Sermon 3-22-26

John 11:1-45 5 Lent

I went to see Dr. Light the dentist the other day. I needed a tooth pulled. As I lay there between him and his helper I said, “If I die here just let me lay. Elizabeth is getting a facial and then she has to go moderate a scholar bowl tournament. She won't have time to fool with me for a few hours”.

He said, “We will be going home before that, it could get a little messy”. I said, “I won't start to smell for a couple of days. She will be in before then”. He said, “Well, the worst case scenario, I guess, we could put our next patient right here on top of you”.

Let me ask you a question, how many of you would like to be brought back to life? I don't mean resurrected like in heaven. I mean like here and now, on the sidewalk down the street. Like Lazarus in our Gospel reading today.

There are two men named Lazarus mentioned in the New Testament, one in Luke, different guy, and the one we have today. The information we have about today's Lazarus was that he wasn't revived to fulfill anything out of the ordinary. He didn't go on to do anything out of the ordinary as a human being. He just went on living his life.

As a matter of fact in the very next chapter John tells us the Jewish hierarchy not only planned to kill Jesus, they planned on killing Lazarus too for making Jesus look good.

There are no parables in the Gospel of John, only miracles, John calls them signs. Seven of them, this is the last one. They all have a reason and a purpose, to show the power of Jesus over nature, sickness and death. They are designed to show Jesus' divinity, the power of God and build the faith of the people there who witnessed them.

This last miracle or sign took place a couple of weeks before His crucifixion and a couple of miles from Jerusalem. By raising Lazarus from the dead Jesus has signed His own death warrant. The shadow of the cross has just lengthened across this story. Jesus knows it, but He does it anyway.

He is not seeking public recognition, He's seeking God's glory. Jesus' ministry opens with a wedding and closes with a funeral, not this one.

As our story opens Jesus is at Bethany across the Jordan where John the Baptist had been working. Lazarus and his sisters live in the other Bethany. They are about 18 or 20 miles apart. You could walk it in a long day, if the terrain was flat and you didn't let any grass grow under your feet.

We can imagine Jesus was not on the Israeli Olympic speed walking team. He never went anywhere without an entourage who were constantly asking Him questions. It would have taken Him a couple of days to make the trip.

The sisters sent a message that their brother ill. You don't send for Jesus if someone in your family has coughs due to colds. Lazarus was in a bad way, but Jesus dallied there. John the Apostle assumes that his readers already know this story of the raising. He says “Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped His feet with her hair”. Mary doesn't anoint Jesus' feet until the next chapter.

Jesus tells the people “The illness is for God's glory, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it”.

So He waits, two more days, then starts for the other Bethany. By the time He gets to the other Bethany Lazarus is no longer with the firm. The girls are not happy. I don't mean just sad because their brother has died, I mean they're not happy. Martha comes out to meet Him on the road and the first thing she says is “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died”.

She adds, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of Him”. Martha does not know what Jesus has in mind. All she knows is that her brother, the supporting male in the sister's lives is dead. Even when Jesus says to her, “Your brother will rise again”, she answers, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day”. Martha has no clue about what is about to happen.

All Martha knows is that the people of that time and place were expected to fulfill the symbolic contract of friendship by dropping everything and going immediately when summoned. Jesus has not done that. That is why she is a little, as they say, testy.

Martha truly believes that Jesus is the Messiah. She has faith, but as I've mentioned before, the people of that time and place didn't really have a set standard of what the Messiah should be. She tells Him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God who is coming into the world”. Then she turns and goes home to get her sister Mary.

When Mary gets to Jesus she did kneel at His feet, but she says the same thing, word for word that Martha had said, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died”. I think those girls' last name was Griggs.

None of us have ever seen anything like this. Our faith does not depend on proof and we have a little better handle on what the Messiah, the Son of God is. After all we've had over two thousand years to read and study the events of the New Testament.

The people there, that day, had heard and read about a Messiah who was to come for two thousand years as well. They just didn't know what to expect. They saw the Glory of God firsthand, live and in concert. Jesus thanked God before He even told Lazarus to come out. While he was dead on the fourth day. While as it says in the King James version of our bible, “he stinketh”.

If one of our cold dead bodies were to be brought back to life on the sidewalk up the street it would be big news. People would get hurt by the TV cameramen trying to get through the crowd. Facebook would blow up. Most people seek public recognition, Jesus only seeks God's Glory.

This is the last public event attended by Jesus before He enters Jerusalem for the last time. It was staged by Him for God's honor and glory. Both Jesus and the Jewish elite are concerned with defending God's honor. Jesus by doing miracles and the Jews by arresting Him.

Amen.