📖 The Gospel of John — Unit 8: The Resurrection and the Life

Introduction — Dead Man Walking

One of the secret dreads we all carry is the fear of death. We make jokes about it and push it out of our minds, but down deep we all fear it, and the deepest question any religion must answer is the question of death. Without a resurrection, life has no lasting meaning; we live our few short years and then it is over. In John 11 we come to the greatest of all the signs — greater than turning water to wine, greater than feeding the five thousand, greater than opening blind eyes. A man named Lazarus had been dead and buried four full days when Jesus called him out of the tomb alive. Here our Lord shows that He holds power over the grave itself, and the One who can conquer death can take away every fear. Let us walk through the account in four movements: the tragedy, the trial, the tears, and the triumph over death.

I. The Tragedy of Death

Lazarus of Bethany fell sick. He belonged to a family that loved the Lord and whom the Lord loved, so the sisters sent the simplest of messages: "Lord, the one You love is sick." They surely expected that would be enough. But Lazarus died, and for that household the loss was a tragedy — a man in the prime of life, with everything before him, suddenly gone. Death is almost always like that. When a small child dies we say the bud was cut off before it could bloom. Death is a tragedy for the unbeliever, for whom there seems no hope to offer at the graveside; it is a tragedy in the slow wasting of a lingering illness; and it is a tragedy even when we are sure we will see the person again, because the loss is real and the absence aches. I do not speak of this from a distance. With my first wife I had nearly two years to say goodbye, and it was still perhaps the hardest thing I have ever faced — though the Lord in His kindness later gave me my Ana. And the first death I ever knew was a baby niece, the first grandchild in our family, who died when she was not yet two; I still remember my mother's arms around me and her cry, "Why did God let our baby die?" I had no answer then, and I have none now that the heart can fully hold. Death is a real enemy, and Scripture never asks us to pretend otherwise.

II. The Trial of Death

When word came that Lazarus was sick, Jesus did the unexpected thing: He stayed where He was two more days. His first words were not "Let us hurry" but "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it" (John 11:4). Lazarus died within the permissive will of God, allowed for a purpose none of them could yet see. The disciples did not understand the delay; Martha did not understand; Mary did not understand. And there is the trial of death, and of every hard providence: that we are asked to trust God in the dark, before the reason is shown. Paul prayed three times for his thorn to be removed, and God's answer was not "yes" but "My grace is sufficient for you." It is only when faith is tested that faith grows.

III. The Tears of Death

When Jesus drew near Bethany, the air was full of weeping. Martha, the busier and more practical sister, hurried out first; Mary, whose grief was quieter and more private, came only when she was called, and fell at His feet. Around them wailed the mourners who had come to grieve with the family. And then come the two words that are the shortest verse in all the Bible and among the fullest: "Jesus wept" (John 11:35). He knew that within the hour Lazarus would walk out of that tomb, and still He wept — not for Lazarus, but for the living, for the grief of those He loved and for a world under the shadow of the grave. He did not stand above their sorrow; He entered it. "Weep with those who weep," Paul tells us (Romans 12:15), and here the Lord Himself shows us how. It was good for me, in my own losses, to see other people weep with me, even a pastor with tears. Our God is not a stranger to our grief; He has stood in it and cried.

IV. The Triumph over Death

Now comes the turn. Both sisters had met Him with the same ache: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." To Martha He said, "Your brother will rise again," and she answered with the distant, last-day hope every believer holds: "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." But Jesus drew the resurrection out of the far future and into the present, into a Person, into Himself: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25–26). Resurrection is not first an event or a doctrine; it is Christ Himself. To have Him is to have life that death cannot end.

Then He went to the grave. "Take away the stone," He said, and Martha, ever practical, protested: "Lord, by this time he stinks, for he has been dead four days." Jesus answered, "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?" So they rolled the stone away, and He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" (John 11:43). It has been said it was a mercy He called Lazarus by name, or every dead person in every grave might have come walking out at the sound of that voice. Out came Lazarus, bound hand and foot in his grave clothes — and every doubt was buried in that moment. Jesus likened death to a sleep: as a tired child falls asleep on the couch and wakes in his own bed because his father carried him there, so the believer falls asleep in death and wakes, carried by the Father, safe in the right place. The fear that haunts every human heart is broken at the mouth of an empty tomb.

One thing more: to the grieving family Jesus gave a task. "Loose him, and let him go" (John 11:44). The Lord raised Lazarus, but He let the people unwind the grave clothes and welcome him back into life. He still works that way. Christ alone can give the life; but to us He says of one another, "Loose him, and let him go" — help the newly alive out of the bindings of the past, teach them, encourage them, walk with them. Have you trusted the One who is the Resurrection and the Life? Then the grave has lost its terror, and you are free to weep with those who weep and, when He raises them, to loose them and let them go. The grave is no longer a wall but a doorway, and the same voice that once cried, "Lazarus, come forth," will one day call every believer out by name.

Submit Exam & Check Pass Reset Unit