FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

Lazarus died physically, but that doesn't have to be his final end. You might die physically, but that doesn't have to be your final end.

And this is a setup for Jesus might die, but that won't be his final end.

So the resurrection of Lazarus is a sign ultimately of the resurrection of Jesus.

Speaker 2

Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Dave Wilson. Wilson. And you can find us@familylife today.com. this is Family Life Today. Okay. We got Dr. Mark Bailey back.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 3

The most famous pastor, teacher, seminary, and professor at Dallas Theological Seminary was the president. And we are in Dallas right now.

Speaker 1

Your hometown Bible says, lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.

Speaker 3

Only you would come back.

Speaker 2

All we know is our exact executive producers, like, this is the best seminary Prof. That I had.

Speaker 1

I must have been his only, you know, faculty member.

Speaker 3

No, no, I think he had them all. But yeah, we had you yesterday. And I know why. Well, that was, that was rich privilege to be here.

One of my favorite passages you're going to teach us today is John 11. I mean, of all the gospels, I just love how he states at the end of the Gospel his purpose: so that you may believe. I didn't even tell you all the miracles. Obviously, the raising of Lazarus is one of those miracles that John put in there to say, here's another sign, power over death.

But you know, it's Good Friday. We all know the end of the story. So we're already to Sunday, but it's Friday. And Lazarus, we know the end of his story, too.

But I'd love to hear your perspective on this story. And then we want to ask you at the end, how would you apply this to marriage and family and families and legacies?

Speaker 1

You bet. Well, one scholar divided the Gospel of John into two big books: the Book of Signs, because you have the seven major signs in the front half of the book through chapter 12, the resurrection of Lazarus being the climactic one. And then you have what's called the Book of Glory, which relates to why the death of Christ glorified God and how it glorified God. We're going to see that even in this particular miracle. But of those seven, this one is the seventh, which, as you said, is the power over death, both physical and spiritual, as we're going to see.

So the setup for it is ironic because it's structured literarily into a giant inverted parallelism, sort of in the shape of an hourglass, if you looked at it. They call it a chiasm based on the letter X or key in Greek. So it's parallel. The purpose of this is to frame, to echo, and to pinpoint. You won't be surprised as to where the pinpoint comes, as you'll see, but it's framed interestingly enough in the opening verses of that chapter. It says, "Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister. And it was Mary who anointed Jesus with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill."

So you have Mary anointing Lazarus in verse one of chapter 11, but you don't have the history of her anointing the event until the beginning of chapter 12. Rather than trying to read through all 40-some verses of this in our time frame, let me highlight the parallels. It's packaged in the anointing of Mary framework. You have Lazarus is sick and Mary is anointing in 11:13; you have Lazarus is ultimately well and Mary is anointed in 12:3. That's the outside block.

You have the sickness of Lazarus ultimately for the glory of God and his Son stated, and at the end, right before the last one, in parallel, the death of Jesus is for the gathering of his church. So how will God be glorified through the death of Jesus in the establishment of his church? The third one is the leader's plot recounted in 8 because they want to kill Jesus. In C prime, the leader's plot is renewed; they now want to kill Jesus and Lazarus, which is funny to me because Jesus could just raise him from the dead again.

Then you come through, and there's a positive and a negative: walking in the light while it's still in the light, so you don't stumble. That's parallel to the positive of belief and the negative reporting of the responses to Jesus. Lazarus dies in the next section, and Lazarus is raised in the parallel section, but in between those, the purpose of belief. In other words, Jesus says, "I'm glad I did this because this is going to end up in a testimony for faith."

In parallel to that, there's a prayer for belief and a thankfulness of Jesus. Again, you have him arrive in Bethany, where Lazarus has been dead for four days, as mentioned. Now here are the details. The Spirit of God guiding the human author John to write in such literary art parallels his mention of four days in verse 17, which matches his mention of four days in 11:38-42. The Jews are comforting because of the death of Lazarus, and parallel to that, the Jews are mourning because of what's happened.

Then you have Martha, who said, "If you had been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died." We're going to talk about that. Parallel to that is Mary saying, "If you'd been here, Lazarus wouldn't die." Those are parallel. And then here's the core in the middle: believe in the future resurrection. In verse 23, I want to read that because this is where it gets really fun. Right in the middle of this, in verse 23, he says this: "Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.'" So there's the promise: your brother will rise again.

Martha said, "I know he'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day." And so Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. And do you believe this?" She said, "Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world." So right in the center of that, between the Mary-Martha account, which, if you know that whole account, they're always together. Jesus is always working with both of them. One is the activist, the other is more of the contemplative.

There's a belief in the resurrection that's paralleled with belief. She finally says, "I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," which goes back to your purpose statement of the book. In English, it's a very tongue-tangled section: "I'm the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die. And even if he dies, he shall live." You know, it's like, "Well, wait a minute, did he die or didn't he live?"

It's interesting in the Greek text; it's more exact because it's that chiasm that explains it all. Let me show you: there is "I am the resurrection." The life is parallel to the question, which is the question of the hour: "Do you believe this?" So it's not an exact parallel. It's "I'm the resurrection." The question is, "Will you believe that?" The next one is "He who believes in me if he dies, but he who believes in me shall never die."

Now he sets you up in the contrast between physical death and spiritual death. In the middle of this, both of the parallels are "will live" and "everyone who lives." So life is the centerpiece of this section, even down to the very word parallels, as you back it back out. But Jesus' claim is, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me won't die." Well, how do we handle all those who have died? Well, whoever does die and believes in me won't die again but has eternal life.

When Chuck Colson's book came out years and years ago, I remember it was called "Born Again." There was a button that came out, if you remember it. It said, "Born once, die twice; born twice, die once." That really is formed and framed in the centerpiece of this. But let's take a step back. That's the thing, and it gets you to that centerpiece. It's that inversion that explains the seemingly tangled words there.

But he's trying to say, Lazarus died physically, but that doesn't have to be his final end. You might die physically, but that doesn't have to be your final end. This is a setup for Jesus: he might die, but that won't be his final end because she anoints Jesus for his burial. So the resurrection of Lazarus is a sign, ultimately, of the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus can resurrect Lazarus, then it shows that Jesus was true in chapter 10 when he said, "Nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down, and I'll raise it up at my own accord." He is the one who has the power over life and death.

Speaker 2

So good.

Speaker 1

So, application question, backing out. Four questions we could raise.

Speaker 2

Do you do this in all your classes? At the end of the day, do you have any application questions?

Speaker 1

Oh, we're applying it all the way through.

Speaker 2

Are you?

Speaker 1

Yeah, we may do it along the way. We may do it at a conclusion in the Parables and Miracles course. Yeah, it's the staccatoed.

What do we learn from this passage? Yeah, but as I look at this passage, I think there's some questions. When you find out that Jesus was over by Jericho and they said, Lazarus, your friend is sick, Jesus waits a couple extra days until he dies intentionally.

And of course, that bothers Mary and Martha. They're going, if you had been here, he wouldn't have died. Which raises the question, why did he delay? And in the context.

Speaker 3

Tell us, Mark, why did he delay?

Speaker 1

There's three reasons if you go back and read the text. One is for the glory of God in the ultimate. The ultimate glory of God. The second is for the immediate glory of Jesus, because by waiting till he dies, he now shows he can raise him. If he had healed him from the sick, that's just another one of the many that he did. But this one's a unique one, and we'll come back. There's three times he raises the dead, and we'll come back and talk about that in a moment for his Son's immediate glory.

And then for the disciples, he said, the reason I delayed—are you ready for this?—was not for you to doubt, but it was for your faith that you might believe. Now, what does he want them to believe? That he's the resurrection and the life. What does he demonstrate? That he is the resurrection, the life, and that he has the power to raise people from the dead and that physical death is no hindrance to eternal life. In fact, it may be a step toward eternal life for the believer.

How did the people respond? As you might expect. Some believed, and some felt threatened because of it. The irony is, after he heals his buddy Lazarus, the opposition wants to kill him again.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Which answers a big question: why doesn't Jesus just do signs and miracles so that people would believe? And the answer is, he did. And look how they responded to him. That's another point that comes out of the resurrection of another Lazarus. In a parable, would you send Lazarus back from the dead and expect everybody to believe? The irony is, he sends Lazarus back from the dead, and they want to kill him. Because even an adulterous generation looks after a sign.

This takes us back to the purpose statement of the book, which is that Christianity can be boiled down to three elements: a person, a book, and an experience. He says many other signs Jesus did in the presence of his disciples, but these are written, not done. That's very important. These were written. Why? Because a written record is what you and I will be left with. We will not be able to see miracles every day because Jesus is in heaven now. He can do miracles; he can do anything he wants to, anytime he wants. And he does. But that's not the norm. The norm is that faith comes by hearing, not watching—hearing the word of Christ.

So these were written. Christianity is a book, the Gospel of John in a nutshell, but the whole Bible as a whole. Second, it's a person, that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. There is the full orb of faith that this Jesus, in reality, is the Messiah and he's the Son of God. You take those three words, and that is what makes Christianity different from all of the religions of the world. And that believing leads to the experience of life in his name, eternal life.

So how do I respond? How should I respond? And how should our families respond? How do I help my families respond? Number one, the delay by God in answers to prayer goes back to yesterday's comments: it is no demonstration of a lack of love because he delays. But in the tense, behold how he loved him. He loved Lazarus; he was one of his best friends. But his delay was not because he didn't love him; it's because God had a different timing.

Speaker 3

I mean, Mark, you said earlier when God delays, in this case it was. He said it. It's for your faith, not your doubts.

Often in our life experience, I feel the opposite. I find myself doubting rather than waiting and increasing my faith.

How do we make that?

Speaker 1

God's delays and answers to prayer, or if he doesn't, when I snap, he doesn't jump, is not to be a sign of indifference on his part. So his delay is not indifference.

Secondly, I should accept the timing of God now. Martha and Mary, you know, I know. The resurrection is going to happen; it's going to be all right back then. No, I am the resurrection. I'm giving life to people now.

The difference is if God doesn't heal me immediately, like if God didn't heal my brother Paul immediately, that doesn't at all mitigate against his eternal plan for my brother.

I think we, you know, when we think of life as a vapor versus eternity and we judge God on the basis of that vapor, we miss eternity. It's a tiny mistake, but we're making a major mistake of proportion.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And then I should believe the truth about Jesus. That's the core. You believe you have life.

And when you believe you have life, even if you die because he's the resurrection.

So on this Good Friday, we'll celebrate in a couple of days his resurrection. He pre-teaches the resurrection before he ever does it.

Speaker 2

In this passage, what do you mean by that?

Speaker 1

He goes through the experience with Lazarus to let you know he'll go through his own experience. And it'll be his experience on the cross, burial, and resurrection that'll provide the eternal life.

So the resurrection of Lazarus is a physical resuscitation. Jesus is a physical resurrection. But it's the resurrection that guarantees our resurrection.

Because he lives, we too shall live, Paul says.

Speaker 3

I mean, you think Jesus on this day is thinking about Good Friday?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think he's thinking about the cross and the resurrection.

Speaker 2

How much time lapsed between Lazarus and the crucifixion? Do they know?

Speaker 1

We don't know exactly. Because what we have here in 11, we go right into chapter 12, which is the transition and sort of summary of this is how it all culminated.

And then you go into the upper room discourse and you're in the last week of his life, in fact, the night before he dies. Yeah.

Speaker 2

So maybe like a week or two.

Speaker 1

Possibly.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Okay. Here's a question everybody's always wondered: you know, John 11:35, the shortest verse in the Bible. Everybody knows it. Jesus wept.

When I've taught that, and maybe I've been wrong because I'm now sitting with the scholar, the word "wept" doesn't mean this little cry. It was pretty intense.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3

What do you think's happening in his soul?

Speaker 1

I think Jesus is 100% human and 100% deity. And so his love is as deep as it would be for any other person and maybe more.

And I think that the concept of death being a sting, you know, and being a victory for the enemy, he knows how important that is to understand.

And so death of his. Even though he's gonna. If I can say it, he can say, Lazarus, come forth. It's done.

Speaker 2

He knew he was gonna do that.

Speaker 1

But he knows he's gonna do that. And in the same way, he knows what's gonna happen for the entire future. But he weeps over Jerusalem. You know, I wish you would, but you didn't.

And so the agony and the emotional relationship, therefore, the relationship with Lazarus, it's a deep agony of. I see what death does to a person and to their families.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And again, when you read it, and you know, the perfect illustration of that's the Chosen. Of course, they do it perfectly. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Speaker 1

It's still so good.

Speaker 3

And we just did watch it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, because there's a lot of liberties they take. But when you see the son of God crying, it does hit you. His humanity. He's deity, hypostatic union. He's both. But he felt what we felt.

And sometimes it grabs you, like he really did, and it broke his heart. Even though he knew what I'm bringing him back to is worse than where he was. He was in eternity.

But it just makes you fall in love with our Savior. It's like he lived the life. He feels what we feel, and he understands.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I think that's what I have felt too, even reading this again, and I've read it so often.

But how much Jesus must have mourned with us, that we die and our flesh dies, and the mourning and the suffering that we feel. He understands that, and it's good to know that he understands that.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Speaking of another film, the Passion.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 1

I grew up in an evangelical family. So for me, it was the old rugged cross. It was resurrection. And that was all great. I had dismissed, in my thinking by default, the agony leading up to that resurrection. The whipping, the scourging, and the trials were all part of the narrative that I overlooked.

In the middle of all of that going on, we did a book at the seminary called *Why, O God?* On Suffering and Disability in the Church as a ministry. Joni Eareckson Tada did the opening and closing chapters. We conducted a course and then wrote a book about it, and I was assigned the topic of suffering in the Gospels.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

So I, page by page, went through the Gospels. And this relates to what you were just saying. We only have about 50 to 60 days out of three and a half, four years that we know are recorded in the Gospels.

That's why many other signs he did in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. And I found that before the Passion Week, the last week of his life, there were 50 times he was disparaged, attacked, called names.

That's an average of once a day. Wow.

Speaker 2

50 times.

Speaker 1

50 times before you ever get to the Passion Week. And so the suffering of Christ was not just on the cross.

And so that full humanity he entered into, he learned obedience through the things that he suffered. Hebrews says he suffered in all points as we are yet without sin.

That suffering, the cross was ultimately the culmination of that. But the incredible suffering that he faced on an average of every day of.

Speaker 2

His life, the rejection, that rejection, I've never really thought of that.

Speaker 1

I had neither. And it moved me. And plus that with the Passion film, I saw the previews. I was in Dallas with a group of leaders and we got to see a pre-edited version before they put the whip in the hand by, you know, CGI and things like that.

You just. It just was gut-wrenching because I just had never thought of that in physical terms before. And it doesn't take away from the expiation on the cross for sin. That's obviously the culmination of it.

But all that he felt, all that we have felt, and all that we have felt, he felt perfectly.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Ours is an imperfect feeling because we've got mixed emotions. He has no sinful emotion, but feels the emotion to the fullest. And that's a factor we can't forget.

Speaker 3

Yeah. And as you think, as we wrap up, you know, today's Good Friday, what Mary and Martha felt that their brother's gone, he's never coming back.

Good Friday ends that way, in the original story. And even as we experience it now, it's like we don't know if Saturday or Sunday's coming.

Speaker 2

And imagine the pain they felt.

Speaker 3

There's people living in sorrow right now, walking into Easter weekend. What would you say to them? Because, I mean, I hear this story and it gives me hope. But some are even reading the story and still not hopeful. So what would you say?

Speaker 1

I would come back around and say the very reason he came and took on flesh was to identify with us, to suffer with us, and to suffer for us. And therefore he understands us, even if we don't know and aren't sure. The Bible says He does.

And then what did he do for us? As he identified with us and suffered for us? He went to the ultimate level of humiliation, sacrifice, obviously to the point of death. The whole Philippians 2 model being God all the way to a point of death. He who is rich became poor, that we, through his poverty, might become rich. Paul says, he who knew no sin became sin for us. He took the penalty of sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

So to understand that He knows us, he understands us, he identifies with us, he suffered for us, and he has an answer for us. As you stand at the coffin of a loved one, eternity suddenly becomes more real.

And so, as a family member, father, grandfather, do my kids and do my grandkids know that truth? He wants me to know, yeah, I'm the resurrection and the life. Parallel to that in the passage: Do you believe this?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And she's going, well, I believe the big. No, no. Do you believe it now?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Not the long distance one. It's what starts now and the difference it makes. Because eternal life doesn't start after I die. Eternal life starts when I believe. And so that's the hope factor. There's a place for hope.

Speaker 3

You know, as a preacher for 30 years, a lot of sermons, a lot of text of scripture. Every Easter, I get so excited. Cause the message is so important to understand. God still raises dead things. A dead marriage, a dead faith, a dead hope. He still. He did it. He hasn't stopped doing it.

So, I mean, you know, we get the bunny and we get all other stuff. I'm like, just get that out of here. You gotta focus on the truth of what God's saying.

I am not a resurrection. The resurrection and the life.

Speaker 2

That's what I was saying. It's so easy to get caught up in holiday busyness, meal prep, all of that.

But as you're speaking and talking through this Scripture, the weight of the Gospel and the beauty of the Gospel presses in. I think we really need to take our time, read through that Scripture again, really think through what he's done for us.

And he's with us. He understands all of it. And even to take some time with your family, with your kids of just thanking God for what he's done for us.

Speaker 1

That's true. The motivation that comes at the end of the resurrection chapter in First Corinthians 15 is Be Steadfast.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Unmovable. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. Why it's not in vain in the Lord.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 1

You know, it makes all of it worthwhile. Because it's true. It's true. We have the ultimate meta narrative. It's God's message. His worldview is the right worldview.

And this is the critical part of it. Because if that's not true, the Resurrection is not true. None of it's true. He put it all in the Resurrection there in that chapter.

Speaker 3

There's possibly somebody listening today on Good Friday who's not a believer and maybe has listened to yesterday and today and said, today's my day. I think. I believe. I want to believe. Would you be willing to pray for him?

Speaker 1

You bet. You bet, Father, for that one or more that might be listening and hearing the truth of your gospel, maybe entering their heart and mind with clarity for the first time. It's easy, it's simple, and it's easily confused. But you basically bring it down to, do you believe this? Do you believe who Jesus is and what he's done?

So, Father, may they, in the quietness of their heart, just say, "Lord Jesus, I believe that you are the Savior, as the Gospel of John preaches and teaches all the way through. You are the Savior who died on a cross for my sin. I believe in you. I trust what you did on my behalf to be God's answer for my sin and my eternity.

I believe in you, and I welcome you into my life by faith. I trust what your word says about you and about what you've done on my behalf. And I trust you as my savior. Come into my life. I look forward to the difference that you'll make by your word and by your spirit.

And I say this with the sincerity of my heart. Amen.

Speaker 2

Amen.

Speaker 3

Amen. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mark.

Speaker 3

This is family life today. And we are David Ann Wilson. You were just listening to Dr. Mark Bailey pray on Good Friday for you and for all of us.

And, you know, with that in mind, we thought we would love to pray for you as well. We have a prayer team that will pray for you as you send in your request. You can go to familylife.com/prayforme and list your requests there, and we'll pray for you.

Speaker 2

We all need people that are praying for us. So send those requests to us. We have a team. We will do it and we would love to. We'd be honored to in fact. Familylife.com prayforme.

Speaker 3

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