John 11:17-27

Jesus Comforts the Sisters

17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

21"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

23Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

24Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

27"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."



Dig Deeper

If only he had been here last year. This is a lament heard often among high school and college coaches. This is a group of coaches who deal with the constant flux of new players coming in for a limited time and graduating players leaving. On occasion you have a situation where it seems that a player has come one year too late. I had that feeling one year in particular. We had a team that was full of talent but had come one win short of the state championship, losing in the championship game. Near the end of that season, we had a player move to our city and enter our school. He moved in too late, however, to be eligible to play for that season, so he had to wait for the next year. Unfortunately, the entire starting five from that Conference championship team that had come so close to the state championship, graduated and left school. As the next season rolled around, we had a good team but not one that was going to seriously compete for a championship that year. This player that had moved in, though, was phenomenal. He was, perhaps, my most favorite player to have coached in all my years of coaching. He was selfless, hard-working, incredibly talented, and led the Conference in scoring and rebounding, and was in the the top five in assists. He was also the defensive player-of-the-year. On top of all that, he played the one position that we could have used a little upgrade at in the previous year. Oh, if only he had moved a little earlier. If only he had played with that previous team, we would have easily won the state championship. But, "if only" doesn’t count for much in the real world.

Our lives are full of "if only" sentiments. We constantly look at situations and think about how they might have gone differently if this one thing had just happened. I remember that as a kid (and this is before "Back to the Future" even came out) I would sit and daydream about traveling into the past and seeing history or even changing things that had happened in my life. I also dreamed about going into the future, but that was far more difficult because I just couldn’t fathom much about it. The one thing that we’ve come to know about this world, though, is that we can’t ever go back and reverse things once they’ve happened and we certainly can’t bring the future into our world now. . . or can we?

Funerals in first century Israel were a major affair. They would involve the whole village of one the size of Bethany and would often have people from the neighboring towns and villages come as well. The official period of mourning would last seven days with another thirty days for a period of continued mourning for the family after the funeral. It was a great honor that was bestowed upon a family to have important people, especially those from far distances, come to visit the family. Jesus’ coming all the way to Bethany then, would have been a great honor for the family. But he is about to bring much more to this family than just a show of honor and respect.

When Jesus arrives, Martha comes out to greet him, which was to step outside of normal convention. Usually the family would remain seated inside the house and mourn while comforters came in to the house to offer condolences. That Martha breaks from that tradition to speak with Jesus shows the respect that the family held for Jesus. Her sentiments are entirely relatable. If only he had been there. She has enough faith in Jesus to believe that he could have and would have prevented Lazarus from dying. We’re not sure what Martha had in mind when she said even now God will give you whatever you ask, but it seems unlikely that she was expecting that Jesus would raise Lazarus from the dead but was simply affirming her belief in his connection with God even though her brother has died. The standard rabbinic teaching of the time held that death was irrevocable after three days. The body had started to decompose and that could simply not be reversed, in their mind not even by a great prophet. If Jesus could have raised him from the dead, that time had passed. Why had he waited those two extra days? (It seems, however, that their expectation was that Jesus could have prevented his death, there is nothing in here that indicates an expectation of raising him from the dead.)

When Jesus tells her that her brother will rise again, he isn’t telling her anything that anyone else at their home couldn’t or wouldn’t have said. Of course he would rise again one day. Most Jews, especially the average Jewish person, believed in the resurrection on the last day that separated the present age from the age to come. All the righteous would be raised on that day. As Daniel the prophet had foretold, "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12:2). Truth be told, it seems that Jesus’ response was a bit disappointing. Of course he would be raised on the last day. He will rise again in the resurrection at the last day, who doesn’t know that? Martha has a vague, general belief that God will act to resurrect His people, but she has no concept of what Jesus is about to unveil.

All that Martha can think of is what might have happened if Jesus had come sooner. She never says directly that she blames him a bit, but we certainly get that feeling. If only they could go back in time and fix things. What Martha could not envision is that they weren’t going to travel back into the past and fix things. Jesus was going to bring the future into the present. He was going to bring God’s future into the present. The future where death was no longer an inescapable stalker that struck fear into the hearts of all. Jesus wants Martha to look into God’s future and imagine that it has just broken into the present age. The new heavens and earth that the prophet Isaiah had foretold in passages like Isaiah 11, 65, and 66 were about to break into the dark and hopeless world in some form through Jesus.

Jesus is about to do something new, strange, and wonderful with Lazarus to teach a truth about himself. When the Jews held to the belief that all of the righteous would be raised on the last day and that would usher in God’s age to come, they had it partially right. God would raise all of the righteous and usher in God’s age to come in some respects, but it would be in the middle of the present age not the end. Life was going to defeat death and usher in God’s reality in a form that would anticipate the full consummation of the age to come. The resurrection though, the very thing that would defeat death, was for the righteous, but Jesus was the only righteous man. Resurrection would come to him and him alone. It is available to only those who would die to themselves and enter into his life. Jesus, in his fifth "I am" statement of seven in John’s Gospel (remember, that for John the number seven had to do with creation events), declares that he will experience resurrection and life, but that he is the resurrection and the life, and they are found only in him. Resurrection isn’t just a vague belief or a distant doctrine, it is real. It is not just a word, it has flesh, it’s a person and he is right there with them. The Word, as John has told us, has become flesh and in him is life (1:1, 4).

That is what faith, believing in Jesus is all about. It’s not some abstract doctrine or vague belief that Jesus existed or even that he will save me. It is dying to my own life and entering into his. It is having faith that his life alone is the gate to the age to come and to resurrection. Those who enter into his life will not die in the fullest sense. Christ has been resurrected and in him is the resurrection so those who are in him may die physically, but just as Jesus did, we will walk into death and out the other side. In him is life and those who believe in his life will never die.

We discussed the fact in chapter 10:22-30 that Jesus could not just come out and say that he was the Messiah because he would have been completely misunderstood as to what he meant when he said "Messiah". In a similar way, Jesus could not simply talk about resurrection and claim to have the power over death. He would have been misunderstood or not believed. This was something that had to be demonstrated. Raising the dead was something, in the Jewish belief, that was done only through the power of God on rare occasions, but to raise someone from the dead after four days was completely unheard of. Jesus is prepared to do so much more than just talk of being the resurrection. He is about to demonstrate it. He is about to bring a small sample of God’s future into the present age. He is about to show all those who would be believe that he is the resurrection and the life.



Devotional Thought

In raising Lazarus from the dead and in his own resurrection, Jesus brought God’s future into the present age for all to see. In a similar way, he calls his people to be communities where we model God’s age to come in the present age. We are to be a testament to the world of God’s reconciliation available to the whole world. Do you view your Christian community as something that wonderful or do you view it more as a burden. Take some time today to align your view of God’s people with His.