Lazarus

Well, brethren, it's delightful to look forward to tomorrow evening and then into Monday and Tuesday. And then throughout the next week, as we're able to celebrate the spring holy days that God has designed for our benefit, we really have a wonderful blessing being able to observe and being able to honor, in a sense, the words that God has given us. And actually, as we think about it, God has, and we think about specifically the Passover, we know that God has prepared long ago for the Passover, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, to occur. It wasn't a last-minute thing. It wasn't something that just happened to come up. It was something that had been predicted from the very beginning. It was something that God knew that would be needed. And, thankfully, He has given all of us an understanding of the fact that we are appreciating, and we went over last week, the things that led up to Jesus' death, the things He went through for us, the suffering that He endured. And in many ways, that's very sobering. It's motivating, perhaps. It should be motivating to us to be excited about living God's way of life. But as I think I mentioned as well, there's clearly another wonderfully joyful sign to the Passover that I want to kind of focus on today. Because all of us not only believe what Jesus went through regarding His death, and then, of course, His burial, and then, finally, His resurrection. We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe that He has a great deal of power in that resurrection. And I want to remind all of us of that awesome power, because that power is unleashed. It's unleashed to us. And as we see that power helping us, because that's really what we should be thinking of as we understand the power of God, as we see that power unleashed and helping us, we ask for God to heal us at times. We ask for God to encourage us and to uplift us. We ask Him to make us righteous. That's really the only way we can be righteous if we are asking God to help us grow in His righteousness. And certainly, we always want to be reminded and thankful of the power that God gives to live in us. See, that's the transformation that's occurring in a Christian's life to be transformed from a human being who did not know God. We may have known the name of God or the name of Jesus. That could clearly have been the case. Usually, that's a starting point for any of us. But we didn't fully know God. That's even the way Paul describes it. You were not knowing God at all. He was talking of the Gentiles and how they were being brought out of obeying or serving false gods. But he really explains it in a way that is applicable to us. That we were brought out of not knowing God to where we really come to know. What we really come to appreciate, what we really come to know that in our lives today, Jesus Christ is to be living. And that's a fabulous thing to focus on because it is a part of what Christ went through for us as well. So I want to start here in Mark 16. This is pretty much where we left off last week.

But in Mark 16, I just want to read through the short section that follows what Jesus went through as He allowed Himself as the Lamb of God to be slaughtered. As He allowed Himself to endure the affliction, to endure the pain, to endure the suffering. And ultimately, here in the last part of Mark 15, it talks about His burial, about Joseph of Arimathea being involved. And it says that the body of Jesus was granted to Joseph, and then He buried Jesus. And in verse 1 of chapter 16, it said, when the Sabbath was over, and so this was three days later, when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices so they might go and anoint Him. So they had to prepare some of that on Friday, and they awaited the Sabbath to pass. And then this Sunday morning, verse 2, very early in the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they came to the tomb.

And they had been saying to one another, well, who's going to roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? And they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. So when they got there, even as it mentions very early, this was already an after-the-fact situation as far as Jesus was concerned.

The stone had already been rolled away. He was already risen. He was already gone. And verse 4, then they looked up, they saw the stone that was very large had been rolled back, and as they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, don't be alarmed. Don't be amazed. Don't be afraid. Don't be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth. He was crucified, and he is risen. He has been raised. He is not here. So it wasn't a fact that he was rising right then. He had already risen the evening before, or at least after the three days and three nights would have taken place.

But see, we have this very short account of Jesus' resurrection here in Mark. He goes ahead to say, look, there is a place where they laid Him, but go and tell your disciples, or His disciples, and tell Peter that He is going ahead of you to Galilee. And there you will see Him just as He told you. And so they went out and they fled from the tomb in terror, and amazement seized them, and they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.

Absolutely remarkable. They were dumbfounded. What could they say? What did they feel? Well, I'm sure they were thankful that this is actually happening, but perhaps they were remembering what Jesus had said. Perhaps they were being reminded how He had predicted that after having been in the grave for a period of time that He specified, and He says, I'll be resurrected. I'll be returning to the Father. And so, we owe our entire lives to Jesus Christ, who through His death and burial and resurrection has victory over death, victory over sin, victory over Satan. He is the King Supreme.

And whenever we study this, this of course is just discussing the resurrection of Jesus, which is something that many people have a focus on at this time of year. And yet, what we really find is that Jesus displayed His remarkable power over death, not only in His death, not only in His resurrection, I mean, but He also describes this, maybe even more graphic terms, in John 11.

Because in John 11, you have an account of a resurrection. You have an account, a remarkable account, actually, and as you read through the book of John, as I enjoy doing here during the spring holy days, you find some remarkable things that are here. And I'd like for us to think about what it was that God was teaching, what it was that Jesus was teaching, even before He got into chapter 12 and 13, actually chapter 13, where He is with His disciples, where He is performing a service to them in washing their feet and then telling them what they could expect.

That was before He was ever taken. But this was not too long before that. Here in John 11, you've got the amazing story of Lazarus, an amazing story of a family that Jesus knew apparently quite well. Mary and Martha and Lazarus of Bethany. Now, these were people that Jesus was familiar with. Actually, I think we're going to find He was quite a close friend to them. But I'd like for us to focus on the power that Jesus displayed. And again, not solely the fact that He was resurrected, which is a wonderful event in itself and one that we often think of as wealth during this time.

But what is it that He was teaching them? What is it that He's teaching us as we take a look at this story of Lazarus? Here in chapter 11 of John, verse 1, it says, Now a certain man was ill. He was sick. Lazarus of Bethany, who was of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. And Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped His feet with her hair. And her brother, Lazarus, was ill. So we get some clues about this family, actually, that John provides. And as what we see, this appears similar to the anointing that we read about last week. There does seem to be some dissimilarity as well. And so I'm not sure if there were two or whether there was simply one that was written about in a little different way. But nonetheless, I think we should keep this in mind because for some reason, John points out that Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume, this costly ointment, and who wiped His feet with her hair. Now this was an act that we will read about a little bit here later, but one that showed a certain dimension in Mary's life that in some ways was different than Lazarus.

And actually was quite different than Martha. What do we know about Lazarus and Martha and Mary? Well, they're actually very quite different people, at least what you see revealed about them. And actually, I would think the least of the three, as far as the way Jesus describes them in the Bible, is Lazarus. You don't see hardly anything about him.

He just happened to die. He happened to be sick and was dead. And then when he was resurrected, he became a celebrity. He became someone that some wanted to come and just, I don't know, is he still alive? Is he really alive? You know, he doesn't...there's not much to say about Lazarus, but there is actually more to say about his sisters, about Mary, and about Martha.

So as we continue with this story, in verse 3, the sisters sent a message to Jesus saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill.

So again, this would reveal a certain level of closeness, a certain level of familiarity.

And I know from what it says later that he was very familiar with this family, with these two sisters and brother.

They sent a message to Jesus, and of course Jesus could have just said, Let him be healed, because he did that in other places. He could have done that, or he could have quickly hustled over there before he died, and healed him if he wanted to do so. But that was not the plan. That was not what he was going to reveal at this time. So in verse 4, when Jesus heard it, he said, This illness does not lead to death.

Rather, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

So here in a sense, you get an idea that Jesus is able to control things far more than we might ever imagine.

So you see this even in other examples when you see some of the way that he dealt with his disciples, how it was when he dealt with them even as they were getting in the boat and sending them out to the tumult. He watched all of that. He was watching what was going on. He knew what was going on. He knew they were afraid.

He knew, you know, he was setting that up. He was allowing them to go through that awkward experience to show them, Don't worry about it. I can rescue you, which he did. I can bring you into safety. I can deliver you. I can restore you. And of course, he walked to them on the water, and he spoke to them and said, Everything is fine.

And it appears that immediately they were on the other side of the sea. You know, that's an amazing account, but there are numerous accounts of Jesus and his disciples, where it's very clear that he was teaching things or causing examples to be observed and then later be written down for us, so that we would recall that he is able to help us in this same way.

So he said this illness is not to death, rather it's for God's glory, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it. And accordingly, in verse 5, though Jesus loved Mary and her sister in Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Now this seems unusual, doesn't it? It seems kind of strange that Jesus would, after hearing, he loved, it says, he loved these folks. He loved Martha. He loved Mary. He loved Lazarus. And yet, he had a bigger purpose in mind than just simply trying to rescue Lazarus as far as getting there to heal him. So it says he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. And then after those days, he said to his disciples, Okay, well let's go to Judea now. This was something that he delayed. And the disciples said to him, a rabbi, the Jews, were just now trying to stone you, and you're going back in there again?

This wasn't in Jerusalem, and you're going to have to go back to Jerusalem, or at least around Jerusalem. Bethany was close to Jerusalem. And so they wondered about what he was doing. The Jews are trying to stone you, and you're going there. And Jesus answered and said, Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them. He made a statement that in some ways seems kind of disjointed or disconnected, but essentially was saying, Well, I have work to do, and I need to do that work while I'm able to do so. He went on in verse 11. After saying this, he told them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I'm going there to awaken him. So he had a view of what had happened that he described as he said he has fallen asleep, and yet in essence he meant he was dead. That's the way he was looking at death. See, death is not an insurmountable obstacle as it is for people. And when people die, they're dead. They're not returning to life. And yet to Jesus, he said, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, and I'm going there to awaken him. And the disciples said, Well, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, then he'll be all right. He'll wake up eventually. They looked at it physically. They realized, Well, if he's tired, and maybe if he's really tired, he can get some rest, he will sleep, and he'll wake up. And Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought he was referring merely to sleep. And Jesus told them plainly, I guess he could tell them, Frankly, my disciples, Lazarus is dead. He even knew that he was dead. He knew what was going on. Now, he had been contacted for help. He had been contacted to get some assistance. And Mary and Martha were thinking, well, if he'd just come here, he can heal him. I think he can do that. And of course, Lazarus was probably getting sicker and sicker. But of course, Jesus said, Lazarus is dead. And for your sake, in verse 15, for your sake, who was he doing this for? What was this account? Why was this account recorded?

Well, it was recorded for the sake of those who would watch and see what Jesus would do. And then, of course, for all of us, who would benefit from reading of the account of what Jesus did, in this case, with Lazarus. And so in verse 15, for your sake, I am glad I wasn't even there.

So that you may believe. So let us go to Him. See, here He was pointing out something that the disciples, in a sense, didn't even know they needed. They were just learning who He was. They were coming to understand better who He was. They were coming to understand that He was the Son of God. He wasn't just another flesh-and-blood human being.

That He was something special. And, of course, He had done certain things to cause them to think that He was very special, that He was very unique.

And so He said, I want, I'm glad I wasn't there so that you can come to believe.

But let us go to Him. And Thomas, who was called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let's also go, that we may die with Him.

That he said that, just stating that, well, look, the Jews are out to kill you. And if He's going to go back there, they're probably going to kill Him, and we might as well go with Him, because we're His disciples. We're His followers. And so you find Thomas is listed in a couple of other places here in the New Testament with a couple of different things that happened to him. But ultimately, He fully believes. He fully understands. He fully comprehends more than perhaps He would have even at this point, who it was that He was dealing with.

So in verse 17, see, actually Jesus has told His disciples, we're going to go, and they weren't sure exactly what was going to happen. But He has said that, I want to help you to believe. See, what He was telling them is that your faith needs to grow. Your faith actually starts off, in a sense, kind of in an elemental way, and it proceeds to be stronger and stronger. And it gets to kind of an immediate, intermediate area, and, you know, it can go on even beyond that.

And see, having the knowledge of who the Son of Man is, that He wanted them to believe that He was the Son of Man, that He was the Son of Man and the Son of God. He wanted them to have faith that He was the Son of God. He wanted them to have faith. And, of course, as they saw certain miracles, I'm sure their faith increased. Now, a few of them was out here, you know, doing miracles, fixing my car whenever it doesn't work, healing people that were obviously sick.

You know, that'd be, you know, we know Ewan. We don't know or think that he's the Son of God yet. Certainly, he's not Jesus. He seems to be a physical human being, and yet he can heal the sick, or he does heal the sick. That'd be hard to believe. That'd be hard to believe of another person, even with the disciples looking at Jesus, seeing what He did, seeing what He said. It'd still be hard to believe. It'd be hard to comprehend. And, of course, Jesus was telling them, well, I want your faith to grow.

I want that faith to increase. I want your understanding of who I am to increase, because you're going to be with me for several years, and ultimately I'm going to be taken away. And you're going to have to do the work that I've commissioned you to do, and I want you to understand that you can do that job because of me, because of my power, because of my ability to work through you, to live in you, to use you as my servants. That's where it comes down to us today. Now, the same thing is true about our faith growing. We actually see this about Mary.

We see this about Martha. And it doesn't again say too much about Lazarus. Lazarus is just kind of the dead guy in this scene. He really had little to do with it. But Mary and Martha had a lot to do with it. In verse 17, when Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. So I don't know how long it took him to get there, several days it looks like. And so he got there, and finally, well, he's been dead four days.

He's been in the tomb four days. And you know, this is a real problem now. Now, since when he was sick, it was a problem. But today, this is insurmountable. You can't overcome the depth of the problem right now. And it says in verse 18, Bethany was near Jerusalem, and was about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Mary and Martha to console them about their brother. And when Martha heard that Jesus was coming... So here we start another exchange here in verse 20. And I would say, as we read through what we're going to cover here briefly, the interaction that Jesus had with Martha, and the interaction that Jesus had with Mary, revealed several kind of increasing levels of belief and faith.

That's what they were going through. And he was actually teaching them through this example, exactly what it was that he wanted them to learn. So it says in verse 20, when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him.

And Mary stayed at home in verse 20. And I don't know, I guess that may say that Martha was a little more forward than Mary. At least maybe she wanted to get to Jesus and talk to him, tell him what she had on her mind. Maybe she...and it almost seems like the tone of what she had to say, she was a little irritated.

Irritated that Jesus didn't show up in time to do something. Probably not a good attitude, but nonetheless, we'll find that Martha did have a considerable amount of belief and faith in Jesus. So it says Martha met Jesus and Mary stayed at home. And in verse 21, Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And she points out quite clearly, and actually this is the same statement exactly that Mary makes later on. But what you find is that it was almost like Martha was somewhat accusatory of Jesus.

If you had only come earlier, if you had only come sooner, if you had only done this, you know, I don't know any more of the exchange than what we see written here. And yet, what we find was that Martha did have a level of belief. She did have a level of faith that actually is going to increase as we go along. Here in verse 21, she said, Lord, if you'd have been here, my brother would not have died.

But even now, I know that God will do whatever you ask of him. So here she was indicating, well, you know, if you'd have come and healed him before he died, that would have really been what I would have expected. That's what I hoped. That's what I wanted. And she went ahead and said, I think explaining a little more about the strength of her belief, even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.

She had more faith, I think, in that second statement than she had even in the first. See, I really believe or I really know that God can do whatever you ask. And yet, of course, she's still mourning. She's still discouraged. She's still maybe depressed.

She's sad that Jesus didn't come earlier. She's irritated about how things have turned out. But in verse 23, Jesus tells her something. He says, your brother is going to rise again. Now, what he was meaning by that statement was that I'm going to go and I'm going to resurrect him from the dead. That's what he meant. He says, your brother is going to rise again. And of course, she misunderstood. In verse 24, she said, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

And so what we find about Martha is that she was friends with Jesus. She believed in Jesus. And she now was expressing, okay, I also believe in the Word of God. She was familiar with the Old Testament. She was familiar with the teaching, even of the Pharisees. The Pharisees taught there's a resurrection at the end, at the last day. So she was aware that a resurrection would occur at a time sometime in the future.

She didn't know exactly when and didn't know when the last day would be. But she was a believer in Jesus. She was a believer in the Scripture at that point, the Old Testament. She could read Daniel 12. She could read sections of Job. She could read other areas in the Old Testament that tell you that the resurrection at the last day will occur. But again, she didn't fully understand what Jesus was telling her. And he said, I've come here in order to explain something to you that you don't yet know. You don't know as yet. And so Jesus said, your brother is going to rise again. And she said, I know.

It'll be in the resurrection at the last day. And Jesus made a statement to her that is a profound statement, and certainly a signifying statement for Jesus to make. He said to Mary, Mary, or excuse me, to Martha, Martha, I am. Of course, that was one of the names that he went by in the Old Testament.

But he said, I am the resurrection, and I am the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. And so he made a declaration to Martha here that she didn't fully comprehend yet. She knew who he was. She was friends with him. She believed in him. She'd seen some miracles, or at least heard of some. She was familiar with the fact that he could heal.

But see, he was actually adding layer on layer to her belief, to her faith, and ultimately to her commitment to the One who is the Savior, the One who is the resurrection and the life. And so she says, or he asked her, do you believe that this is the case? And she said to him, yes, Lord, I believe. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One that's coming into the world. And not only was she friends with him, not only did she recognize who he was, but she said, I believe that you are the Son of God. I believe who you are. I believe that I should follow you. I believe that I should appreciate you maybe far more than I do. And so, you know, Jesus had continued to lead her here in a better understanding of what it was she needed to know, and even more so for us, for us to appreciate the fact that not only is Jesus able to heal, but he's able to raise the dead. He's able to cause people who have died to be resurrected. And what he says is that you need to depend on, you need to believe in, and you need to appreciate that resurrection. Martha did believe in God's Word, and yet she was yet to learn.

She was yet to learn of the type of power that Jesus had over death, and the type of power that he had to act in the present. See, that was what she was learning. She was saying, well, I know you're going to resurrect Lazarus, or he will be resurrected at the last day. And that's in the future, and I guess in many ways, all of us believe that we will be resurrected in the future. We're not there yet. We're not at that point at this time.

But see, what Martha was learning was that Jesus has the power to act in the present. He has the power to intervene as he chooses or sees fit. And when she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told Mary privately, the teacher is here and is calling for you. And so Jesus must have asked, well, where's Mary? Because he also was concerned about her. He understood that Mary and Martha were both affected by the death of their brother. He was concerned about that, but he was also there to teach and to show her something far more important than simply the fact that Lazarus had died.

The teacher is here and is calling you, and when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to Jesus. And Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. And the Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, and they followed her because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep.

So all of this is going on, and Mary abruptly gets up because she's told that Jesus wants to talk to her. He wants to see how she is. He knows how Martha is. He wants to know how Mary is. And what we find is that the Jews really were, in a sense, kind of... They were trying to console. They were trying to comfort. They were trying to help with the warning that was going on. And yet what we find here was that in verse 32, when Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him, her reaction, in a sense, was quite different than Martha's.

Martha's was, I know who you are, and I'm irritated that you didn't get here before Lazarus died. That was what Martha said. And that seems to be the way she said it. And of course, Christ showed her. He showed her that, well, you know, your brother's going to rise again. Meaning that he's going to rise again right now, right very soon.

And of course, he was trying to increase her faith. He was trying to encourage her faith in the Son of God. But when Mary came to Jesus, where she came where He was, what it says is that she knelt at His feet. And she said to Him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Same thing that her sister Martha had said. But it seems that the tone of what she was saying, and certainly the attitude, the attitude with which she was projecting was somewhat different than Martha's.

You know, she comes to Jesus, she kneels at His feet, and in essence almost begs Him, Lord, if you'd have been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died. And of course, what we find about Jesus' interaction with her was that, you know, He was concerned about her. He saw her weeping. The Jews that came with her, they were weeping. And He was really deeply disturbed, deeply moved. And He was, in a sense, distressed over the disturbance that had been created in their lives.

And so He had a great deal of compassion and concern for them. But even more than anything, He wanted them to learn something from this, to learn something through this experience. And of course, you find, you know, when I mentioned in verse 32, that marriage is simply knelt at His feet. Here in chapter 12, verse 8, verses there go through, and we won't take time to go through that, but this is the case where Mary did come and take the ointment and anoint Jesus' feet and wipe them with her hair.

See, the type of adoration that Mary had, the type of respect, the type of responsiveness, the type of a desire to obey that Mary had. And you see another illustration of her, you know, really focusing on what Jesus had to say, as opposed to being concerned about many things as far as the service that was going on in the house that Martha was concerned about.

You found that Mary's understanding, her comprehension, her depth of commitment to Jesus was really quite different. It was, in a sense, remarkable. And yet, of course, you know, He was, I think, glad to see Martha. He was glad to see Mary. And we find that in verse 33, as He saw their weeping, He was greatly disturbed and said, Well, where have they laid Him?

And they said to Him, Well, Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept, is what it says in most of our translations. He cried as well. And perhaps He may have cried because of Mary, because of Martha, maybe over Lazarus.

I think most of all, He was crying over the in understanding that the people had, not just these family members that He was concerned about and that He was interested in, but the Jews who were all around.

You know, He saw that they had no idea what it was that was going to happen, that they clearly didn't even have the type of a connection with Him that Martha and Mary had. And so He was compassionately concerned for them. And so the Jews, they said, Well, see how He loved Him. But some of them said, Well, couldn't He who opened the eyes of the blind keep this man from dying?

They had a mixed reaction. You know, some of them thought, Well, He looked like He's a concerned citizen here. He looks like He's compassionately concerned about the death of this brother. And yet some of them said, Well, He's supposed to be someone great. He's supposed to be the Son of God. He's supposed to be powerful. Probably they didn't think He was supposed to be the Son of God. I don't think that was their perception. But see, what we find from this is that Jesus was moved by what Martha and Mary were going through.

And He was distressed over the inner understanding that the people there had. And He was going to do something about that very quickly. So in verse 38, when Jesus again, greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave and the stone was lying against it. And Jesus said, Well, take away the stone.

And Martha, sister of Lazarus, said, Well, Lord, already there's a stench. There's a bad odor because He's been dead for four days. So this might not be a good idea. This is, you know, He's, we wrapped Him and put Him into the grave. We buried Him four days ago, and by now He's starting to decompose. And there's already a bad stench from this tomb. Jesus said in verse 40, Did I not tell you? And so He was reminding Martha and reminding Mary, Did I not tell you that if you believed that you would see the glory of God?

Again, He was working with them. He was wanting them to have their faith increase. He was wanting them to grow. And of course, you see one of the disciples in another place asking, Well, you know, we know we don't have enough faith that we'd ask for you to increase our faith. And I think that's what Jesus was clearly doing for Martha and for Mary.

And so He said, I tell you, if you believe that you would see the glory of God. And so they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, Father, I thank You that You have always heard Me. Now here, even the statements that Jesus makes are remarkable.

Because as He has come to Lazarus' tomb, as He has removed the stone from the opening, He looks up and says, Father, I thank You that You have always heard Me. See, what type of a connection? What type of a significant connection did Jesus have with His Father? He says, I know You always hear Me. Now we may think God always hears us, and we can intellectually know that. I think He was saying that in an even more in-depth way. He says, I know that You have always heard Me.

And I knew that You always hear Me, but I am even saying this. I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here.

And so as He has come to this point, as He has come to Lazarus' grave, as He has removed the stone, as He is talking before the people, Mary and Martha and the other Jews who were there, He says, I'm here, and actually He's asking His Father to help these people. He wasn't just saying, I'm going to resurrect Lazarus. He says, I need You to help these people. I need You to strengthen their faith. I know that You always hear Me, and I'm saying this for these people. And He goes on in verse 42 to say, I'm saying this for the sake of these people so that they may believe that You sent Me.

He wanted them to believe who He was. He wanted them to have faith in the Son of God. He wanted them to recognize not only that He could perform miracles that they had been dealing with somehow. They had been either circumventing or trying to forget or trying to ignore for the most part. Most of the Jews didn't want to believe that. They didn't want to believe what He was able to do to heal those who were paralyzed or to heal those who were blind or to perform other miracles that there was no way of anyone able to know.

He says, I'm saying this for the sake of the crowd standing here so that they may believe that You sent Me. And when He had said this, He cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! Lazarus, come out of the tomb! And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. And Jesus said, well, unbind Him and let Him go.

And so a remarkable miracle occurred, not simply a miracle of healing where someone is sick and they are restored, but in this case where Lazarus is dead and he's resurrected from the dead, he's drawn out of sleep, out of death, to be able to be given life again, given a physical life. And it even says in chapter 12, in verse 2, they gave a dinner for him and Martha was serving there. Mary anointed his feet and Lazarus was one of those at the table with Him.

Again, it doesn't say much about what Lazarus was doing or saying. It doesn't say anything about how this affected him, dying and then being resurrected. But certainly he was someone to talk about. He was certainly someone that people had to think a little more about.

You know, well, we know that he died. We know that he was in the grave. We know that he was resurrected because he's standing here. Something happened. We don't know what it is. And of course, Jesus was doing this miracle. He was performing this in order to strengthen the faith of those who were there, but to help them to realize that he had power.

Not only does God have power, talking of God the Father, has power over death, but that Jesus has power over death. He is able not only to resurrect people in the future, which we trust will be the case, which we believe in have faith will be the case. He's able to perform miracles and even bring someone back to life today.

He's able to do that. Now, he's not intervening in that way that often, as we would think, but he's able to do that. He's able, and he has the power over death in order to do that. And what you find as a result of this example that Jesus gave is in verse 45, many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him. See, that was the outcome. At least some of them. Of course, others accused Him. Others thought, you know, this is serious. You know, He's threatening our authority. He's threatening our institution. He's threatening the temple. He's threatening us being in religious authority.

And of course, they are taking, you know, they're planning to put Him to death in verse 53. You know, kind of an awkward response to someone who was able to not only heal the sick, but to raise the dead.

So the power that Jesus has, the power that God has over the resurrection, over death, in the resurrection, is a power that we want to, I think, utilize in our own lives as we think about how it is that our faith in Christ, that's a part of what we go through as we are looking forward now to the Passover service, as we look forward to appreciating who it is that we are celebrating. Because in a sense, that's what we're doing. We're doing a memorial. We're doing a commemoration of Jesus' death, of His sacrifice for us. But we're also appreciating the fact that He rose from the dead. We're appreciating the fact that because of Him rising from the dead, because of His power over the death, that He is able now, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to live in it.

And He has an unlimited amount of power. And I don't know whether we always realize that. I think I don't. I just don't understand how powerful Jesus is. But I think I'd like to understand that better. I'd like to know more about what it is that Jesus can do, what He will do. I don't know what type of protection He may be needing to provide in the future. Some of that may yet be.

Something that we will find out as we go forward. But I do know that we want to have our faith strengthened. Just as Martha's faith, I think, was strengthened. And Mary's seemed to be even a little more intense, because she had enough sense enough to know, I need to kneel before the Son of God. And I am glad to anoint His feet and wash them with my hair. That sounds a great deal of adoration, a great deal of respect that Mary was paying to Jesus Christ. But I think as we read through this, that we can see the example was one of Jesus was doing it in order to help the people.

He was what He did, how it turned out, how He even delayed. Once He got there, what it was He said, of course He said, you know, I am the resurrection in the life. I am the one that you can trust. I am the one that you can trust with your physical life and with your eternal life. Because I have power over all of that. And so they certainly came to believe in the Son of God. They came to believe in His power over death. And I think that for them, many of them felt that that was an eye-opening, life-changing experience.

Because in a sense, they had an encounter with the Son of God. Now what kind of impact it had on them? I don't know if any of those folks later became a part of the church. I don't know. We find that at least some may have been a part of the disciples.

And yet, certainly for the most part, the Jews tried to overlook this. And yet, this experience of John 11, I think, elevated the faith of those who could be affected, like Martin, like Mary. It elevated their faith to a dimension that was heretofore completely misunderstood or in understandable to them. It gave them an understanding of the faith that they needed to have. That was just simply remarkable. And I think as we can study that, as we can appreciate what it is that is recorded here in the Word of God for our benefit, that we too can ask that our faith would grow.

As we draw closer to the Son of God, as we draw closer to our Savior, that's a part of what the Passover is. It's sobering, but it's also very joyous, very wonderful that He is able to extend to us His forgiveness, but that through the power of the resurrection, that He is at the right hand of God and is helping us. He's helping us, just like He was helping Martha, just like He helped Mary. He was helping them understand who He was, understand how much they could depend on Him, understand how much they could rely on Him.

And so that, of course, is an example for us. So I hope that as we appreciate the Passover, as we celebrate the Days of Unleavened Bread, that we can do these things, asking God to increase our faith, and asking God to increase our understanding of the power that He had, and asking God that He would not only help us to appreciate what He gives us in the Passover sacrifice to save us from our sins, but that He would also help us in our walk with Him, that that walk would be one that would be filled with faith in Jesus, the Son of God.