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?