Sign #7: Jesus Mourns and Raises Lazarus from the Dead
John 11Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. This was the Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. So the sisters sent for him, saying, “Lord, look, the one you love is sick.”
But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was sick, Jesus stayed where he was two more days. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let’s go into Judea again.”
The disciples asked him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you. Are you going there again?”
Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if a person walks in the night, they stumble because the light isn’t in them.” He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may wake him up from sleep.”
Then the disciples said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”
Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought that he was talking about restful sleep. So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. I am glad for your* sake that I was not there, so that y’all might believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.”
Therefore, Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s also go, that we may die with him.”
So when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. Then when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to met him, but Mary stayed seated in the house. Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask of 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.”
I Am #5: The Resurrection and the Life
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, he who comes into the world.”
When she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, “The Teacher is here and is calling you.”
When she heard this, she arose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met him. Then the Jews who were with Mary in the house consoling her, when they saw her, that she got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in the spirit and troubled. He said, “Where have y’all laid him?”
They replied, “Lord, come and see.”
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, also have kept this man from dying?”
Then Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Y’all move the stone away.”
Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.”
Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?”
So they took away the stone. Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I say this because of the crowd standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, his hand and foot bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped with a cloth.
Jesus said to them, “Y’all unwrap him and let him go.”
The Plan to Kill Jesus
Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our ethnic group.”
But one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “Y’all know nothing at all. Y’all don’t realize that it is more advantageous for us that one human should die for the people, so that the whole ethnic group won’t be destroyed.” Now he didn’t say this on his own, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the ethnic group, and not for the ethnic group only, but that he might also gather together into one group the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day forward they planned together to kill him. Consequently, Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews. Instead, he departed from there into the country near the wilderness to a city called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples.
Now the Passover of the Jews was near. Many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. Then they looked for Jesus and were saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do y’all think—that he isn’t coming to the feast at all?” Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had commanded that anyone who knew where he was should report it, so that they might capture him.