Calling his friend back to life is only the beginning. Within a short period of time this Jesus will surrender Himself to death for a time, so that our lives will be ransomed from this taskmaster forever. The era of death is almost over. The era of life has begun. The voice that can command death to give up its captives is a mighty voice, even an awesome voice. Jesus is that Voice.

Application: How are you to live for a Savior who is this powerful?

1. Humble yourself before Almighty God in the flesh. Do not look for a Jesus who is different than the true Christ presented in the Scriptures. Jesus is not only fully Man; He is also fully God. John had a frightening sense of this when He was on the Island of Patmos in His later years. There He was given a vision, contained in the final book of the Bible, a vision that begins with the sight of the exalted Son of Man, Jesus Christ. What was John’s reaction to this vision? This is what He says in Revelation 1:17: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.”

What is your reaction to this Jesus who has such righteous indignation at death, and such power in His voice, that He can break the cedars of Lebanon? He has a voice that makes a dead man come back to life in the tomb, and walk out alive. What will you do when you see that His eyes see your face? Humble yourself before Him. He is God. Worship Him. Join all of the redeemed in his temple. They all cry, “Glory!” He is your Redeemer and your God.

2. Rejoice in the Lord always. When John saw that heavenly vision, and he rightly fell down on his face before his glorious King, something else happened right away. Jesus did something, and He said something. John tells us, “He laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.’” Jesus died for us, and He is alive forevermore. He touches you with compassion. He has the keys of death and the grave in His hands, and no one can take those away from Him. Because His hand is upon you now in love, you can obey Him when He says, “Fear not.”

Believing, you can rejoice. He has turned your sorrow to dancing full of joy, so rejoice in the Lord now, and rejoice in Him forever. We are right to be struck by His power and the fullness of His divinity. But if we say that we obey Him, then we must follow Him in this commandment as well. “Fear not,” and “Rejoice in the Lord always.”

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What is your biblical theology of the tomb? What about your practical theology?

2. How are we to think about the decay of the body?

3. How would you describe the prayer of Jesus here to the Father?

4. What do we learn from the resurrection of Lazarus?

The Grieving of the Righteous

The Death and Resurrection of a Man – Five Sermons

Part 3: “Mary”

(John 11:28-37, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, July 5, 2009)

Q: How did Jesus react at the tomb of His friend?

A: Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus of Bethany (28-31)

We have been considering the story of three siblings, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus of Bethany. The three were friends of Jesus. One of them, Lazarus, had died. His death was not, in the final analysis, a random mistake. No death is. Psalm 139 tells us about God who is sovereign over the length of every life, saying, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.” God knows the number of our days. He has planned it. It is written in His book.

The story in God’s book for Lazarus was very unusual. Lazarus had died. That part is not uncommon. Jesus, informed by messengers from the man’s sisters, delayed His return in order to arrive after Lazarus had been in the grave four days. What that means is that Jesus intended to arrive in Bethany in the middle of a time of mourning at the death of this beloved friend.

Last week we considered our Lord’s interaction with Martha, when He revealed to her this wonderful truth, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Martha believed this, and she said so with these words: “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” This is where today’s passage begins. John writes, “When she had said this,…” that is, when she had said “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world,” Jesus apparently sent Martha back home to ask Mary to come to Him. We know that because Martha said to her sister, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” Martha gave that message discreetly to Mary. Those who were with her did not know what was happening. Mary got up immediately, and when the people who were with them saw her do this, they assumed that she was going to the grave to weep, so they followed her.

She fell at His feet (32)

“The Teacher is here.” He had come near a house of mourning. He is Himself a Man of sorrows, Isaiah warned us, a Man acquainted with grief. He draws near to us when no one knows what to say, when there may be nothing that can be said. Mary, the woman who loves to listen to this greatest of all teachers, goes to Him, and falls down at His feet, weeping, in a posture of brokenness and of humble submission.

Then Mary says the same words that Martha had said earlier to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Even though her words are the same as her sister’s, the response of Jesus is different this time. This must have something to do with what Jesus knows about these two women. He always knows what is behind our words. We saw this at the end of John 2, just before the account of Jesus’ meeting at night with Nicodemus. John wrote that Jesus “needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” He knows you.

He knew Martha’s heart. He knows Mary’s heart. Their words may be the same, but they may mean something different. Even if they mean precisely the same thing, they may not be able to hear the same divine reply. There is wisdom in this. Jesus brought the grieving Martha to profess her faith in Him as the Messiah, the Son of God, the One who would come into the world at the last day to bring about the resurrection of the dead. When Martha had said these words earlier to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” she had the strength to add immediately, “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Mary doesn’t do that. She falls down at His feet weeping, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary is different than Martha. We can only speculate about those differences from the few clues that we have in the Bible. Jesus knows about it fully. We all know that there are some people who have unusual insight and intuition in dealing with others. At best, this gift is partial. Jesus is different. When you have communion with Jesus in your time of sorrow, He knows you perfectly. When you are saying to Him, “Lord, I can’t take this,” he knows what you have within you, and He knows what He can give you to help you bear up in that moment of greatest need.

Jesus wept (33-36)

So Jesus knew Mary, and when He saw her weeping like that at His feet, and the people from Jerusalem who were there with her, He was also deeply moved. In fact, the word that is translated here “deeply moved” has a note of stern anger in it. The words that follow that are translated “greatly troubled,” literally say that he stirred himself up. Jesus was moved, but it was not the helpless emotion that we feel when someone is dead and we can’t do anything about it. Jesus was moved, and He was angry. He was like a great Samson, stirred up by the Spirit of God against the Philistines. He looked at the enemy of death in the grief-stained faces of His friends, and He had a fury about Him, the fury of a righteous warrior who is able to win.

He was angry with death, and He went after it, as someone who knew what needed to be done. “Where have you laid him?” They said, “Come, and see.” That must have been an interesting little walk… people not saying anything, some weeping quietly, some sobbing, and Jesus, the Son of God, furious in His Spirit about the fall of mankind, about the way sin and death had entered the world and brought grief to the sons of men. Death was making Mary sad, and Jesus was not happy about it.

Then He broke. The shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.” We worship a God who weeps. Do you have a place in your heart for the complexity of a perfectly sovereign God who weeps? He is in charge. He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. Before we ever existed, He numbered our days. He hates death. He’s mad about it, and He’s willing to be broken up about it. So He weeps. The people there saw it. They said, “See how He loved him!”

I say that Jesus was broken up about this, but there is more here than that. Mary was broken up about the death of her brother. Lazarus was broken by death. What about Jesus? Not only was He broken up about the death of Lazarus, He was willing to be broken by the death that Lazarus deserved, and that you and I also deserve. Do you see the love of God for you in this? Look at the cross. See how He loves His beloved. See how angry He is about death. He not only weeps with you. He dies for you. Only Jesus could have saved Lazarus, Martha, Mary, and you forever. He has a powerful resolve to defeat this horrible enemy. He will not be stopped.

The problem of death (37)

The passage ends with these difficult words that were on the lips of some of them, but had to be on the hearts of many more, “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Well let’s be clear about the answer to that question. The answer is “Yes, Jesus could have kept Lazarus from dying.” If the people that day had heard that answer, don’t you think that they might have had a follow-up question? “Why then…, why didn’t He keep Lazarus from dying?”

We know something of the answer. Jesus had a better plan, and it was a plan that included the death of Lazarus, that horrible separation between a man and his two sisters. You and I are going to have to trust Him through that kind of separation, remembering that there is something about death that makes even Jesus weep. Then we need to remember again what we believe about heavenly life, looking to the One who died for us, and rose again. He knows about the problem of death, and He has taken serious measures to conquer that problem for His beloved friends.

Application: How should a godly person react to the death of someone he loves?

I want to conclude with these two applications for those who have loved and lost.

First, it is more than right to weep, and even to be angry at the death of a friend that you love. We have been made not only to think, but to feel. Jesus was perfect not only in His reasoning, but also in His emotions. He wept at death. He was angry about death. When we simply refuse to feel, that’s not strength; that’s just destroying our own hearts, and delaying our healing. God made us all to feel. You have permission to feel something in your soul, and to let your body move consistently with your soul in grief and even in righteous anger against death as an enemy.

Second, do not grieve as those who are without hope. Jesus cries were not those of a powerless man. When death comes to someone we love, it is normal for us to feel helpless, but it is not altogether accurate. Even you are not helpless. In due time, you can take dominion of the rest of your life. Do you know why? Because Jesus was not helpless. When He faced down death on the cross through His own death, He defeated that enemy. You do not have to wonder about whether or not Jesus defeated death. His resurrection was the proof of His victory.

This victory of the One who is the Resurrection and the Life is the answer for your soul. If you let your soul grieve honestly over your loss, and you let your body weep, then you must also let your soul rejoice again at the victory of Jesus over death. Life continues on. Life continues on for those who are left in this mortal world. Life especially continues on for those who have gone where Jesus lives. You are allowed to grieve, and you are allowed to rejoice.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What do we know about the family of Lazarus and their relation to Jesus?

2. In what way is Mary different from the others?

3. Why did Jesus weep?

4. What is the problem of death? Is there an answer to this problem?