SERIES: The Gospel of John
Easter 2002: There IS Life After Death (and No Need for Fear)
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Todd Beamer’s now-immortal words still echo through our minds: “Are you ready? Let’s roll.” The 32-year-old Wheaton College graduate and software salesman led other brave passengers in subduing the hijackers of United Flight 93, destined for who-know-what government building in Washington, D.C., with the tragic result that it crashed into a Pennsylvania field killing all aboard but saving countless lives on the ground. Todd kept his composure during those final minutes on the morning of September 11, asking the Airfone operator to call his wife Lisa and tell his family he loved them. Then he prayed the Lord’s Prayer with the operator and let go of the phone. She listened to the ensuring chaos until all went silent.
When interviewed later, Lisa Beamer spoke these thought-provoking words: “Everybody has a certain degree of human courage that you can draw on in a difficult situation, but human courage only goes so far….” Lisa is convinced that what gave her husband the ultimate courage he demonstrated is the assurance that he would see his family again in heaven–that what was happening right then, however horrific, was not the final reality. She went on to say,
“If your perspective is only on this life and you are holding onto your little world at all costs, that’s going to be a very fearful thing. Despite the best efforts of our government, we will always be vulnerable in some places…. You can’t rise above fear completely, but if you gain a perspective about God and your ultimate purpose, you can feel confident and secure, and some of the fears pale…. You just don’t know when it’s your time, so you need to be prepared.” [i]
On this Easter morning I would like to ask you a rather sobering question. If I were to catch you in a moment of quiet reflection when you could be really honest with yourself, what would you say your greatest fear is? Is it the fear of failure, of old age, of cancer, of losing a child or your job, the fear of flying, of being hijacked, of anthrax or small pox, or of war breaking out in the Middle East and consuming all of us? I suspect most people would say their greatest fear is the fear of death and of what lies beyond.
On July 22, 1991, there was an article in the Post Dispatch authored by the Reuters News Service. It is entitled, Romanian Man Returns from the Grave.
“A woman fainted when she opened her front door in Bucharest to see her husband back from the grave three days after he was buried.
The man–identified by the Romanian weekly Tinerama as Neagu–had stopped breathing and collapsed in a fit of coughing after he choked on a fishbone.
The family doctor, who knew Neagu had a heart ailment, did not think twice when he proclaimed the 71-year-old man had died of a heart attack.
But three days later, gravediggers at the cemetery heard someone knock on wood.
They opened Neagu’s coffin to find him alive among wilted flowers.
Neagu went back home–only to find that his wife and children did not want him.
His wife, fearing he was a ghost, barred him from spending nights at home.
His two sons told him to stay away from his grandsons.
The worst came when it took Neagu three weeks to persuade the police, town hall officials, bank clerks, doctors, and priests to cancel his death from their registers.”
As strange as this true story may sound, I think the reaction of this man’s family and acquaintances may be more in line with human nature than we might think. At Easter we Christians think of life after death in terms of hope and joy and celebration. But not everyone looks at life after death with such a positive perspective. In fact, I suspect most people have as much fear of life after death as they do of death itself. There is a story in the NT that parallels this one in some interesting ways, and I want us to examine this amazing account of Lazarus from the Gospel of John, and then challenge us to ask, “Is there any reason we need to fear either death or life after death?”
This Romanian man, of course, did not really come back to life after death–he was evidently near death and was revived. But as we will see in our Scripture passage, Lazarus was not near death but stone-cold dead; he was not just revived but brought back to life; the process of rigor mortis and decay had to be reversed! But not even Lazarus was resurrected in the same way Jesus was or that true Christians will be at the time of the Second Coming of Christ. Clearly, we need to make a distinction among the terms we use here in speaking of these amazing events.
I would refer to the Romanian man’s experience as a REVIVAL, i.e., his body revived after being comatose. This is unusual but by no means unique. There are many accounts of people having near-death experiences, though most don’t have to be rescued from a casket!
I would refer to Lazarus’ experience as a RESUSCITATION. That is, his body, after being really dead, was miraculously resuscitated. But he did not receive a resurrection body fit for heaven; rather life was restored to his human body, his earth-suit, if you will, and Lazarus died again some years later. This kind of “resuscitation” is not unique either, but it is certainly far rarer than a near-death experience. There were several similar instances of dead people coming back to life in the OT, and a few others during the ministry of Jesus and the Apostles in the NT, but I don’t know of a verifiable case since the time of Christ.[ii]
There is a third kind of event distinguishable from both the Romanian man’s experience and Lazarus’, and that is full-fledged RESURRECTION, through which a dead person is brought back to life in an immortal body never to die again. Jesus is the first, but there will be many more! Now, with that as background, please follow along with me as we read from the first half of the Gospel of John, chapter 11:
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
Then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?”
(Verse 11) He went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
It is very late in Jesus’ earthly ministry, probably just a few weeks before the crucifixion. Jesus has spent the time between Chanukah and Passover (roughly the time between Christmas and Easter), eluding arrest by the Jewish religious leaders by staying on the east side of the Jordan River. Our story opens with reference to a family from the village of Bethany, a town within easy walking distance of Jerusalem, a family who loved Jesus and were loved by Him, consisting of two sisters and a brother, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. How Jesus met them or why He took to them we do not know, but we do know that for Jesus, who had no home of His own, this home in Bethany was a very special place. What a privilege to have a home to which we can go at any time and find rest and understanding and peace and love. I’m afraid only those, who once had it and lost it, fully appreciate it.
Scene 1: The fatal sickness of Lazarus and Jesus’ troubling delay (1-16)
A simple message came to Jesus from the two sisters: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” They don’t ask Him to come; but do they really need to? When the nurse at school calls you mothers and tells you your child is sick, she doesn’t have to say, “I was wondering if you could possibly come and pick him up,” does she? No, she simply says, “Your child is sick,” and it is assumed you will come.
But Jesus doesn’t come. Instead, He does two things: First, He identifies the sickness as one that will not end in death, but rather one that will result in glory to the Father and the Son. In the context Jesus must have meant that it was not a sickness unto final death, for Lazarus did die. In fact, what brought glory to the Father and the Son was the reversal of this real death process!
And second, we read in verse 6 that “when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” Though the NIV doesn’t make it clear, the original Greek draws a logical connection between the report of Lazarus’ illness and the fact that Jesus stays two more days. Jesus doesn’t stay because He is too busy, or because He is ill, or because He has misunderstood Mary and Martha’s message. Rather He stays two more days because He hears that Lazarus is sick.
Now what kind of a friend is that? I believe John expects us to ask that very question, and so he goes out of his way to tell us very pointedly that Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. You see, love doesn’t always mean giving those we love what they want when they want it. Sometimes the loving thing is to say “no” and sometimes the loving thing is to say “wait.” Jesus, by His action says, “Wait.” You know, God often delays but He’s never late. To be late means that you weren’t where you were supposed to be on time. To delay means that you wait for a better time. How often have we accused God of being late in meeting our needs, only to find out later He had merely delayed? [iii]
After His two-day delay Jesus says to His disciples in verse 7, “Let us go to Judea again.” His disciples are aghast, for Judea is where the greatest opposition to Jesus is centered, especially in Jerusalem its capital; and Bethany is only two miles from the outskirts! So, in verse 11 Jesus explains to them why He wants to go there–because “our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.” The disciples take that information as a good reason to argue, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” In other words, we don’t need to go there and risk our necks for someone on the road to recovery!
But Jesus is using “sleep” as a euphemism for death, picturing the peaceful, temporary nature of death for one whose heart is right with God. They still don’t get it, so finally He speaks plainly, “Lazarus is dead and, and for your sake I am glad I was not there.” Wow! Does that ever sound unsympathetic! But then He adds the important words, “so that you may believe.” When you consider Jesus’ purpose of developing their faith, it is not hard to understand why He allowed Lazarus to die, for what would help their faith more–to see a sick man healed or a dead man raised?
Scene 2: The subtle criticism directed at Jesus (17-27)
The next scene finds Jesus arriving in Bethany, where Lazarus has been entombed already four days. Martha hurries out to meet the Lord while Mary sits in the house alone with her grief. Notice how Martha approaches Jesus: “Lord if you have been here, my brother would not have died.” Later on, in v. 32 Mary says the exact same thing. Perhaps the sisters had rehearsed what they would say. I believe Martha and Mary have chosen their words very carefully. They don’t want to accuse Jesus of not caring and yet they want Him to know their keen disappointment. I would call it subtle criticism.
But lest we be too harsh on these sisters, may I point out that at least they have the faith to believe that had Jesus been there, their brother would not have died. Martha goes a step further when she says in verse 22, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” I’m not sure what she has in mind, because it seems that the furthest possibility from Martha’s mind is that her brother might come back to life now. When Jesus says to her, “Your brother will rise again,” she responds,“I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Martha is like a lot of us Christians, isn’t she? We know that God can do anything and that He can answer any prayer, but we only know that intellectually–we don’t really live that way on a practical level. Frankly, I can sympathize a lot more with Martha’s weak faith than with my own, for she is being challenged to believe God for something unheard of–the resuscitation of a loved one who has been dead for four days! All God asks me to do is to believe Him for normal things–daily bread, security, healthy relationships, protection, success in ministry–and I even have trouble with that! Oh, that we might learn to have faith in the absolute power of God. Unlimited faith! Not to demand things from Him but to expect great things from Him.
Well, Martha’s and Mary’s feeble but developing faith provides the context for the key verse of this great chapter, verse 25, as Jesus speaks: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Let’s pause here for a moment. Jesus does not say simply that He causes resurrection and life; rather He is the resurrection and the life. Victory over death is so much associated with Him that He personifies it.
Furthermore, Jesus says, the one who believes in Him will live even though he dies. This paradox brings out the great truth that physical death is not final for the believer. The very moment a person puts his trust in Jesus, he begins to experience a kind of life which cannot be interrupted by death. I would paraphrase verse 25 & 26 this way: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies physically; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die spiritually. Do you believe this? That is, have you put your trust in me and received me as the resurrection and the life?”
We should not leave this verse, particularly on Easter Sunday, without the further observation that this One who claimed to be the Resurrection was Himself resurrected just a few weeks later, proving once and for all the truth of these words. In His own resurrection He conquered death completely. As we noted earlier, Lazarus was brought back to life, but would later die again. Jesus was brought back to life never to die again.
Scene 3: The profound sorrow of Jesus (28-37)
I want to pick up the reading in verse 33, after Mary has had her own encounter with Jesus:
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then 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?”
A crowd of mourners are at the home in Bethany, doing some serious grieving. The custom in those days was to continue for seven days, often breaking out into loud wailing and uncontrolled grief, which is what the term “weeping” in the original Greek implies in verse 33. Contrast that with verse 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, which simply says, “Jesus wept.” A different Greek word is used for Jesus’ weeping. His was a quiet weeping, but in fact, He was far more deeply moved. In fact, one translator renders the second half of verse 33 in this fashion: “He gave way to such distress of spirit as made His body tremble.”
Why does Jesus have such a deep emotional response when he comes upon this scene? The mourners think it’s because of the death of his friend, but I don’t see how it can be, for he knows full well He is about to bring Lazarus back to life. It must instead be His reaction to the hopelessness and despair demonstrated by the mourners. They completely miss the fact that death for a believer is the door to eternal life, and they completely underestimate Jesus’ divine power to open that door for them once and for all by canceling the power of death. Therefore, Jesus weeps for them.
Notice that some of them wonder at the fact that one so powerful that He can heal the blind could not have prevented the death of His closest friend. The same mistake was made later as He hung on the cross, when some jeered, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” What both groups failed to realize is that Jesus’ lack of action had nothing to do with His ability; rather it was evidence of a higher purpose. He could have healed Lazarus before he died, and He could have easily come down from the Cross, but then His goal of demonstrating the glory of God and saving the world would not have been realized.
Scene 4: The miraculous resuscitation of Lazarus (38-44)
As we come to v. 38, we find Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, requesting that the stone be removed. Martha, thinking that perhaps Jesus wanted to see the face of His friend a final time, protests that decay has already occurred, for Lazarus has been dead four days, and Jewish people did not embalm bodies, and still don’t. The importance of the four days is to stress the actuality of the death of Lazarus. It is curious that there was a tradition that the spirit of the departed hovered around his tomb for three days. But on the fourth day the spirit finally left, for the face of the body was so decayed that it could no longer be recognized. Jesus waits until all possible human explanations of resuscitation are gone.
Then we read in verse 41,
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Someone has suggested that Jesus spoke Lazarus’ name when He told him to come out; otherwise, all the graves would have opened, and everyone buried in that cemetery might have come to life. And Lazarus responds, still wrapped in his grave clothes, still with His face covered. Jesus, never one to forget minor details, commands, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” If you wonder why Jesus had to give that command, just ask yourself, “Would I have gone up to Lazarus and unwrapped his face without being commanded to do so?” Not likely.
Scene 5: The mixed reaction to the miracle (45-53)
Well, the miracle is over, but the reaction to it is not. In vs. 45 & 46 we see that the result of this miracle, as with almost all of Jesus’ miracles, is not universal rejoicing but division. Many believe in Him, but some go away to tell His enemies, the Pharisees, what He had done. A council of the Sanhedrin is convened in verse 47, with the point being made that if they allow Jesus to go on performing miracles like this one, everyone would end up believing in Him, and then the Romans would come and take away both their authority as rulers and their nation. They are afraid.
They are stretching a point, of course, because there were many just like themselves who would never believe, no matter how great the evidence. But you can see exactly where their concern lies. They are the privileged class, and they fear the Romans will not stand by indifferently during a popular tumult stirred up by Messianic expectations. They need only to have someone stand up and suggest the execution of their opponent. And sure enough, someone does. His name is Caiaphas. He speaks to the rest of the Jewish ruling council in verses 49-53 and unwittingly utters an ironic prophecy:
“You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
This is one of those rare cases in the Scripture where God uses an unbeliever to convey His truth. But if God chose to use a dumb donkey to be His spokesman, as He did in the story of Balaam in the OT, then I see no reason why He shouldn’t use Caiaphas in the NT as a prophet. Caiaphas’ personal intention, of course, is to suggest that Jesus be murdered. It seemed better to him to put one man to death–even an innocent man–than to have the Romans come and crush the nation. Either the people must die or Jesus must die, he says. If He dies, the people can live.
What he spoke was true beyond his wildest imagination, for God was speaking through Caiaphas’ words at a level he did not even realize. If Jesus dies, the people can live alright, but not just the Jewish people! Anyone and everyone who is willing to put his trust in Jesus Christ can become a member of the family of God, because Jesus died, not for His own sin–He had none; He died for yours and mine, and through His death He offers forgiveness of our sin and the gift of eternal life.
Robert McAfee Brown was a WW II American army chaplain on a troopship in which 1,500 marines were returning from Japan to America for discharge. He was approached by a small group of G.I.’s to do Bible study with them, and eagerly seized the opportunity. Near the end of the voyage, they were studying John 11 and afterwards a marine came to him and said, “Everything in that chapter is pointing at me.” He went on to say that he had been in Hell for the last six months.
He had gone straight into the marines from college and had been sent out to Japan. He had been directionless in life and had gone out and gotten into trouble–bad trouble. Nobody knew about it except God. He felt guilty; he felt his life was ruined; he felt he could never face his family again, although they need never know; he felt he had killed himself and was a walking dead man. “And,” said this young marine, “after reading this chapter I have come alive again. I know that this resurrection Jesus was talking about is real here and now, for he has raised me from death to life.” That young soldier’s troubles were not finished; he had a hard road yet to go; but in his sin and guilt he had found Jesus as the resurrection and the life.
Have you found Him? He’s looking for you. He’s reaching out to you. This very day He would like to rescue you from spiritual death and give you a life full of joy and purpose. And when one of these days you face physical death, you won’t need to fear, for Jesus will provide for you, not just a revival or a resuscitation, but a first-class resurrection. He will give you a new body like His own glorious body, in which you will be able to enjoy Him and serve Him for all eternity.
We sang the Easter song this morning:
“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know, he holds the future–
And life is worth the living, just because He lives.”
That’s the lesson of Easter 2002, our first post-911 Easter. Just as the bright Resurrection Sunday morning followed the darkness of Good Friday, there is life after death and no more need to fear. Are you ready? Let’s roll! Let’s thank God together for this truth and then ask Him to enable us to live it out as we go from here today.
Benediction: “May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
DATE: March 31, 2002
Tags:
Resurrection
Resuscitation
Delay
Sorrow
[i] Lisa Beamer, “Courage: Finding Hope in the Face of Fear.”
[ii] By the way, there are a lot of interesting questions that surround these few examples of individuals in the Bible who were brought back to life after being really dead:
What were they doing while they were dead?
If they were with God in heaven, why would they want to come back?
If they weren’t with God in heaven, where were they?
I don’t know how to answer these questions, but the Apostle Paul may have hinted at an answer when he told us about being caught up to the third heaven; he said he saw things he wasn’t permitted to tell. I personally think it more likely that God sovereignly erased the memories people like Lazarus had of heaven to enable them to function back on earth, but I am only guessing.
[iii] There’s another lesson I see in this delay of two days and that is that the Lord will not allow us to set His timetable or order His priorities–He is in charge; He is sovereign! Twice before in the Gospel of John this truth has been pressed home. First, in John 2 at the marriage feast of Cana of Galilee Jesus’ mother hinted very strongly to Him that He should do something about the fact that the wine had run out. And His response was, “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” The second example is found in John 7 where Jesus’ unbelieving brothers tried to get him to go up to the Feast of Tabernacles and promote Himself. Their idea was, “If you want to be a V.I.P. you’ve got to press the flesh and kiss the babies.” But Jesus answered them,
“The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil. You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come. Having said this, he stayed in Galilee.” (John 7:6-9)
Now once more here in John 11 we have the people that Jesus loves the most trying to order His priorities and tell Him what to do. Interestingly, in each of these cases He answers their request but only after making it clear to them that He would do it in His own way and in His own time. Let us never forget that we are creatures, and that Jesus is Lord. He will not accept coercion, even from His dearest friends.