My father died in 1997 after years of battling with various physical diseases. Shortly after his death I went through a time of wrestling with God. I was not asking God, “Why did my father have to die?” My questions to God at that time were more along the lines of: “Why did my father have to suffer for so long?”
God never gave me "the" answer at that time. He may give me an answer when I get to heaven or he may not. I imagine by that time my focus will be on other things. But what God did give me way back in 1997 and 1998 was some truth and wisdom and his love to see me through my time of wrestling. And I think that the Scripture that the Lord used most to speak to me during that time of wrestling was this passage, John 11:1-44, about the death and resurrection of Lazarus, about the power of Jesus to set us free.
What I would like to do with you today is to open the Scriptures together and as we read, allow me to share with you my questions, and some answers that have helped me. Listen for God’s word to you from John 11…
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
My first question is: who should we call on to set us free? When we are in trouble, when we are bound all around by problems, who should we call on?
We read that Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus when their brother Lazarus was sick. This was a family that Jesus knew well. He had spent time in their home on numerous occasions. Martha cooked and served meals to Jesus. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and drank in his teaching. Lazarus was a good friend.
But notice… the basis of the sisters’ appeal to Jesus was Jesus’ own love for Lazarus. “Lord, the one you love is sick.” They did not appeal to Jesus on the basis of Lazarus’ love for Jesus, nor their own love for Jesus, nor on the basis of the fact that they had shown hospitality to Jesus on numerous occasions. They told Jesus about Lazarus’ sickness trusting that Jesus would do something out of his own love for Lazarus.
I think we can learn from this that when we are in trouble, we too can call on Jesus. We can appeal to him to hear our prayer based upon his love for us. After all, our love for him, our service to him, is never a sufficient basis of appeal. Our love and our service are never perfect. But his love is perfect. Jesus loves you; Jesus loves me; and he will hear our prayer.
We are all familiar with the 911 emergency system in our country. A few years ago, I called 911 for the first time. My son Josh had passed out and wasn’t immediately coming back to consciousness. Paramedics arrived at our house within minutes, and in the end, everything turned out alright.
There come times in our lives when in our desperation and pain we dial 911 prayers. Sometimes we are hysterical. Sometimes we don’t know the words to speak. But if we dial J-E-S-U-S, then the Lord hears. He knows our names and our circumstances. Help is on the way; the Lord has already begun to bring the remedy.
We read of Jesus’ response to Mary and Martha in the rest of John 11…
But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having 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 trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “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.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 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. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
This part of the story raises the question: why does Jesus wait to set us free? That was essentially my question in regard to my father’s suffering. Why do we have to suffer? Why doesn’t Jesus put an end to all suffering right now and take us all to heaven right now? When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, why did he stay where he was for two more days? Why didn’t he speak the word and heal Lazarus right then? Or why did he not immediately go to the side of his friend Lazarus, touch him, and heal him in that way?
Jesus gives a couple of answers to these questions in our text. First, Jesus’ waiting will somehow bring more glory to God. Jesus waited until Lazarus was dead to go and see him because his raising Lazarus from the dead would enable people to see the glory of God in action.
But that is not all. Raising Lazarus from the dead would also lead to the glory of the cross. Over and over again in John’s Gospel, Jesus talks of his glory in connection with the cross. Jesus regarded the cross as his supreme glory and as the way to glory. I think Jesus knew perfectly well that if he went back to Judea where some of his fellow countrymen had been trying to kill him, and if he raised Lazarus from the dead, it would provoke the wrath of the religious leaders. And that is exactly what happened.
The second reason Jesus gives for waiting to go to Lazarus is so that people might believe. Jesus knew that his raising of Lazarus would increase his disciples’ faith in him.
Yet, it still seems cruel that Jesus waited when he could have done something. The sisters say as much to Jesus. Often in our grief we say similar things to God.
It is in the midst of such grief and questioning that we need to realize that Jesus’ delays are the delays of love. Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
Sometimes Jesus waits. Sometimes he seemingly does not respond to our prayers immediately, or in the way that we would like, because he knows that to accomplish his Father’s larger purpose, he must wait and so must we.
The next part of the story is perhaps the most staggering in all of Scripture. We read…
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
I say this is perhaps the most staggering thing in all of Scripture because John is writing to a Greek audience. The Greeks pictured God as being beyond emotion. God, to the Greeks, was incapable of being moved by the human condition. But John tells us the exact opposite. Jesus, whom John presents as God in human flesh, weeps at the grave of his friend Lazarus.
But why does Jesus weep? Why does Jesus weep when he knows that he is going to raise Lazarus from the dead in just a few moments? It seems to me psychologically impossible for Jesus to be grieving for the same reason that Mary and Martha are grieving. He seems to know something they don’t. Yet he weeps. Why?
Perhaps Jesus wept because he knew that Lazarus would have his dying to do over again. C. S. Lewis writes,
How awful it must have been for poor Lazarus who had actually died, got it all over, and then was brought back—to go through it all, I suppose, a few years later. I think he, not St. Stephen, ought really to be celebrated as the first martyr.
We tend to look at the story of Lazarus from the wrong end of the telescope, so to speak. We forget that Lazarus, as a believer in Jesus, when he died, was set free. He was in heaven. Though Jesus’ raising of Lazarus must have been a great joy to his sisters, it meant further trials and tribulations for Lazarus himself.
And that, I think, is why Jesus wept. Jesus was deeply moved in spirit and troubled at the horror of death itself. He wept at the thought of Lazarus having to do his dying all over again. But he went ahead and raised Lazarus because he knew it would be to the glory of God. He knew it would lead to others believing in him. He knew it would lead to the cross where he was destined to die for us. Perhaps, Jesus suffered more than anyone else as he stood beside Lazarus’ grave because he knew more than anyone what death was really about. He knew what he was about to do, and he knew what he was about to suffer.
Corrie ten Boom, who was imprisoned during World War II for harboring Jews in her home, often said this: “There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.” That is true because of the cross. We may have to suffer. Our loved ones may have to suffer. But Jesus has suffered more than we will ever know or fully comprehend. And he has done it for us.
Next we read of the great miracle itself…
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because 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?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
How are we set free? Lazarus was set free from the grave, first, by Jesus’ prayer. Jesus is praying for us right now. Paul tells us that Jesus “is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” (Romans 8:34) It is Jesus’ prayers that will set us free from whatever is binding us.
Secondly, Lazarus was set free by Jesus’ word. After Jesus prayed, he called in a loud voice, “Lazarus come out!”
Jesus’ word is also what will set us free. He is calling to us right now. He is calling us to come out of the places where we entomb ourselves and where we are entombed by others. Jesus is calling us to come alive.
From what does Jesus set us free? He sets us free from death.
A letter came from Health and Human Services to a resident of Greenville County, South Carolina: “Your food stamps will be stopped because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if your circumstances change.”
Jesus is the only one that can reverse the circumstances of death, both spiritual and physical death; I believe Jesus is the only one who can truly set us free.
I love Jesus’ final line in this story, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go!” What freedom!
From what is it that we want to be free? Jesus is the one who can provide us with true freedom. Jesus sets us free from fear, frustration, and futility … forever. All we have to do is receive his gift.
I have a confession to make… Yellow is not my favorite color. But now that I know the story of Vincent van Gogh, I have come to value yellow differently. This famous Dutch painter grew up in a Christian home and even served as a missionary for a time. But he struggled, as many of us do, with faith. However, by the grace of God, as Vincent came back to faith in Jesus, his life took on hope, and he gave that hope color. At least, that is the theory some folks have.
Some say that van Gogh’s spiritual growth can be seen in the gradual increase of the presence of the color yellow in his paintings. It is possible that yellow evoked (for him) the hope and warmth of the truth of God’s love. For example, in his famous Starry Night painting, one finds a yellow sun and yellow swirling stars, because van Gogh found God’s love expressed in God’s creation. Intriguingly, the church in Vincent’s painting is about the only object showing no traces of yellow. Some of us have experienced the same thing with the church that Vincent did. Expecting to find light, we have only found darkness in the church.
If that has been your experience, I have a suggestion for you. This suggestion may come as surprising from the lips of a pastor. But here it is… if you have found only darkness in the church instead of light, stop following the church and follow Jesus instead.
Perhaps that is what Vincent van Gogh did. By the time he painted The Raising of Lazarus, Vincent bathed the entire painting in yellow. In fact, van Gogh put his own face on Lazarus to express his hope in the resurrection power of Jesus.
Yes, Vincent still had his struggles. He battled depression. And he may have taken his own life or died at the hand of another. We do not know for certain. But when I look at the blaze of colors in his final paintings, I see a lot of yellow. I see light. I catch notes of hope in his beautiful artwork.
Yellow tells the whole story: life can begin all over again because of the truth of God’s love. Each of us, whether with actual yellows or metaphorical yellows, can begin to paint our lives with the fresh hope of a new beginning all because of Jesus’ power to set us free.
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