Jesus Gives us a Living Hope

Spring Retreat 2019 - Moses Magardecian

John 11:1-16
Key Verse: 11:4

When he had 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.”

In this passage we learn about a man named Lazarus who become sick, yet Jesus allowed him to die so that his disciples could believe. He would later raise him from the dead. But this is the second part of the passage, which Daniel will be giving his message on tomorrow. In John’s gospel there are seven miracles that show the true almighty power of Jesus, and the raising of Lazarus was the last of the seven that Jesus performed before he would be crucified and resurrected from the dead.

Part 1:
In a small small village named Bethany, there was a family of three people: Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Later in this story we learn that this was the same Mary who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. If we go back to Luke 10 we can see that a woman named Martha opened her house to Jesus and his disciples. Martha was very busy preparing for Jesus and his disciples, while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and chose what was best. Mary, Martha and Lazarus were living by themselves and Jesus was like a father to them and loved them all. Then one day Lazarus became sick and the sisters became worried about him so they told Jesus that the one he loved was sick. Mary and Martha knew that Jesus would heal Lazarus even though they did not ask him to because Jesus loved them greatly.

Part 2:
When Jesus heard this he 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.” We see in this verse that Jesus gave a clear answer to the sisters. He told Mary and Martha that he would not let Lazarus die. When they heard this they were probably relieved. After Jesus heard this you might have thought that he would go right away to heal Lazarus but he didn’t. Instead, he stayed where he was for two more days. But wait. Didn’t Jesus say that Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death? If so then why did Jesus stay where was for 2 more days which would have left Lazarus dead? Was Jesus lying to Mary and Martha? Jesus wasn’t lying to Mary and Martha. Although Jesus allowed Lazarus to die, this was not Lazarus’ ending, because God’s glory could still be revealed even in the most painful circumstances. Well, imagine this. What if one of your parents or loved ones suddenly had a heart attack or maybe a stroke? You would probably call an ambulance to take them to the hospital right? But what if the ambulance came two hours instead or maybe even five hours later, or maybe even 2 days later? How would you feel about that? You would probably be very angry or concerned about why the ambulance would not be coming. But let me tell you this. There was a time where I felt that God did not answer my prayer. It was during SAT testing and I was going to retake my SAT in hopes of getting a better score. I prayed to God that he would help me do good on my testing and improve my score because it would increase my chances of getting into the colleges I would apply to, but I eventually just ended up with the same score. I questioned God and wondered why I could not get a better score. But through this passage I learned that he planned something even better for me and even when we do think that God did not answer our prayers it could also be that he answered them in ways that we did not expect. For God does not always answer our prayers for us right away, or in the way we expect, but he uses our hardships and struggles in our lives to help us believe in him and draw us more closer to him.

Part 3:
After this Jesus tells his disciples: Let us go back to Judea. When Jesus said this his disciples said, “But rabbi, a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you and yet you are going back?” Jesus’ disciples did not have faith. They feared that they would be stoned to death if they returned to Judea. But Jesus was not afraid and walked back into danger. They even sounded as if they did not want to go because they cared more about their own safety. Can we all read verse 9 together? Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours of the daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble for they see by this world’s light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light. Here Jesus tells us that we will not stumble if we have light in him because anyone who believes in Jesus will not have fear in death. Then Jesus said, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up. Jesus treated death as if it were sleep. Sleep is a temporary thing and it does not last forever. Sleep also refreshes our minds and also our body, but to Jesus death was also temporary because after death something greater will come, which is eternal life. When his disciples heard this they said Lord if he sleeps he will get better. We can see that the disciples had thought Jesus had meant sleep instead of actual death because in verse 13 we can see that it says Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought that he meant natural sleep. His disciples did not understand Jesus’ words so then Jesus had to tell them plainly that Lazarus was dead and said and for your sake I am glad I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him. Jesus was glad that he did not go and heal Lazarus, which might be kind of strange, but he did this because he wanted to perform a greater miracle in raising Lazarus from the dead so that his disciples could have the living hope and believe in him. Then Thomas(also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, Let us also go that we may go die with him. Thomas was one of the 12 disciples and he doubted that Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead. But with Jesus later raising Lazarus from the dead he would change Thomas and the disciples by helping them believe and giving them resurrection faith.

From this passage we learn about the almighty power of Jesus. We learn that Jesus allowed Lazarus to die so that he could help his disciples to believe and have faith in him when he raised Lazarus from the dead. Even when God may not answer our prayers or give us what we want, I hope that we know that it is because God may have different plans for all of us or that it might be answered in a way that we do not expect it to happen. I hope that through this weekend we can have the living hope that comes from Jesus in our hearts, knowing that God has a plan for us.