“Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘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.’ After saying these things, he said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.’”

Glory That Overcomes the World

If we look back at and summarize John 10, we see Jesus clarify His position as the Good Shepherd, His declaration that He and the Father are one, and His case within the Law to validate and support His claims. None of this sinks into the hard hearts of the ruling Jews, and again, they seek His life, prompting Jesus to withdraw to a place of isolation. While the movement of His ministry among the public may have paused, the end of John 10 shows us that the work of the ministry continues. People seek Jesus where He is, and place their faith in Him. But while Jesus is somewhat removed from the thick of things, we see an interruption in His seclusion, and a brief journey toward Jerusalem before the time of the final Passover has arrived. What this event illustrates for His disciples and for us now, is the scope and authority of Jesus’s glory, and a promise that it overcomes the greatest challenges the world has to offer.

1.      Glory in the Face of Grief

“Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’”

While we’ve seen Jesus go to the Mount of Olives at the start of John 8, the region where Bethany was located, this is the first time that we’re hearing of Lazarus, or his sisters Mary and Martha within John’s gospel. It’s interesting because the context that John gives for us to recognize these people, “It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair,” isn’t addressed in the other gospels, and hasn’t been told in John’s up to this point, with the account of that event coming later in John 12. This suggests that the event was so well known among those who would have first read his gospel account, that John could use Mary’s anointing of Jesus’s feet as a point of reference without having gone over it yet. This draws a similarity to what Jesus says after His anointing in Matthew 26:13,

“Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

While some scholars would argue that the anointing in Matthew 26 and John 12 are the same event (a matter that I’ll dig into further when we arrive at John 12), the two events stand apart, similar, yet with their own unique details. However, all three events of a woman anointing Jesus (Matthew 26, John 12, and Luke 7), can be described under the banner of what Jesus says in Matthew 26:13. Each event is recorded in the Word of God, as part of the collection of the four gospels, and is shared wherever the good news of Jesus Christ is proclaimed. In each we are given examples of love and devotion to Jesus that we have recorded to admire and emulate. Looking to the other gospels, we see Mary and Martha first introduced in Luke 10:38–42,

“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’”

Two women, one who sat learning at the feet of Jesus, the other given an invaluable lesson as it relates to the coming kingdom. Moving into John 11, we see that when placed in a position of great distress, they cast their hope upon Jesus. This is an example that we all are to follow, expressed on a grand scale in 1 Peter 5:6–7,

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

While verse 7 is the one you see on coffee cups and tee shirts, it’s the context given by verse 6 that makes the direction so impactful. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: God is not a genie. He does not exist to serve our whims and grant our wishes. The life we’re called to desire is the life that God desires for us, not one defined by our own pursuits and ambitions. We are to cast our anxieties upon God, knowing that He cares for us with a scope and depth that we can’t fully comprehend – but this is to be done in humility and with the understanding that, in working all things for His glory, we will be exalted at the proper time. Jesus affirms this truth when He responds to the news of Lazarus’ illness, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” This is restated in the continuing verses in 1 Peter 5:8–11

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

There will be trials, there will be suffering, but not out of neglect or malice from God, but so that we may be tempered, tested, sustained, and raised to glory in Him. This isn’t a new idea to John’s gospel, as Jesus says upon first seeing the man born blind in John 9:3

“It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Our suffering does not go without consideration or notice by our Father, but it is as Paul wrote in Romans 8:18,

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

We do not have to enter into trials, filled with anxiety and doubt, despite the battle we’ll undoubtedly face with these feelings. The world may offer us pain, loss, and suffering, but we have the assurance of final victory in Christ.

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’”

Here we see an extremely clear message – Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. But His response in loving them was not to rush to them and lift Lazarus from His sick bed. Instead, in direct correlation with the fact that He loves them, Jesus delays going to them, staying where He is. We know from the healing of the official’s son in John 4 that Jesus doesn’t even need to go to Lazarus to restore him to health – distance is not a limiting factor on the miracles of God. It would have undoubtedly been a blessing for Mary and Martha to have had their brother healed, and for Lazarus himself to experience being brought back from the brink of death. Jesus presents a parable to one of the Pharisees in Luke 7:41–43,

“’A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’”

People in our wickedness have an unfortunate habit of disregarding the miracles and blessings of God. A simple display of God preventing this from happening is when He pares down Gideon’s army of 32,000 men in Judges 7:2,

“The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’”

While it’s heartbreaking to realize that our sin nature calls us toward belittling and disregarding God in His glory, it is also reassuring to see God safeguard us against this. And so Jesus allows Lazarus, whom He loves, to die, and the sisters Mary and Martha to begin their grieving before He goes to them. In doing this, He increases the blessing that is in store for them, as well as for all who will witness what He goes to do.

“The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘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.’”

When Jesus announces that they are returning to the Judean region, He receives some pushback from His disciples. From their limited perspective, I can certainly sympathize with their concern. Their last experience in Jerusalem was the ruling Jews taking up stones to kill Jesus, and now He says they’re returning to the region where the men who want to kill Him have control. What we see in Jesus’s initial explanation is a parallel back to John 9, and the man born blind again. Jesus told them in John 9:4–5,

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Now we see a return to this principle of day and night, and the hours in which work is to be done. Jesus’s mission, His work is the work of God, given from the Father and manifested in the Son. He goes forward to strengthen and affirm the faith of many and to shine a glory that overpowers and destroys grief – He does not stumble as He moves forward, for He is the Light of the world. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

We’re offered the reminder that there is a time for all things. Jesus’s mission and the timing of God are not beholden to the plans and conspiracies of man. As the hour for His glory on the cross approaches, Jesus moves, and the plans of the ruling Jews are inconsequential.

2.      Glory in the Face of Death

“After saying these things, he said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep.”

After His initial explanation as it relates to the grand timing of His movements, Jesus offers His disciples more specific clarification as to why He’s returning to Judea: Lazarus has fallen asleep. While they don’t understand what He means, Jesus using “sleep” in reference to death is not an unfamiliar expression in the Bible. We see it said of multiple kings of Israel, 1 Kings 2:10 as an example saying,

“Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David.”

This is also something we see in the New Testament, the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7:59–60 as an example, saying,

“And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

While the disciples failing to pick up on His initial meaning could have been simple confusion, it’s worth remembering that while Jesus has told them of His coming death and resurrection, they always show resistance to this, and a lack of understanding. The most notable example of this is Matthew 16:21–23,

“From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’”

While Matthew’s account shows us an open rejection to the idea of Jesus’s death, Luke 9:45 says that after Jesus has foretold His death,

“But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.”

So there is both a lack of divine understanding, as well as resistance to Jesus going forth into danger. The disciples have a vested interest in Jesus not going back into Judea, and so they latch onto the idea that Lazarus will recover on his own, and that Jesus doesn’t need to go.

“Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’”

Through Jesus’s explanation we can see the bigger effect of Lazarus’ death, and what Jesus is about to do, beyond what would have come from another miracle healing. His waking of Lazarus from beyond death will serve as a blessing not just to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus himself, but to the disciples and many witnesses beyond. This is a miniature depiction of what Jesus does through His own death and resurrection, suffering the ultimate shame, the wrath of God on the cross, and overcoming death so that we might believe and be redeemed in Him. We don’t see an attempt to chastise Jesus as Peter did in Matthew 16, what we do see is that they still don’t quite get it. Thomas speaks out, encouraging them all to follow Jesus so that they may die alongside Him. The sentiment is beautiful, as it shows a faith and devotion to the point of death. While this faith is the right response to Christ, whose glory eclipses death and removes it’s sting, it shows that they’re not really listening. This is something we fall prey to now, having faith in the general power and idea of God, while failing to actually listen to what His Word tells us. While Thomas’s devotion is admirable, we also know that this picture of the disciples staying by Jesus’s side to the point of death is not how things unfold when the time of His arrest and crucifixion are at hand. Jesus tells them what will come to pass Matthew 26:3, which fulfills Zechariah 13:7,

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’”

Immediately after Jesus is arrested Matthew 26:56 and Mark 14:50 echo one another,

“… Then all the disciples left him and fled.”

“And they all left him and fled.”

Jesus is the manifestation of the glory that triumphs over death itself. While this couldn’t be properly perceived before His death and resurrection, it is the now the hope that is the foundation of our faith.

3.      Glory in the Promise of God

“Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.”

Jesus bringing the dead back to life is miracle enough, but as I mentioned earlier, we love to belittle the miracles of God. It seems that if Jesus has set out as soon as He received the news of Lazarus’ condition, he still would have died before Jesus arrived. But there’s a significance in Jesus delaying to set out, and in Lazarus having been dead four days. Jesus has raised at least two people from the dead up to this point, one being the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue ruler (Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43, Luke 8:40-56), and a widow’s only son (Luke 7:11-17). While both of these were profound miracles, there were certain Jewish customs and teachings that held that a person’s spirit didn’t necessarily depart immediately upon death, but could hang around for up to three days. While it has no Biblical backing, if we take this notion into consideration alongside the precedent set by resurrections in the Old Testament (Elijah in 1 Kings 17:17-24, Elisha in 2 Kings 18-37, and Elisha’s bones in 2 Kings 13:20-21), which all seem to occur relatively soon after the person has passed, we can see the significance of Jesus’s delay in going to Lazarus. After four days in the tomb, there is no room for any skeptic to say that it was a fluke, or that Lazarus being restored to life is anything other than Jesus working the will of the Father. We also see that Jesus is fearless in walking into dangerous territory. The simple idea that He was returning to the region where the Sanhedrin holds sway was enough to give the disciples pause, but His destination of Bethany wasn’t on the fringes of Judea, but just outside of Jerusalem. What’s more is that in light of Lazarus’ passing, many of the ruling Jews are visiting Mary and Martha to console them over their loss. What Jesus is walking into is, by any human account an absolute powder keg. We’ll see in next week’s section how He navigates this perfectly, working to the faith of many and above all, the glory of God.

“So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’”

When we see Mary and Martha in Luke 10, Martha welcomes Jesus into her home, but then we see the distraction with the tedium of serving, and frustration with her sister for her lack of help. Jesus’s words to her then, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her,” seem to have stuck. As soon as she hears of His coming she immediately goes to Him, and her first words, while colored by grief, place her faith in Him. The placement of her faith isn’t perfect, we can see in what she says that she doesn’t fully grasp the enormity of who Jesus really is, but it’s also hard to fault her for this. The glory of God is not something that is comprehended by human minds, and what is admirable is that while she may not fully understand, her belief is centered in Jesus. What we see her express is hope with clipped wings. This is something I think everyone can relate to in some capacity – we hear what God says, but the glory of the promise is too much, too great to hope for, and so we water it down. This isn’t a call to force our own desires or aims onto the will of God, but to believe fully and completely in what He has promised – that at the end of our race lies a perfection, an eternal glory that is beyond our comprehension.

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.’”

Martha shows faith in the promises of God, holding to the belief shared by many of the Jewish people, that in the final day there would be a resurrection. Jesus doesn’t dispel this hope, but exceeds it, offering up the fifth of His “I Am” statements. The hope that Martha places in a future resurrection is manifested in Him – He is the Resurrection. Jesus is the Life, He holds the keys to death. Something we should take note of is what Jesus asks her, as it’s a question we should earnestly ask ourselves: “Do you believe this?” Jesus doesn’t ask her, “do you understand this?” While understanding comes from God through the Spirit, and we do not hold a faith that is afraid of questions, it’s not required that we identify and understand every element of a glory so great that our minds can’t contain it. Neither should we have shallow rooted faith with no consideration or reverence for the enormity of the God we serve. Instead we have the promises of God, and the assurances revealed in His glory to take certainty and comfort from. We have a God who loves us, and a direct path to Him through Christ who died and lived again for us. The spirit of this passage, the glory that sustains through grief and death to the peace and assurances of God’s promises, is summed up in what Paul wrote in Romans 5:1–5,

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c21O3m0bZVw