Tawa Baptist

Eternal Life

Scripture: John 11:1-45

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Freedom
  • Faith
  • Feeling
  • Conclusion – Friendship

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Today we begin a new sermon series on the I am sayings of Jesus in the gospel of John. Jesus uses a number of I am statements to describe himself. These sayings tell us about Jesus’ being, his identity.

Please turn with me to John chapter 11, page 133, toward the back of your pew Bibles. This morning, because we are in the season of Easter, we focus on John 11, where Jesus says: I am the resurrection and the life. From verses 1-45, we read…  

A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, became sick. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived. (2 This Mary was the one who poured the perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.) 3 The sisters sent Jesus a message: “Lord, your dear friend is sick.”

4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “The final result of this sickness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the Son of God will receive glory.”

5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days. 7 Then he said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8 “Teacher,” the disciples answered, “just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you planning to go back?”

9 Jesus said, “A day has twelve hours, doesn’t it? So those who walk in broad daylight do not stumble, for they see the light of this world. 10 But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light.” 11 Jesus said this and then added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

12 The disciples answered, “If he is asleep, Lord, he will get well.”

13 Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, but they thought he meant natural sleep. 14 So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 but for your sake I am glad that I was not with him, so that you will believe. Let us go to him.”

16 Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow disciples, “Let us all go along with the Teacher, so that we may die with him!”

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. 18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother’s death.

20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”

23 “Your brother will rise to life,” Jesus told her.

24 “I know,” she replied, “that he will rise to life on the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; 26 and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord!” she answered. “I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

28 After Martha said this, she went back and called her sister Mary privately. “The Teacher is here,” she told her, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up and hurried out to meet him. (30 Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.) 31 The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there.

32 Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

33 Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. 34 “Where have you buried him?” he asked them.

“Come and see, Lord,” they answered.

35 Jesus wept. 36 “See how much he loved him!” the people said.

37 But some of them said, “He gave sight to the blind man, didn’t he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?”

38 Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance. 39 “Take the stone away!” Jesus ordered.

Martha, the dead man’s sister, answered, “There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!”

40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believed?” 41 They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. 42 I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me.” 43 After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave cloths, and with a cloth around his face. “Untie him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go.”

45 Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him. 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

The main point of today’s message is that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Or to put it another way: Jesus is eternal life.

Eternal life is not the same as this life. In the context of John 11 we note four F’s in relation to eternal life: Freedom, faith, feeling and friendship. First let’s consider the freedom associated with eternal life.

Freedom:

For many of us life is incredibly busy these days. We tend to be time poor. Being short on time creates an internal pressure so that we end up feeling like a pin ball, bouncing back and forth in every direction, with little or no control over our lives. Unfortunately, being time poor lead can lead to poor decision making.

When Jesus learned that his friend Lazarus was sick, we notice he responds with freedom. For most people this would have been a difficult decision. On the one hand, Jesus’ friends needed his help urgently. But on the other hand, helping his friends meant travelling to Judea where people wanted to kill Jesus.

Clearly there was an inherent tension in this decision, a bit like being trapped in a vice of love and fear. But Jesus is no ordinary man. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Jesus does not make this decision based on temporal concerns. He makes this decision based on God’s glory, which eternal.

Jesus waits two days before deciding to go to Lazarus. In verse 9 Jesus says to his disciples: “A day has twelve hours, doesn’t it? So those who walk in broad daylight do not stumble, for they see the light of this world. 10 But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light.” 

Perhaps Jesus is using daylight here as a metaphor for time. During daylight hours one is free to move about but when darkness falls you lose your freedom. The point is, with Jesus there is light (or time) and therefore freedom.   

In verse 11 Jesus added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

Once again the disciples misunderstand. They think Jesus is talking about natural sleep. But Jesus is using sleep as a metaphor for death. By calling Lazarus’ death ‘sleep’, Jesus is saying that Lazarus’ death is not permanent. And if death is not permanent then it is not to be feared. There will be more time (more daylight) after the night of sleep has passed.

Eternal life leads to freedom then. This point is illustrated literally when Lazarus walks out of his tomb wrapped in grave clothes and Jesus tells the people there to untie him and let him go.

When we truly believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, when we trust in Jesus, who is eternal life, then the tyranny of time and the fear of death lose their power over us and we enjoy freedom in our inner being.

The key to this sort of freedom though is faith in Jesus.

Faith:

In 1986 David Bowie starred as a Goblin king in a film called the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is a musical fantasy in which Sarah, a 16-year-old girl, goes searching through a maze to rescue her baby brother Toby.

Toby is being kept in the castle of the Goblin king because Sarah had wished Toby away. Now Sarah regrets what she has done and wants her brother back.

At one point in the film Sarah couldn’t find her way through the maze. Wherever she looked she could only see wall. Sarah couldn’t see the opening right in front of her until a friendly creature pointed it out to her. Sarah had to trust the advice of one of the locals to find her way through.

That is often how we face death. We see death as a wall, a dead end, without any openings. But, with Jesus, we are able to find a way through.

By the time Jesus arrives in the village of Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. His body is in a tomb behind a wall of rock (a dead end) and no one (except Jesus) can see a way through. The mourners are trapped too, in the maze of their grief.  

In some ways Jewish mourning rituals were similar to Maori tangihanga (funeral protocol). It was a sacred duty to visit in person to give comfort and support to the grieving family. In Jewish and Maori thought people are connected. 

Another similarity between Jewish and Maori funerals is they last a number of days. Jews put seven days aside for the process. Like a tangi (funeral), people would be coming to visit Martha and Mary throughout the whole week. And it wouldn’t just be a fleeting visit either.   

Jesus turns up half way through the week of mourning. Martha goes out to meet him and says, “If you had been here Lord, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”  

Martha is not accusing Jesus here. She is not angry. To the contrary she is bravely declaring her faith in Jesus. She is saying, ‘Even though my brother is dead I still trust you. We are still friends. You are welcome here’. Martha does not tell Jesus what to do, like she did in Luke 10. No. Martha lets Jesus be Jesus and she lets God be God.

Jesus says to Martha: “Your brother will rise to life”. Martha thinks Jesus is referring to the general resurrection of the dead at the end of time, sort of like when someone tries to offer comfort at a funeral by saying, ‘We will see them again in heaven one day’.

But Jesus means more than Martha is able to grasp at that moment and he takes the conversation deeper saying: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; 26 and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus doesn’t just say, ‘I can raise Lazarus from the dead’. No. He says, ‘I am the resurrection. I am eternal life’. The very essence of Jesus is resurrection life. Therefore, to enter eternal life, one must be in Christ. And the way to get into Christ is through faith, that is, through believing in him. Not just believing that he exists but actually trusting him.

In verse 15 Jesus indicates that Lazarus’ death is so that his disciples will believe. Likewise, in verse 42, Jesus prays publicly so the people there would believe that God sent him. Lazarus’ death and resurrection serves to inspire and strengthen faith in Jesus, because faith in Jesus creates openings in walls.

Commenting on Jesus’ words to Martha, in verse 25, Leon Morris says: ‘Death is a but a gateway to further life and fellowship with God.’

This means, when we put our faith in Jesus, death is not an end in itself. Rather, faith in Jesus creates an opening in the wall of death, an opening to a new beginning. (Sort of like that line in the song Closing Time: “…every new beginning starts with some other beginning’s end”.)

Martha responds remarkably well when she says: “Yes Lord, I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who has come into the world.”

That’s an impressive answer. Firstly, Martha agrees that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Then she goes on to describe Jesus in the highest terms. Martha calls Jesus the Messiah; the anointed one, chosen by God to come into the world and save his people. Martha also calls Jesus the Son of God; which, in this context, meant that Jesus had the closest possible relationship with God that a person could have.  

Although Martha doesn’t fully comprehend what Jesus has just said to her, she is willing to take it on faith. She accepts what Jesus says as true even though she doesn’t fully understand what this means or what Jesus is about to do.

Faith usually precedes understanding. It is only after we have trusted and obeyed the Lord that mental comprehension follows.

With eternal life comes freedom. And the way to enter eternal life is through faith in Jesus. Eternal life involves freedom, faith and feeling. Deep feeling.

Feeling:

It is thought that the world’s largest and possibly oldest living organism is the Pando. (Not to be confused with Panda).

On the surface the Pando looks like a forest of individual aspen trees but scientists have discovered that all the trees have an identical genetic marker. Apparently the trees are connected by the same underground root system.

The Pando covers about 108 acres of land and weighs around 6,600 tons. The root system is thought to be several thousand years old, maybe older.

While the Pando is not eternal, in the same sense that Jesus is eternal, it does offer an analogy for eternal life. The aspen trees seen above the surface may only live for around 100 years or so, but the root system underneath keeps putting up new shoots, so the organism is continually renewing itself.

Eternal life is a deeply connected life, sort of like the Pando is connected.

In John 11:28 Martha goes back to the house and sends Mary out to see Jesus. Like her sister, Mary also says to Jesus, “If you had been here Lord, my brother would not have died.” But Jesus says nothing, at least not straight away. He connected with Martha through a theological conversation, probably because that is what Martha needed. But he connects with Mary on an emotional level.

Verse 33 reads: Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. 

The Greek word translated as weeping here means wailing or crying loudly.[1] This is not just a few stifled tears.

Often in European style funerals people turn the volume down on their emotions. It’s not that we feel any less. We just don’t express our grief as loudly. But in Jewish culture people were more inclined to turn the volume up on their emotions. If a wave of grief sweeps over you, you wail and cry out loud. You let people know how much the deceased means to you.

It’s not that one way is better than the other. It’s just that different cultures handle grief in different ways.

Jesus lets Mary’s grief touch his heart. He makes himself vulnerable, in other words, and is deeply moved. This is an emotionally intimate moment. Verse 5 tells us that Jesus loved Martha, Mary & Lazarus. Love creates a connection. You can’t really love someone without feeling what they feel. Eternal life is a deeply connected life.

We read, in verse 35, that Jesus wept. However, the Greek term translated as wept here is different from Mary’s loud wailing. Jesus’ weeping is quiet. [2]

Why does Jesus weep? He is about to raise Lazarus from the dead so it doesn’t make sense that he is sad for Lazarus. It appears something is going on here which is bigger than Lazarus. Perhaps Jesus is in touch with the ocean of grief caused by death over the millennia. Maybe also he is anticipating his own death on the cross. Raising Lazarus seems to have cost Jesus something.

It is natural to feel sadness and to express grief when someone dies. Jesus’ tears show his connection with humanity. More than that, his tears give permission for us to grieve also. Even though, for Christians, death is a temporary thing (like sleep), it still hurts to be disconnected from the ones we love.

We need to hold on to the fact that death is not in control. Jesus is the resurrection and the life and that means he is in control. Jesus has the power to restore the life connection.

Verse 38 tells us how Jesus was deeply moved once more, only this time he did not weep. This time he was moved to raise his friend from the dead. And Lazarus emerged alive from his tomb.    

Conclusion – Friendship:

You know, when we (in the west) think of eternal life, we tend to think in terms of time. We perceive eternal life, therefore, as a never ending sequence of events; an existence that just keeps going and going and going forever. The idea of never ending time is actually quite terrifying if you think about it.

However, this may not be the best way to think about eternal life. When Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life he was indicating that eternal life is a relationship – a friendship with him in fact.

This friendship with Jesus, and consequently with God the Father, is of such a high quality that the prospect of never ending life becomes something good to look forward to. This is the Christian hope. 

Now, it’s important to understand that Christian hope is not all pie in the sky, off in the future one day. No. You see, death isn’t just when someone’s heart stops and their brain function ceases. Death happens while we are still breathing, when right relationship breaks down and our connection with God and others is destroyed. 

Eternal life (or reconnection with God) actually begins in this world at the point we put our faith in Jesus. But it isn’t fully felt or realised by us until after our resurrection from physical death.

Last Sunday, at Easter, we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection creates an opening for our resurrection. Through faith in Jesus our friendship with God is restored and we are able enjoy freedom and a deep connection in our relationships with others. 

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What do you think Jesus means when he says, “I am the resurrection and the life”? 
  • How would you feel if you heard a good friend of yours was sick and needed your help? Why did Jesus take his time before going to Bethany? What was Jesus’ main consideration in making this decision?
  • How do you view death; as a wall or as a gateway to fellowship with God? Can you think of a time in your life when trusting Jesus helped you to find an opening in the wall you were facing?
  • How does Jesus connect with Martha? How does he connect with Mary? How does Jesus connect with you when you are grieving?
  • What difference does it make thinking of eternal life as a friendship with Jesus (rather than just an unquantifiable amount of time)?  

[1] Refer Leon Morris, page 495.

[2] Ibid.