John 11:38-44 Jesus raises Lazarus
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
What keeps striking me about this passage is how it just happens. Clearly, Jesus knew exactly what he was going to do. It’s just that he undertook this work in such a workmanlike way. Jesus raised the dead like I would hang a light fixture, he just did it.
What if you were at a deathbed and God asked you to pray for resurrection? What if he gifted you with absolute faith that this person would be raised? How would that feel? What if you did it and they were raised? Would you just say ok, yawn, what else should we do today? No, I think the war of doubt and faith would be gargantuan and when they came back the rejoicing and exclaiming would be loud and prolonged.
But Jesus, his big prayer is, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” The work itself was three words, loud enough to raise the dead, but just, “Lazarus come out.” And when Lazarus came out Jesus didn’t jump and shout. No, but apparently the onlookers were frozen in amazement and Jesus snaps them back by giving them a job to do, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Jesus accomplishes what is impossible for any of us without any strain or fuss, almost without effort. Raising Lazarus from the dead cost him very little. Contrast that with what it cost him to save us from sin. It cost him everything.
Our physical life is a mystery to science. Doctors can’t where exactly the difference lies between a living body and an undamaged but dead one. Why does a body full of activity, growth, change just stop? Where does the spark called life exist?
How much greater is the mystery of spiritual life. The work of the cross transmits the life of God’s spirit into everyone who believes. That this is true is a matter of the testimonies of changed lives echoed over and over for millennia. But how is it that God can take my sin away because Jesus died on the cross? I don’t know, but it must be so because I feel the tension between my flesh and my spirit, as my flesh must still face death but my spirit is alive in Christ forevermore.
Let’s let the raising of Lazarus accomplish its stated purpose in us. Let it stir your faith in Jesus, in his resurrection power and the promise that as he is the resurrection and the life we, in him, are resurrected in spirit and look forward to eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord.
brotherpayne 