BELIEVE – The Raising of Lazarus John 11:1-44 “In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car, and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there. As you walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from today. All these people have come to honor you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life. As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There are to be four speakers. The first is from your family, immediate and also extended —children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who have come from all over the country to attend. The second speaker is one of your friends, someone who can give a sense of what you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession. And the fourth is from your church or some community organization where you’ve been involved in service. Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of working associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives?” This is an excerpt from Steven Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effect People. This comes from Habit 2 – Begin with the End in Mind. This gets you thinking about what really matters at the end of the day or the end of your life. You begin analyzing your life and asking profound questions: What is the purpose of my life? What am I trying to achieve? What outcomes do I want from this life? Why are these outcomes important or valuable to me? Why am I making the decisions I am making today? Why do we begin to ask these questions? We ask these questions because we all will die one day. It’s inevitable. You can bet on it. When we think about the finality of life, we start to question everything. One could say, we start to think about what really matters. I believe that is why you are here today or watching online. You desire something more, even if you aren’t entirely sure what that is. Today, we are talking about death. Not only are, we are talking about death, but we’re going to enter into a funeral scene. If I can be honest, this funeral is all over the place. The person who has died is Lazarus. He has two sisters, Martha and Mary. When Lazarus was very sick, they sent word to Jesus. They informed Jesus, not just because he could heal, but because he was also their dear friend. Jesus probably stayed at their house during his travels, so they have experienced close and intimate moments together. Upon hearing the news that Lazarus was sick, Jesus stayed where he was for two days before heading their way (which would take a day to travel). So, we enter into the scene where Jesus, a close friend, is late to the funeral and you might say he is one of the speakers for the funeral. Emotions are tense and in walks Jesus to the funeral. When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. Bethany was only a few miles down the road from Jerusalem, and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary in their loss. – John 11:17-19 (NLT). Jesus arrives in Bethany and it has been four days since Lazarus’s death. Our writer John is trying to draw attention to the TIMING of Jesus. This is an important detail for two reasons. 1. Formal mourning in Jewish culture would last seven days and would start the day of the death. In Western culture, we like to sterilize death. We don’t like to mourn and take time to feel the emotions of loss and pain. Our desire is to move on with life. In Eastern culture, people take time to mourn and feel the pain. The main point is that Jesus arrives in the middle of this grieving process for the family and friends: He’s late! 2. There was a Jewish belief during this time that the soul of a person would remain near the body for three days after the death attempting to reenter it. Therefore, the person wasn’t officially dead until after the third day. Our writer, John, wants to be clear that Lazarus is officially dead. There is no coming back from this death on basis of resuscitation. It will take an act of God to bring Lazarus back to life. It would appear as if Jesus had bad timing and that Martha was experiencing the emotions of frustration and loss. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.” – John 11:20-22 (NLT). I believe we can all resonate with Martha in this moment. She lost her brother, and the one person who could have healed him, wasn’t there He arrived late. We can become extremely frustrated when it appears God didn’t show up when we needed him most. Have you ever experienced a moment where God didn’t show up? You tried to seek him out and listen for his voice but received nothing. It can feel as if the days of no answer get darker and darker. Eventually, you doubt if he even cares what you are experiencing. It may be as simple that God is delaying in his timing, but that doesn’t make the pain go away. We also want to trust that God is powerful at the same time and that he has a bigger plan. Therefore, it can feel as we are wrestling with God between our will and his will. I believe these are some of the emotions that Martha and Mary were experiencing in those days where Jesus did not arrive. Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.” “Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.” – John 11:23-24 (NLT). The Jews believed in a final resurrection. And this is seen in Martha’s response. She has the correct belief, but it is incomplete. I want to stop here for a moment and dig into this comment by Martha because I believe that it is very similar to how we view our faith in Jesus. Martha looks to the last day when everyone who believes in Jesus will experience resurrection. Her belief in Jesus seems to only be beneficial at the end of time. If we are honest, I believe many of us share this belief. Jesus’s timing in our lives appears to only be relevant at the end of our lives when we go to heaven. Until then, what difference does Jesus make for us? The truth is that Jesus wants us to experience much more than that. Let’s shift our focus from Jesus’s timing to his WORDS as we view this next part of the story. Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” – John 11:15- 26 (NLT) Jesus is saying, you don’t have to wait, Martha! This is how Eugene Peterson translates this passage: “You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?” – John 11:25-26 (MSG). Jesus responds to Martha with this powerful claim that the resurrection isn’t just down the road one day, but it is embodied in Jesus who is literally standing right in front of her. Jesus is making two claims. (1) He is the resurrection. Resurrection is not an event, but a person. That person is Jesus. We have access to resurrection power when we profess belief in Jesus as the Savior of the world. (2) He is the life. We all have this abstract idea of what eternal life is. The truth is that real life in found in Jesus. Jesus gives life to everything. I would like to expand on what it means to truly live. Many of us know we will die, but we live lives where our focus is to avoid death. We live with an avoidance mentality.