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Sunday School
When Jesus Shows Up At A Funeral (John 11:38-44)
Jesus arrived and greeted Martha and Mary, he was moved by their disappoint- ment and tears. John 11:33 says, “He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Whole sermons could be preached from the tiny verse, “Jesus wept” (v. 35).
John 11:38-40 Our printed text begins with these words: Jesus, once more deeply moved ... We have a Jesus who can be moved. We have a Jesus who can be touched by our grief. Truly as the song says, “No one under- stands like Jesus.” But Jesus’ pathos was more than mere sentiment. His pathos moved him to action. “Take away the stone.” Martha probably ob- jected for a number of reasons, but the one stated in the text is, “By this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
In Jesus’ day burial fol- lowed quickly on the heels of death. Bodies were not em- balmed, but placed in a stone- like grave for one year to give the body time to decompose. Then the bones were removed and placed in a bone box
called an ossuary. But Lazarus’s decomposition would be interrupted. The pathos of Jesus moved him to do something that put the glory of God on display.
John 11:41-42 Jesus needed no excuse to pray. He prayed before meals (Mark 6:41), in the early morning (1:35), and all night before he chose the apostles (Luke 6:12, 13). He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-42). He prayed on the cross (15:34). He often withdrew to pray (Luke 5:16).
After the stone was re- moved from the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus prayed. The prayer began with Jesus’ typi- cal intimacy, “Father.” It pro- ceeded in thanksgiving, “I thank you that you always hear me.” It acknowledged that an omniscient God knows everything, “I knew that you always hear me.”
Finally it allowed others to overhear and thereby believe, “But I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” Everything in John’s
Gospel moves us to the pur- pose of his writing, namely be- lief in the one sent from Heaven (John 20:30, 31).
The pathos of Jesus moti- vated the prayer of Jesus, which fueled the power of Jesus. Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” More than one person has ob- served that it was good that Jesus called Lazarus by name. Had he not done so, Jesus would have emptied the ceme- tery! Who could doubt that he had that kind of power (John 5:25)?
John 11:43, 44 The next words are a stunning tribute to the power of Jesus. The dead man came out. What other teacher can do that? This power is what sets Christianity apart from other religions.
Lazarus crawled up those steps with his strips of linen and sudarium (the cloth around his face). Jesus com- manded his sisters to unwrap him like they would a Christ- mas gift. What words of liber- ation these were, “Let him go.” When Jesus shows up at fu- nerals, dead people move out of the cemetery.
Jesus and death cannot co- exist. Death has no victory around Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:54, 55). Jesus destroys the one who has the power of death (Hebrews 2:14). Jesus proved this in his earthly min- istry. Prior to his own resur- rection, Jesus raised three people from the dead: the widow’s boy at Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:21-43), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44).
Five reasons made the rais- ing of Lazarus the most fa- mous: 1) Its proximity to Jerusalem—the others took place in Galilee. 2) Its near- ness in time to Jesus’ own res- urrection. 3) The reaction by the religious leaders. 4) The
space devoted to the narra- tive—44 verses. 5) The “I am” claim associated with the event.
This month our lessons have considered four joyous weddings. But today we focus on a solemn funeral. Funerals remind us that the world is not set right yet (Romans 8:18- 25). Funerals remind us of our poor choices (Genesis 3:1- 19). But when Jesus attended, the funeral death was swal- lowed up by life.
The earlier narrative tells us of Jesus’ tender relationship with the family of Lazarus. Jesus was informed of Lazarus’s illness with these words, “Lord, the one you love is sick” (John 11:3). When
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