John 11:1-44

Read John 11:1-44 The raising of Lazarus

The raising of Lazarus is the seventh and final “sign” in John’s Gospel.

In verses 1-2, John explains who Lazarus, Mary, and Martha are.  He has not yet told us the story of Mary anointing Jesus, but he assumes his readers know that story well.

Verses 1-16 Lazarus is sick

In verse 4, how does Jesus describe what will be the result of Lazarus’s illness?

How can an illness result in God or Jesus being glorified?

Verse 5 says that Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus.  We have not heard of them previously, and all John tells us here is that they lived in Bethany, which was a village around 2 miles east of from Jerusalem.  You had to cross the Mount of Olives to get to Bethany, and Matthew 21:17 tells us that during the final week before his crucifixion, Jesus spent the night in Bethany (presumably at the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus).  Although it requires some speculation, what do you think the relationship between them and Jesus might have been like?

Because of the opposition Jesus encountered the last time he was in Jerusalem, he is currently in the area near the other Bethany, across the Jordan River, where John the Baptist had preached and where Jesus’s ministry had begun.  When Jesus says in verse 5, “Let us go to Judea again” – i.e., back to the area around Jerusalem – how do the disciples respond?

Jesus gives a cryptic response in verse 9.  What does he say, and what does it mean?

Jesus says: When you walk in the daytime, you don’t stumble because you see the light.  It is only at night, when you are without light, that you stumble.  Jesus made a similar comment in John 9:4 when he said that we need to do the works of God while it is still day, because the night is coming when no one can work.  Here, he is implying that it will be safe to go to Lazarus; they will be in the “light” because his hour has not yet come.

Jesus says that Lazarus is asleep and he is going to wake him (verse 11), before stating more plainly in verse 14 that Lazarus is dead.  He then adds that, for their sakes, he is glad that he was not there, “so that you may believe.”  Don’t they already believe in him?  What benefit will it have for them when they see him raise Lazarus from the dead?

Thomas’s response in verse 16 is instructive.  Many people think of Thomas only as the Doubting Thomas.  But here, we see that he is much more complex than that.  What kind of person says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (verse 16)?

Thomas shows his deep faith in Jesus and his willingness to give up his own life rather than stay behind while Jesus goes out into danger.

In John 8:12, Jesus said that if we follow him, we will not walk in darkness.  Here in verse 11:9, Jesus indicates that there is still time to walk in the daylight, before the night comes.  Thomas doesn’t understand all of that, but he is willing to follow Jesus anyway, even though he thinks it will end it their deaths.  How can we follow Thomas’s example of faith, staying dedicated to walking with Jesus even when we think it will lead to a bad outcome?

Are there particular situations in your life right now where you are uneasy about following Jesus because of how you think things will turn out, but you want to follow him anyway?  How can you let Jesus give you confidence to keep walking with him?

Verses 17-27 Jesus tells Martha that he is the Resurrection and the Life

Martha’s comments to Jesus have implications that go beneath the surface.  In verse 21, she almost chides him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  She is showing both faith and disappointment in Jesus.  When have you been disappointed in God, and how have you dealt with it?

In verse 22, Martha tells Jesus that she still has faith in him: “Whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”  How can you have that kind of faith in God even when you have not received what you hoped for?

Do you think Martha is hoping Jesus will raise Lazarus from the dead, even though he has been in the tomb for 4 days?

How does Jesus respond in verse 23?

In this Gospel, Jesus has talked about never dying and about being raised on the last day.  In verse 24, Martha shows that she has incorporated that teaching into her thinking.  She “gets it.”  That leads to Jesus saying something new.  What does he say in verse 25?

What do you think it means, to say that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?

What does this mean to you?  How is Jesus the resurrection and the life in your life?

What does the rest of verse 25 and verse 26 mean?

Most Jews, including the Pharisees but not the Sadducees, believed in the resurrection of the body at the end of time.  But the power over life and death was considered to be solely in the province of God.  So again Jesus is asserting his divinity in identifying himself as the one who holds the power over life, death, and resurrection.

Martha professes her faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God in verse 27.  It appears that she has accepted that life eternal is what Jesus is offering at this moment, and that seems to be enough for her.  We often face painful situations, and often they don’t end in a miraculous raising of a loved one back to life.  How can we hold on to Jesus’s promises when they don’t save us from the pain of loss in the world that we live in every day?

Verses 28-37 Mary comes to Jesus in tears, and Jesus also weeps

Mary comes to Jesus in tears and says the same thing Martha said: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (verse 32).  But whereas Martha was controlled and probing, Mary is disconsolate.  In verse 33, how does Jesus feel when he sees her and those with her weeping?

Jesus is deeply moved, perturbed, or disturbed, depending on your translation, and he is also deeply troubled.  The first of those Greek words has the sense of being angry. 

Jesus asks where Lazarus has been buried, and they say, “Come and see” (verse 34) – exactly the same words Nathaniel said to Philip, when Philip wasn’t sure about Jesus (John 1:46).  Notice the power in the words “Come and see,”  It’s not “Go and see.”  It is an expression of accompaniment: We will come with you; let us go together and see.  Why is accompaniment so important in times of grieving?

Verse 35 is one of the two shortest verses in the Bible: “Jesus wept.”  Ironically, the other shortest verse in the Bible, 1 Thessalonians 5:16, involves a feeling, but one on the other end of the emotional spectrum: “Rejoice always.”)  What does Jesus’s weeping tell you about him?

Why do you think Jesus is so deeply moved, so emotional affected, here?

John is not afraid to show us how human Jesus is.  Why is weeping a sign of Jesus’s humanity?

What does the fact that Jesus, who is both God and man, weeps tell you about God?

Some people find it difficult to be deeply moved by sad events, and other people experience such deep levels of emotion that it feels like too much to bear.  Where are you on the spectrum of how people react to sad events, and how is God at work in you in those times?

As always, what Jesus does elicits at least two different reactions.  How do people react in verses 36-37?

Do you see in yourself sometimes a tendency to look at other people’s behavior in a negative way, when there might be a more positive way to think about it?  How can we train ourselves to be more generous in how we view other people’s actions and intentions?

Verses 38-44 Jesus raises Lazarus

Lazarus’s tomb was above ground, which was the norm in Jesus’s time – a cave cut out of rock.  If you would like to see what Lazarus’s tomb might have been like, you can view this video of a tour group visiting the site that has been considered the site of Lazarus’s tomb since at least the 4^th century.  It is in the town of al-Eizariya in Palestine, not far from Jerusalem, where Bethany was in Jesus’s time (Hyman).  We have no way of knowing whether this was actually Lazarus’s tomb, but it can help us visualize it.

They came to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone rolled across the entrance.  Jesus told them to take away the stone.  Martha doesn’t understand what is about to happen and objects.  What does she say (verse 39)?

Note that even if Jesus had come immediately when he received word that Lazarus was ill, Lazarus would still have been dead for two days when Jesus arrived, since he only waited two days before coming.  However, the rabbis would have been even more convinced that Lazarus was dead after 4 days, and the smell of the decomposing body would be further proof that Lazarus was not just in a swoon.

Jesus responds (verse 40), “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you will see the glory of God?”  Jesus had said back in verse 4 that Lazarus’s illness will bring glory to God.  If this brings glory to God, why doesn’t God raise people from the dead all the time?

Are there ways that we bring glory to God even in accepting death, when people are not (physically) raised from the dead?

What does Jesus say to God in verses 41-42?  What do his words say to you?

When Jesus cries out, “Lazarus, come out,” Lazarus does come out.  How do you think Martha and Mary felt when this happened?  How do you think the other people who were there felt?  How do you think Lazarus felt?  How do you think Jesus felt?

In 1 Thessalonians 4:16, Paul says that when Jesus returns at the end of time, he will descend from heaven with a loud cry of command, and the dead shall be raised.  When he cries out here, it might be considered a foreshadowing of that final shout at the end of time.

In John 5:25, Jesus had said that the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear his voice and live.  How is the raising of Lazarus a foreshadowing of everything that Jesus has been saying for the last several chapters?

In verse 44, Jesus says, “Unbind him and let him go.”  Lazarus is still bound by strips of cloth that were tied around a body as it was prepared for burial (this would prevent the limbs from flopping around as the body was carried).  Are there ways that we are brought to life by Jesus but are still bound?  How might we still need Jesus to free us so that we are not help back from living the full life he has called us to?

Jesus doesn’t unbind Lazarus himself.  He lets others do that.  How is Jesus still using us today to unbind others?

How does Jesus want to bring his resurrection life into your life today?

Take a step back and consider this:

We Christians live in a curious blend of the now and the not yet.  We will rise from the dead after we die, but we are living a new life now.  Jesus says in John 11:25-26 that if we believe in him, we will live even if we die, and if we live and believe in him we will never die.

This suggests that some elements of Jesus’s role in our lives as the Resurrection and the Life will take effect later, and some elements have already begun to take effect in our lives now.  His resurrection is real both in the now and in the not yet.

In what ways do you hope to experience, when you die, Jesus’s promise that you will rise (11:23)?

In what ways do you experience Jesus’s resurrection and life as a present reality that enlivens you today?

How can you embrace his life more fully?

Paul wrote, “If we have died with Christ . . . we shall also live with him” (Romans 6:8).  IN what ways do we need to die, even now, while we are still alive, in order to live with him?