I Am the Resurrection and the Life
God is revealing Himself to us His people. So often we know about God but do we really know Who God is? We hear stories about Jesus, about His miracles and His teachings but do we really have Jesus as a friend? Do we know and love Jesus the way that we should?
Because God loves us as much as He does, He doesn’t leave us guessing Who He is, He makes it abundantly clear and He reveals Himself to us as His followers and He revealed Himself to His disciples.
We already learned that Jesus said “I Am the Bread of Life” and we learned that through Jesus we never need to hunger spiritually anymore, and last week we learned that He said “I Am the Light of the World’ we never need to live in darkness, there is no battle with darkness, we just need to let the light in.
Today we are hearing one of the most important messages that Jesus brought “I Am the Resurrection and the Life”. Knowing in hindsight what Jesus was going to do, His death and resurrection and what that means for us. We as Christians can understand this part of Who He is, but before Jesus died and rose again, the disciples wouldn’t have really understood what Jesus was saying. He was revealing to them Who He really is, not just what He can do, but that He can bring new life. All life does flow through Him, that death is a mere inconvenience when we are in relationship with Jesus as He can bring the resurrection.
1A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. 2This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair.a Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”
4But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” 5So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 6he stayed where he was for the next two days. 7Finally, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”
(John 11:1-7)
Jesus loved Lazarus like a brother and Lazarus’ sister’s had written to Him, letting Him know that Lazarus was sick, but Jesus was never in a hurry.
17When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. 18Bethany was only a few milesd down the road from Jerusalem, 19and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary in their loss. 20When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”
(John 11:17-21)
Martha knew that Jesus could heal the sick. Jesus had revealed that part of Who He was many times over, and over again. Martha had the faith that Lazarus could’ve been healed had Jesus been there.
"But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”
23Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24“Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.”
25Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.e Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. 26Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”
(John 11:23-26)
Jesus is starting to reveal Who He is. He is doing it in part to each individual so they can understand when He actually does what is to come.
34“Where have you put him?” he asked them.
They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Then Jesus wept. 36The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” 37But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
38Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. 39“Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.
But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.”
40Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” 41So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” 43Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” 44And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”
(John 11:34-44)
Thank You God that You don’t just reveal what You can do, but Who You are.
We can understand who we are really called to be by knowing the revelation of Who God is.
There is so much symbolism here between what would happen when Jesus rose again and the stone was rolled away.
There is also a lot to understand here about timing. Jesus was asked “come and save our brother” but He seemed to take His time. Time may be universal but the way we all interact and perceive it is different. It’s like we all have different watches. For husbands and wives sometimes the 5 minutes that is asked for can be a lot longer than an actual 5 minutes. Our wives are definitely worth the wait, but their 5 minutes is very different from the actual 5 minutes.
I remember learning a lesson from my Dad when I asked him to collect me at a certain time, but when I went out to meet him for my ride home, he wasn’t there. I rang him, as this was strange and he informed me he had been there at the time that I had asked for. However, because I didn’t appear at that time he had driven back home assuming that I no longer needed the ride. He was teaching me an important lesson to respect and value people’s time. My Dad loved me enough to teach me a lesson about time.
How come we know that God is never late, His timing is always perfect, but sometimes it feels like He is late. He never seems to arrive early, He never seems to appear before we thought we needed Him. Like Jesus meeting Lazarus’ sisters. Maybe He’s teaching us a lesson, His ways are perfect, His timing is correct. Sometimes it may feel like He is late and you may be in a situation today where you feel like “Come on Jesus I need you to show up” or like Mary and Martha “Jesus You’re late” I want to assure you.
Jesus is never late, He arrives at just the right point. He never wastes a miracle, they are always at the right time and for the right reason, and just because we might not be able to understand. We shouldn’t lose faith in the One Who does understand. We can see with Mary and Martha that even though they felt that Jesus was late, they never lost faith in His ministry, in Who He is or His love for them.
To put John 11 in some context, we read earlier in John 10 that Jesus reveals that He is the Good Shepherd (which we will be able to hear about next week), He then reveals that He is the Son of God. This was seen as blasphemy at the time and Jesus had to then leave this area as He knew His time had not yet come for Him to die and this would really get the religious leaders angry. Straight after telling people that He is the Son of God, He now SHOWS them that He is the Son of God.
We learned last week that darkness is no problem for Jesus, well now we know that death is no problem for Jesus. So while Jesus is out of Jerusalem He hears from some of His best friends, who were so desperate for Jesus to arrive on the scene. They knew He could heal Lazarus if He wanted to. They didn’t just do nothing. They wanted to speak to the One they knew could change their situation.
If you feel poorly spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, then like Mary and Martha you cannot do nothing. They wrote to Jesus, they knew if Jesus was on the scene their situation would be completely different.
If you feel in a hopeless situation where no-one can help apart from God, we need to be proactive and come to Jesus in our hour of need with our problem. We can’t do nothing. Worrying will often only make the problem worse. We know the scripture Philippians 4 v 6 & 7, worry about nothing, pray about everything. It sounds great and it is great, but worrying is such a sign of our humanity. In practice, it is so hard to remember to cast your burdens on to Jesus and then not worry. That’s not how human minds work, we can’t just stop thinking a thought. We need to replace that thought with something else. We’re not supposed to just stop worrying, we’re called to start worshipping.
Mary and Martha were acknowledging Who Jesus was as their Lord and Saviour, that He can perform miracles and He can make a way and were worshipping Him through their letter to Him, asking Him to come into their situation, trusting that He could do what was needed.
Lets replace the worry with worship. Don’t just say I know that I am not, say I know that You are. Even though I’m too small, I know that You are big, even though I am weak, I know that You are strong. Replace that worry thought with that worship thought and invite Jesus into the situation.
When your situation doesn’t match up to the expectation that maybe you had in life, then we need to worship and seek a revelation of Who God is. That revelation is that Jesus IS the Resurrection.
Let’s never let time be wasted. Make time to worship.
Time waiting should never be wasted, if we’re waiting for Jesus then let’s not waste that time. Let’s worship Him today. He loves us so much that He reveals Himself to us. That’s the whole point of this I Am series. Jesus wants to explicitly reveal Himself to you so that you can have a friendship with Him in the same way that He did with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. You are His beloved, He wants to reveal Himself to you and meet you in those difficult situations.
Jesus could’ve turned up at Lazarus’ bedside before He died, He could’ve healed Him before He died and perhaps saved some heartache but that wasn’t part of His plan. Jesus told His disciples plainly in verse 14 “Lazarus is dead and for your sakes I’m glad that I wasn’t there. For now you will really believe. Come, let’s go”
Once He knew there was no other way that this could be sorted. Jesus says basically, I’ve not done this for Lazarus, I’ve done this for you guys so that you can see. My friend is only sleeping, death isn’t anything for me. His timings are often very different than ours, Jesus is trying to teach us and His disciples a lesson here that His timing is perfect. His ways are higher than our ways, and that His plan is the one that we should be seeking after. Not our own.
Even after Lazarus had died, Mary and Martha still love Jesus. Are we still willing to acknowledge that Jesus is LORD and love Him when things don’t go our way? They loved Him, they listened to Him, Martha ran to Him, they had faith in HIm, and they still believed that Jesus had the best for them. That He hadn’t let them down. Because of that Jesus knew that He could turn this situation on it’s head. They weren’t spending their time worrying. They were spending their time worshipping. Jesus reveals Himself as the Resurrection and the Life.
He says it explicitly in words to His disciples before He does it practically, so that way when they see the practical resurrection and life they’ll start understanding the true meaning of the words. Whereas if He’d done it the other way around they would be focusing on the miracle instead of the message. The message is that Jesus loves us, He is the Resurrection and the Life. He wants a relationship with us. He doesn’t just want to raise people from the dead although that is awesome. He wants us to understand that He is the Author and Perfecter of our faith and all life flows through Him.
The chapter before Jesus had just claimed to be God, and now He is proving it. So everyone will see the miracle and help reveal who He was.
Jesus is saying this isn’t the worst thing that can happen, the worst thing is to be separated from God. He doesn’t just want to raise Lazarus from the dead, He wants to give Lazarus and His disciples this example of what it means to truly live and to be in a great relationship with Jesus. A situation that looked finished and done, Lazarus was dead and now being ceromonially buried but then Jesus turns up on the scene and turns everything upside down. He wants to show people that He controls everything, So in situations were you feel that you are waiting we need to make sure that we are not wasting our time, but we are worshipping Him.
Raising people from the dead is Jesus’ specialty. If you feel lifeless, that a situation you are in is dead and buried, that you are being left behind, maybe you feel forgotten, there’s nothing left to live for and you may as well be dead…. First of all, there is always hope in Jesus. But even if your situation is fully dead and fully hopeless, Jesus’ specialty is resurrection and He can roll the stone away and bring new life, proper life in Him.
Jesus wants to reveal to you today Who He really is, just like He did with His disciples and with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
He could be a distant God but He wants to reveal Himself to you. He wants to make sure that you never have to hunger anymore, that He can bring light to your situation, and that He can bring new life into all areas of your life.
Jesus can breathe new life into you today.
Don’t be scared, don’t believe that Jesus is too late. He will arrive exactly when He needs to and turn things around for His glory.
Jesus will show up, just at the right moment.
Your life is too significant, your time is too precious, your calling is too great and your God is too good for you to be living a life waiting, wasting your time. Not acknowledging that Jesus will turn around your situation. Be waiting expectantly knowing that Jesus can turn your life around. It’s not just something He does, it’s who He is. He loves you and He will bring His resurrection power into those areas of your life that need it today.