Witness of a Dead Man

What must it be like to be dead? (Have you ever thought about it?)

You get sick and perhaps pain increases. Your loved ones begin to look at you in a different way than when you participated in life with them.

Although John’s Good News focuses on Jesus, dear friend of Lazarus (who just happens to be the Messiah), the mourners present for this funeral now would see Lazarus in a new light. He becomes a dead man walking out of his own grave!

The Messiah Jesus, after having been to Jerusalem for a festival (and likely Bethany) receives a message from Mary and Martha asking for help. Jesus continues His mission while returning to Bethany, arriving four days after Lazarus’ death. The Messiah mourns publically the death of His friend.

But then a turn of events for the dead man unexpected by the mourners of Lazarus.

John 11:

38 Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb.

It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

One does not go into the place of the dead to pray for their soul. And what else can a mere man do to help one that has died?

Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”

40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”

This goes back to their conversation about death and resurrection when Martha first spoke with Jesus as He and the Apostles approached Bethany.

“If only you had been here, Lord,” said Martha, “my brother would never have died… “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus replied to her.

John 11:21-23 excerpt PHILLIPS

41 So they removed the stone.

Witness of a prayer

Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said,

“Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.

I knew that You always hear Me;

but because of the people standing around I said it,

so that they may believe that You sent Me.”

Does God hear you?

If the Lord God hears you, then your public witness to the world around you had best be true.

43 After Yeshua had said this, he shouted as loudly as he could,

“Lazarus, come out!”

The Messiah Jesus (Yeshua) has just shouted into an open tomb to a dead man!

Does God the Father, Whom Jesus thanked for hearing Him, hear the Lord Jesus’ loud cry to Lazarus? Can a man dead for four days hear the loudest shout of earth or heaven?

Resurrection of a dead friend

“Lazarus, come forth.”

44 The man who had died came forth…

… bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth.

A dead man walking. This very sight of Lazarus bound in the wrappings of death must have terrified those present!

These sort of things do not happen.

“Now unbind him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go home.”

Some brave soul complied with the command of their Lord and Lazarus, a man dead in the grave, would walk weakly in amazement to the door of his own home, his sisters Martha and Mary at his side.

The Messiah Jesus, his friend, would accompany the one He had just saved from a death already experienced.

… for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth;

those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life,

those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

John 5:28b-29 NASB– the words of the Messiah Jesus

You with ears to hear, 
hear the voice of Jesus 
calling out to your dead soul...

To be continued...