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Reading:          John 11:17-44

Text:                John 11:25-26 "Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”"

Lazarus had fallen sick and his illness was sufficiently serious for his sisters, Martha and Mary, to send to Jesus for help. The message had got through but Jesus didn’t do what they were hoping for, He didn’t come. It wasn’t that Jesus was unconcerned for this little family group quite the reverse in fact as we are told He love them in a special way. And because of that love He deliberately stayed away! This would have been a real test of the sisters’ faith.

It is possible that the messengers returned to Martha and Mary with the explanation that this illness of Lazarus was not going to conclude in death but serve to bring glory to God – after all that is what Jesus said when He heard the news from them – but now Lazarus had died and what were Martha and Mary to make of it all. Their faith was being tested in a serious way.

There is no doubt that these sisters not only loved Jesus but also had faith in Him. They spoke to Him in the way a disciple speaks to his Master: “Lord”. That was how the two sisters addressed their message to Him and that was still the language they were employing in their distress after the death of their brother Lazarus.

It is Martha’s faith that is dealt with in the passage we are considering this evening – though much the same could be said about Mary’s as well. After all, it is clear from what follows that these two sisters were close and had spoken together about the confidence they had in Jesus. Their sharing together had been positive and it had helped them both maintain their trust in the Lord – upon meeting with Jesus they both say exactly the same thing:

v.21 & v.32“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

And yet the faith that they rightly maintained in Jesus was a weak and partially erroneous faith. Jesus sets about to correct and to strengthen that faith as He deals firstly with Martha and then subsequently were her sister Mary.

Things have not gone as Martha had hoped. Lazarus was dead. She may well have been tempted to feel that Jesus had somehow let her down. And yet she comes to Him as soon as she can and in her disappointments still affirms her confidence in Him.

vv.20-22 “So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.””

Now at first sight we may well find this declaration of Martha’s to be tremendous and some of it fully merits that assessment. When she speaks about the power of Christ and about His supreme goodness, this indeed does proceed from faith.

But when she assures herself that her brother would not have died, if Christ had been present, she has no ground for this confidence. Certainly, it did not arise from any promise of Christ!

She desperately wanted Lazarus to be healed and convinced herself that her wishes would be fulfilled instead of subjecting herself to Christ. She persuaded herself of more than she had heard Christ declare and that has nothing to do with faith; for faith is taking God at His word and not convincing ourselves of something else.

Rom.10:17 “Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Now this is a trap into which we may all fall if we don’t think clearly. To convince ourselves of something which the Lord has not promised may appear to ourselves and to others perhaps as great faith – especially if the thing hoped for is, humanly speaking improbable – but it is nothing of the sort!

Martha had convinced herself that had Jesus been present that Lazarus would not have died but on this particular occasion Jesus had made no promise whatsoever to keep Lazarus alive! His intention was that the sickness of Lazarus might serve to bring glory to God and that would be best served by raising Lazarus from the dead!

Had Jesus been present would He have acted differently than He did? Would He have intervened to prevent Lazarus from dying? No He wouldn’t! Look what He had said to His disciples back in vv.14-15:

“Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.””

This tells us that Jesus knew His disciples would have found it all hard to understand had Jesus been present without intervening on Lazarus’ behalf – and if difficult for them we can imagine how much more difficult this would have been for Lazarus’ own sisters. All the more so as there were others on hand who were ready to criticize Jesus for not acting as they thought He ought to have done:

v.37 "But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

So Martha has a conviction about the power of Christ which was good but her understanding of just how that power was to be exercised went beyond what was actually promised. If we behave in similar ways we will get ourselves into trouble and we may well end up, as did Martha, in making wrong declarations!

As we continue to look closely at Martha’s faith we find that her convictions concerning Christ’s power were also not as robust as they might have been.

It seems that Martha attached too much importance to the bodily presence of Christ. She was convinced that He could have acted had He been present – but was He not capable of acting at distance too? There are other examples in the Gospels of where Jesus did just that responding to the appeals of others who knew Him less well than did Martha. Martha believed in Jesus’ power but in a limited way – she will soon see that His power is greater than she ever imagined it to be!

The fact is that Martha’s faith was mixed up and interwoven with ill-regulated desires and it was not even wholly free from superstition. As such her faith could not yet shine with full brightness.

And yet she continues holds on to Christ, trusting Him as her Lord who stands in a particularly privileged relation to God the Father:

v.22 “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

She holds high views concerning Jesus but as yet those views are not as high as they should be. She sees Jesus as occupying a special relationship to God the Father but not as being able to act powerfully Himself.

The declaration that Martha has made here needs to be understood in a general way rather than to be taken as indicating that Martha is entertaining any thoughts about Jesus restoring Lazarus to life. Such thoughts would appear to be excluded by her words that are recorded in v.39 when Jesus issues the command to remove the stone from the entrance to the tomb in which Lazarus had been placed:

v.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 odour, for he has been dead four days.”

Jesus will need to clarify her thinking and sharpen it up – Martha’s faith is a “faith-on-the-way” but is not yet the finished article yet. His interview with her outside the city was designed to do just that.

Finally, her thinking about the resurrection of the Last Day is a general belief that, too, needs to be enlightened and properly focused. Martha’s faith at this point is somewhat abstract concerning events and happenings – Jesus wants to redirect and personalize that faith: He is Himself the One upon whom all those events depend; He wants Martha to realize His pivotal role in it all.

Isn’t the kindness of Jesus Christ amazing? Martha’s faults and shortcomings are silently passed over – Jesus sees no need or advantage in criticizing her for her mistakes. Instead he presses on now promises, of his own accord, more than she had ventured plainly and directly to ask.

However the words He employs are chosen in such a way as to leave them open to different interpretations:

v.23 “Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Now these words could simply be orthodox words attempting to bring solace by directing attention to the resurrection at the end of time. However, from what follows, we understand Jesus to be speaking of raising Lazarus to life again in the very near future. Martha on the other hand does immediately go on to speak about the resurrection on the Last Day when there will be a general resurrection of all those who have died.

But Jesus does not want to talk just about the fact of resurrection taking place at the Last Day He wants to speak further to Martha on His own centrality for the future of people. So He continues with another of these famous “I am” declarations:

v.25a “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life."

Jesus does not want to leave Martha only with this abstract belief in what will take place on the Last Day He wants her to know that He is the One who determines what will happen! In other words He is saying to her that apart from Him there is no, and will not be any, resurrection or life!

Having made this declaration Jesus then proceeds to explain what it means:

I am the resurrection – v.25b "Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live"

The reference is clearly to the Last Day resurrection and Jesus ties a person's resurrection-to-life  on that Day to believing in Himself. This is something that He has already taught on previous occasions:

Eg. Jn.6:39-40 "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

I am the life – v.26 "everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die."

In order to make clear what this means we might paraphrase as follows:

"whoever has eternal life, and believes in me will never die."

(We can say this because the language used here builds upon that used in Jn.5:19ff where life means the life of God, saving life, eternal life etc.)

These two descriptions 1. Having eternal life and 2. Believing in Jesus stress two different though related elements in the Christian's life. Firstly, a profound internal change has to take place – this is wrought by God's power and, Secondly, the stance the individual concerned must adopt ie. personal faith.

While it is true that ordinary mortal life ebbs inexorably away the life that Jesus gives never ends and this is a recurring theme in John's gospel.

Do you see what Jesus is doing? He is leading Martha away from an impersonal belief system to focus upon Himself and to have confidence in Himself alone.

Martha then is being challenged as to whether she can believe this! And so are we! No amount of impersonal belief can replace this essentially personal commitment to Jesus Christ! Jesus asked Martha the question:

v.26 "Do you believe this?"

And I must press the same question on you:

"Do you believe this?" Are you placing then your faith and trust in this man Jesus?

When Martha responded to Jesus' question she did so with a firm:

v.27 "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world."

She was not simply saying: "Lord I agree with what you are saying." But she was firmly asserting her confidence and personal trust in Him as her words make clear : Christ, Son of God etc.

In answering in such a positive manner the subsequent raising of Lazarus while a real miracle becomes also a kind of acted parable testifying to the life-giving power of Jesus. The raising of Lazarus to life becomes a model pointing towards the resurrection of the Last Day but it must not be confused with it. Lazarus will be raised the Last Day just as every other Christian believer will be!

How glad we should be to have such a Lord as Jesus to follow!

How gentle and tender He can be with His hurting disciples and followers. Yes, He can act in ways which we may find surprising at times – He may not always do what we might like to try to convince ourselves that He should – but He always does all things well. And when we do mess things up and exhibit an adulterated, impure faith, He doesn't throw us off. But neither does He leave us in our errors and mistakes but seeks to lead us on into all truth!

May we learn to let Him do that and may we duly follow.

Specifically may we realize in intensely personal and practical ways that He is THE One who determines our eternal destinies and may we come to Him in the confident faith and trust of personal commitment.

And may all the praise and glory be His and His alone!

Amen.