7 IMPORT OF LAZARUS

7

Import of Lazarus

Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's Colonnade. The Jews gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."

Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?" John 10:22-32

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."

"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" John 11:1-8

As far back as I can remember, I have heard the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. It has probably been portrayed on flannel boards in every Sunday School or Vacation Bible Class at one time or another. It is a dramatic story, this man wrapped like a mummy coming out of a tomb back to life. Raising Lazarus from the dead has even entered the common vocabulary.

I have always heard it presented as another one of Christ's miracles. Amazing, Jesus had the power to bring back the dead. It seems to stand on it's own, isolated from the narrative of Christ's Passion and death. But it is an integral part of the final culmination of God's plan.

Why Lazarus? This wasn't the first person Jesus raised from the dead. We often forget that fact. Why this time? Is it because Martha and Mary were such good friends and asked Him to? (We'll deal more with Martha and Mary's role in this next time when we will also address why Jesus Wept, as well as who else was raised.) For that matter, did Martha or Mary actually ask Him to do it?

Let's look at some of what came before and after this miracle.

"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" This is what his Disciples asked when he announced Lazarus was dead and they were going back to Judea. What were they referring to, because this is part of the important framework around the raising of Lazarus?

Jesus and his Disciples had been in Jerusalem shortly before this to attend the Feast of Dedication. This would be what we know better today as Hanukkah, so they had been there in our month of December. The Jewish religious people surrounded Him at that time and challenged Him to declare if He was the Messiah. Jesus argued a bit with them and then made this statement: "I and the Father are one."

This is one of several places where Jesus declares Himself as God, a declaration many critics of we Christians try to say he never made. Modern unbelievers may choose to parse this statement any way they wish, but it is obvious from the Scripture that the religious teachers and leaders present when Jesus said this knew exactly what it meant. It meant Jesus was calling Himself God and that is why they began picking up stones intending to stone Him to death right there and then.

But Jesus slipped away from them, but now there was a growing danger to His life and it wasn't quite the time yet, so Jesus and His followers left Judea to a safer area. Returning to Bethany in Judea would bring them within a half hour walk of Jerusalem and back in the danger zone. That is why Thomas said, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." (John 11:16)

They went to Bethany and found Lazarus four days dead and buried. Jesus told them to removed the stone sealing the tomb (sound familiar), said a short prayer and:

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. 
 Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." John 11:43-44

Besides Martha and Mary, quite a number of people came out to the tomb to see what Jesus was going to do. They saw Him weep and they saw Him call Lazarus forth and they saw a dead man walking, except he was dead no longer. You would think anyone seeing the dead arise would believe and put their trust in Jesus, wouldn't you? Isn't that what you would do? Well, many did, yet:

Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." John 11:45-50

Yes, the raising of Lazarus from the grave provided the motivation of the Jewish leaders to plot Jesus' death (and Lazarus' death too). It was not some isolated and neat little miricle at all, but a lynchpin in Jesus fulfilling God's plan of salvation for all men who accept it.

Another event concerning Martha, Mary and Lazarus still lies ahead and it is going to be a motavator in Judas betrayal. before that events happens, Jesus and his disciples are going to again confront the Pharisees and Saducees in Jerusalem, and Jesus is going to give them what for.

Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men; protect me from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day. They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent's; the poison of vipers is on their lips. Selah

Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from men of violence who plan to trip my feet. Proud men have hidden a snare for me; they have spread out the cords of their net and have set traps for me along my path. Psalm 140:1-5

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider's web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. Isaiah 59:1-5

"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Matthew 23:33-39

The die is cast. There is no turning back now for time is moving quickly toward the climax. All the Jewish leaders need now is a safe place to arrest Jesus and someone to tell them where this place is. Soon Jesus will go to a dinner honoring Him for raising Lazarus and that will result in exactly what those who would kill Christ need.

Illustration: "The Raising of Lazarus" by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1630 AD