Bible passage:
Parts of John 11:1,3-6,14,15,21-27,32-44 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 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.”
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.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 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?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.
Characters in the story: Jesus, the dead man - Lazarus, the sisters whom Jesus cared and loved - Mary and Martha, the disciples who still don't understand what Jesus is saying, the Judeans who had tried to stone Jesus and who still don't believe in Jesus after many miracles.
Doubts prevalent then and now during suffering: (i) God isn't ABLE to change my situation, (ii) God doesn't LOVE enough to want to change the situation. We can infer that from the note the sisters sent, the question Jesus asked them, and the response of the people that are recorded.
Jesus isn't obligated to answer any of the doubts! After all that He had done for them, and what they had seen, if there were still doubts in their heart, He could have just rebuked them and called them an unbelieving generation. Yet, we see the love of Jesus shining through in this incident. He showed them that He loves them by visibly weeping. He also shows them that He is able to change any situation, by changing the most impossible of situations. Jesus raised the son of the widow of Nain, and He raised the daughter of Jairus. Even Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament have raised people from the dead. What was different about Lazarus' resurrection? Lazarus was dead for four days. In an era where one can't check ECG, probably there were cases where people thought someone was dead, and they revived back to consciousness. But Lazarus was dead for four days, bound entirely by clothes, and kept in the grave. Minutes after death, the brain starts to release water and decay, and within three days all internal organs decompose, and by the fourth day, the microbes would be everywhere, producing toxic gases that bloat the body, and make it stink. Jesus showed He could change this stinking situation and bring life to a decaying, decomposing, dead body.
Let us then learn about intercession from Jesus: The purposes of any miracle are typically threefold - (i) Revelation of the glory of God, (ii) Evidence for us to believe that Jesus is the Messiah sent by God, (iii) The compassionate response of a God who loves and alleviates our pain. When we intercede for our friends, let's remember to pray that God's intervention as an answer to our prayer brings Him glory (He doesn't share His glory with another); that it draws people close to Him, and then lastly that the earthly pain is alleviated. For often time, our focus remains only on the alleviation of pain.
Prayer points:
Praise God for His eternal love for us. Praise God for His wisdom, power, and holiness that gives life to stinking creatures like us.
Praise God that His timing is perfect. Praise God for the hope that He has given us, and for His Spirit that indwells in us and helps us in our suffering.
Pray that God will change our hearts such that our primary desire is for God's glory. Pray that He will open our eyes to see His glory revealed in and through us and that we desire to glorify Him more and more each day.
Pray also that His answers to our intercessions will point them to Christ, and bring people close to God.
If you can, try memorizing John 11:40.
Comments