Believing is Seeing

Just so we are all on the same page in case you are just joining us or you have forgotten what happened from when were together last week. Jesus has friends… Jesus wants you to be his friend, but while he was on earth, he was very relational and he had friends. Mary and Martha, who lived in a little village called Bethany just east of Jerusalem, were two of those friends. John here tells us that Jesus did not just see these people as acquaintances who he had to endure for a period of time while he was on earth. No, it says that he loved Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus.

This is tricky because these friends believe that Jesus is who he claims to be, the Son of God. So we’re clear, this wasn’t some confusion on their part. Back just one chapter, the Jews has cornered Jesus and asked him point blank to confirm or deny whether he was the Christ, the promised Messiah whom the prophets had foretold would come from God. In response to this, he said in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” And they heard this and started looking around for stones to put him to death because he was claiming to be God.

These friends believe that Jesus is the Christ and when Lazarus gets sick, they send for their friend and their God looking for help. And man, can I just tell you that this is a good thing. How many of you this morning have something heavy that you are carrying? If you are a friend of Jesus, bring it to him this morning. The friends of Jesus have access to Jesus and can bring their burdens to him and trust that he will respond in love because that’s who he is.

But we talked last week about Jesus’ loving response. He heard that Lazarus was sick and instead of rushing off to heal him or snapping his fingers and reversing the effects of the fall in his friend instead he waited. And that can be hard for us to grasp, but the key that we will look further at this morning is that Jesus said that this illness would lead to the glory of God! So Jesus in his love recognizes that the Glory of God is more important than the temporary pain and suffering of one family.

We saw three responses to Jesus decision to wait, we saw religious defensiveness in Martha, we saw desperate brokenness in Mary, and we saw cynical skepticism in the crowd. And we said that Jesus invites all three to bend their knee and behold the glory of God and partake in Jesus as eternal life.

When Jesus met Martha, he responded to her religious posturing. with powerful words communicating the reality of the promise that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. That though what has happened to Lazarus might look like death, in reality those that believe in Christ, those that are in Christ will never taste death. That eternal life can begin here and now.

You know, I love the definition that Jesus gives of what eternal life is, I feel like some of us struggle with defining it. We know it is by grace and it’s a free gift, but what is the gift? Jesus unwraps the gift and tells us what’s inside in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” That’s it. We get to know God, to see God. Our access to our creator is restored in fellowship with Christ. He invites you in asking “Do you believe this?” Do you believe the gospel message that you can have access to God himself through faith in Jesus?

We also, very briefly saw his response to the weeping and emotion of Mary. And you might remember that he responded with empathy and his own tears, and strong emotion, and we are going to look at that more carefully in just a moment.

Then he responded to the skepticism and accusation of the crowd with profound action in the again spoiler alert raising of Lazarus. Each of these responses (words, emotions, and actions) were done in love and with the purpose of revealing the glory of God as he promised.

Strong Emotions

Let’s read this section of our passage again so we know what’s going on. Starting in verse 32, “Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.”

So, like we saw last week, Jesus wept after speaking with Lazarus’s grieving sisters, Martha and Mary, and seeing all the mourners. That seems natural enough. Except that Jesus had come to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that in a few short minutes all this weeping would turn to astonished joy, probably an even more teary reunion, and most importantly worship. So you might think that Jesus instead of tearing up would be confident and joyful in the midst of the wailing. But the passage says that he was “deeply moved in his spirit,” “greatly troubled,” and he wept. Why?

1. Compassion Towards his Friends

As I mentioned as we looked at this last week, one reason is simply the deep compassion that Jesus felt for those who were suffering. It is true that Jesus let Lazarus die. His inaction had directly led to the Lazarus’ death. But he didn’t take the true suffering around him lightly. Remember, that Jesus is our sympathetic high priest as Hebrews 4:15 says. So I think this is certainly one reason why Jesus might have broken out in tears, but I don’t know about you, but sometime tears come upon me from all different kinds of reasons, and not all of them are this straightforward. Jesus was a human with complex emotions compounded with the fact that he is God.

So, I think that if we look a little deeper, we can see a couple other triggers that led to Jesus’ reaction. To dive deeper in this case means to pop the hood on this text and take a look at the engine of the original language, Greek. I’m not going to bore you with the words, but there are a couple of interesting things to point out right here. And each of them help us to catch some of the emotional nuance of Jesus.
In verse 33, and then later down in 38 where it says, “deeply moved,” this is the only place in the Bible that this word gets translated like this. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it’s just only looking at one side of it. Jesus was deeply moved, but with what emotion?

Well, in the other places where this word is used, it is translated like sternly warned, scoffed, or even snorted. I think King James even translates it here as he groaned. This seems to me to be rooted in a righteous anger or frustration. Over what?

2. Extent of Sin and Death

There are some Biblical scholars that look at this word and they think that Jesus here is rebuking or snorting at death itself and that his tears are not just tears shed for his friend, but in response to the pervasive effects of sin all around him. In other words, the magnifying glass is illuminating the utter brokenness of the created order.

Remember that Jesus was the agent of creation, and when he formed Adam and Eve, he did not fashion them for death, but for life. Remember, death is a consequence of the fall, these are the wages of sin. And to this point ever since the fall, death has consumed every creature that he so carefully fashioned except for two (Enoch and Elijah). Jesus is getting ready to put the final nail in death’s coffin. But right now, sin is rampant and maybe that reality got to him in this moment.

3. Frustration at Unbelief

Also, there is another interesting word in John 11:35. This is the shortest verse in all the bible, “Jesus wept,” but the cool thing about that word wept is that it is a completely different word from the word that has already been used to describe the weeping of Mary and the others. What I understand that shift in language to mean is that Jesus’ tears are different than the other tears.

They are full on ugly crying, wailing. But the word wept that we have in 11:35 is something called a “hapax legomenon,” that is a fancy word that Greek scholars use to refer to a word that is only used one time in the New Testament. But from other sources, we see that this a less intense version of what’s going on with the ladies and the mourners. He has tears in his eyes, but they could be tears of deep-seated frustration.
What does he have to be so frustrated about? Well, besides the effects of sin that have caused this death, Jesus is also hearing the unbelieving and accusatory remarks or thoughts of some of the Jews.
Remember, the word of the skeptics who said, “Isn’t this the same guy that opened the eyes of the blind? I guess he’s not so big after all. If he was really the Messiah, he would have prevented this from happening.”
Jesus is potentially looking around at the lack of faith and the shortsightedness and he is frustrated. We only see Jesus cry 3 times in the Bible. In the Garden of Gethsemane, here, and when he is looking at faithless Jerusalem in Matthew 23 and Luke 13, there he laments that that he has been holding out his hands to invite them in like a hen gathers her chicks under the safety of her wings. But they would not come.

Elsewhere, we see that Jesus is deeply moved by the lack of faith of those that looked for a sign. This is found in Matthew 12:38 and Mark 8:12, When they asked for a sign from heaven, he sighed heavily (kind of like I imagine he might have amongst the mourners) and he told them that the only sign they would get would be his own resurrection from the grave, what he called the sign of Jonah.

So perhaps the unbelief got to him. Jesus was acting out of love, but these scoffers were questioning his motives, they were not repentant, they were cold and rebellious and Jesus is filled with righteous anger, and rightly so.

What if Jesus hadn’t raised Lazarus?

That leads me to ask a question, that shows the 4th reason why Jesus could have wept. What if Jesus hadn’t raised Lazarus? What if he had just gone to the funeral and mourned with them then went on his way? Would he still have been a good Savior? Would God have still been glorified? Would he have lied or broken any promises? Was this miracle needed in order to fulfill some prophecy? I don’t think it was required, but it was the right time for it.

He told others earlier that he would not do any great and miraculous signs because it wasn’t his time. This was the same reason why when he did some great healing he would tell them to be quiet about it. Jesus understood that his time was limited, eventually he would surrender himself to capture and he would be executed on the cross.

He had referred to this limit of time when the disciples balked at coming to Bethany. He said in verse 9-10 of this chapter, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”

That sounds a little cryptic to our ears, but it is really very simple. This was a day and age before electricity, when it got dark, you went to bed, and when it was light out, you went to work. He’s saying I have work to do while there is still light, I know that darkness is coming and I go there willingly, but here as the daylight comes to a close, I still have work to do.

4. The Day is Coming to a Close

Jesus may have been moved to tears because he understood the consequences of his actions. He knew that raising Lazarus would cause the religious leaders to finally take action to put him to death. We can see that is exactly what happens after Lazarus has been raised, which I promise we will get to today. Let’s jump over it for a second and take a look at the fallout from the raising of Lazarus.

Read John 11:45–57

Because of our little amount of faith, as we look at Lazarus coming back from the dead, I think we imagine that Jesus had to twist up his face and use a lot of his divine power to do it, but that was nothing for Jesus, the word of God made flesh. As we’ll see he knows what he’s going to do, he knows that the Father is listening to him.

I believe the bigger struggle for Jesus would not have been, whether his Father would answer his prayer, but what would result when his Father answered it. Calling Lazarus out of the tomb would have taken a different kind of resolve for Jesus that we don’t often think about. In a very real way, giving Lazarus life was sealing Jesus’s own death.

We can see this in a third interesting word in verse 33. We already looked at the fact that he was deeply moved and that his weeping was different than the others, but verse 33 in most translations says that Jesus was “greatly troubled.” If anyone has the New American Standard, it has the literal translation in the footnotes. It says literally that Jesus “troubled himself.”

This serves to show why Jesus responded to this raising from the dead so much differently than he did the others that he had performed earlier. The hours were getting short and Jesus knowingly chose to step into trouble setting the dominoes falling that would lead ultimately to the cross.

At this point, the cross was just days away, and we see that the trouble that he willingly walks into follows him into John 12:27 where he is speaking and begins praying aloud to the Father and he says, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” Then in John 13:21 we see it again as they are eating the Lord’s Supper, “After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.””

The amazing thing that I see if you keep following this word through the rest of John’s gospel, it shows up two more times. Just after he tells the disciples that he is going to die in Jerusalem and Peter fights against him he says in 14:1, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” Then later in that very same chapter, he proclaims that he is trading with us and we recognize that it was not his trouble that he was willingly walking into, but ours!

He says in 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Jesus said there that he’s offering us an exchange. He is walking headlong into trouble that is not his own and he’s offering us his peace, through the Holy Spirit, instead. What an amazing gospel, Jesus troubled himself to give you peace!

Jesus is walking towards a horrific death to purchase your peace and mine and the most horrific part of the whole ordeal was not the crucifixion or the terrible flogging, as unimaginably gruesome as they were. I think the thing that brought tears to Jesus’ eyes was the dread of experiencing the wrath of God reserved for me.

Jesus, who knew no sin, was about to become Lazarus’ sin, and my sin, and the sin of all who would believe in him, so that we could take refuge in him and become the righteousness of God.

So that’s a few reasons why Jesus experiences such strong emotions. I hope you see it as good and glorious. Does it make a little more sense now why Jesus waiting two days was really love for them? He loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, so he did what he needed to do to secure not just physical life but eternal life for them and all who would believe.

Believing is Seeing

Let’s read what happens at the tomb as Jesus experiences all this deep emotion. John 11:38-40, “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

That should sound familiar to us. Jesus there is combining his two previous statements to Martha into one. On the one hand he had said that this illness would not lead to death but was for the glory of God, and then he said to her that he was the resurrection and the life and that anyone who believes in him will live even if they experience physical death. He asked her point blank if she believed it and she said, “Yes, Lord.” Well here he has taken those two and sandwiched them together to tell Martha that her faith is about to become sight.

There is that old saying, “Seeing is believing,” but Jesus turns that economy on its head. He tells her that if she believes she will see the glory of God. Jesus here is not defining “the glory of God” as this miracle. Everyone is about to see that, and as we already read, after it was done there were some who believed and others who deepened in their hatred of Jesus and went to deliver him over to his death.

The point is, the glory of God is not beholding the works of God, but God himself on display in Jesus! Seeing a miracle will not change the hearts of those who are hardened to Christ, it takes an act of God to awaken a dead heart to see the glory of God in Christ, and we are about to see what I believe is the best illustration in all of scripture of what happens to you when you get saved.

Lazarus is Dead! He Stinketh!

Lazarus is a picture of sinners. Now don’t get some image of a “sinner” in your mind and make this about someone else. This is about you. It is about your sin and my sin. The sin that separates every human being from God from their birth. We are sinners by nature and by choice and we are all in need of God’s salvation.

As a dead man, and not just mostly dead, remember, he stinketh. In our sins, we are cut off from the life of God, we are morally corrupt, and completely spiritually dead. As a dead man, Lazarus had no power to raise himself from the dead. He needed the new life that comes only from God. This new life requires the life-giving word of Jesus to call him from death to life. That’s true every time a sinner is born again.
The Bible makes it clear over and over again that God awakens the dead hearts of his children. Then just like a newborn who’s instinct upon taking that first breath is to cry. Those who have been awakened by God cry out in faith. If you are a believer today, the miracle that God wrought in your heart to bring you to life and faith is 10,000 times more important than the earthly life of one Judean man.

That is why we pray in every service for the Holy Spirit of God to awaken dead hearts. Because we know that God uses the preaching of his word to effectually call dead, unrepentant, stone cold sinners who stinketh to new life in him. And I know that if God awakens your heart then you will believe and as Jesus has just promised, if you believe, you will see the glory of God!

So, as we look finally at the climax of the story, I want you to ask yourself, search deep in your heart, because if you do not believe then this miracle is just a parlor trick, Jesus might as well be Penn sawing Teller in half. But if you do believe then this is an opportunity to behold the glory of God on display in the relationship between the Father and the son and in the power over death.

I take tremendous hope in God’s ability to conquer death. This isn’t like watching a football game, where I’m biting my nails to see if my team wins. Jesus has defeated death, and not just for Lazarus, but for all who believe in his name. Do you believe today?

Lazarus Come Out!

Verse 41, “So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus prays aloud, not for his benefit or because it was required to accomplish the task at hand but to reveal just a little of the behind the scenes fellowship that he always had going on with the father. I could preach a whole sermon on the difference between private prayer and public prayer and how they are both necessary, but I will just say that your public prayers are important too and people need to hear you in communication with your heavenly Father.

Verse 43, “When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”

Charles Spurgeon says in his sermons on this passage that it’s very important that Jesus said Lazarus’ name otherwise the entire cemetery, probably all of the cemeteries would have emptied. This is the power of God on display and this is just how it worked in my heart. I was dead in my sin and through the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “Logan, come forth!” and my dead heart began to beat, my ears heard for the first time, my lungs began to work and draw in air, and I blinked my eyes and squinted at the light. Jesus is in the business of making dead hearts alive!

And there is coming a day when the dead in their tombs will hear his voice and their physical bodies will spring back to life to join with the souls of those who have gone before. In that moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed and we will see Jesus face to face. Man how I look forward to that day.

Unbind Him

Verse 44, “The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

What a sight this must have been. Those tears and wails would have been transformed into shouts of joy. Martha and Mary reunited with their brother. Lazarus is probably a little bit confused, but dead hearts respond to the voice of Jesus. There was no negotiation. Lazarus didn’t get a choice in the matter.

I bet Martha had the hand sanitizer and the Febreze ready. And if I could bet, I think Mary didn’t run for Lazarus, but fell straight down at the feet of Jesus where she could always be found. She had believed even though she was confused and hurt, and she like Martha had seen the glory of God on display in Jesus.

However, the text doesn’t give us any of this. We are left to our own imagination to see the graveside celebration, the shock, the confusion, the anger as everyone reacts not to Lazarus, but to Jesus. Some believe, others despise and abuse, but no one is left on the fence. The greatest question you will ever answer in your life is, “what are you going to do with Jesus?”

So, what’s your reaction this morning? Do you doubt? Do you have fears and brokenness? Do you feel like you already have all the religious answers? Jesus stands ready to give you so much more than what you have right now if you will just believe and behold his glory!

In just a moment, I’m going to stop talking and if you heard the Holy Spirit calling you to life this morning, we invite you to respond by coming out of your grave and stepping into new life alongside your brothers and sisters. This altar is open even now if you need to cry out in repentance and faith.

But church family, believers, before we go, I want you to see one more thing. Notice, that Jesus last recorded words as he saw Lazarus stumbling or hopping out of the tomb was “Unbind him, and let him go.” I’m going to tell you this because I love you, but there are some of you that have stumbled out of the grave, and you are still wearing your grave clothes.

I know that they are comfy and we’ve gotten used to wearing them, but they are not fitting for a living child of God. They stinketh. But also notice that he didn’t tell Lazarus, man you look like you’ve seen better days, you need to get those grave clothes off.

He didn’t raise him to life then leave him to his own devices. Instead, he talked to his family and told them to unbind him, and let him go. This is one of the purposes of the church family that we are not very good at. It’s kind of messy, right? We don’t want to offend anyone. But church, we are commanded to help our brothers and sisters that are just stepping into new life to get out of their grave clothes.

We need to be ready to support and love them and to, in Jesus name say, that lifestyle isn’t right for a child of God. We don’t say these things from a position of moral superiority, in fact we’re still taking our grave clothes off as well, so if you know that you are still walking around carrying your unrepentant sin, it’s time to take that off.

Let’s pray.