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.
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.
Death and Resurrection Hosea 13:4 I have been the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and no Savior exists besides me. 5 I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.
“Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. God’s bread is the man who comes from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Now after a considerable walk from somewhere beyond Judea, Jesus arrives in Bethany.
Jesus walks into a scene of death visited by mourners who loved Lazarus but also religious officials from Jerusalem who sought to accuse their Messiah of blasphemy for previous signs on the Sabbath.
As reminder of both heavy hearts and hard hearts in the crowds:
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles away).
He arrives at the funeral of Lazarus. No talk of death and resurrection here, just wailing and mourning his loss.
19 Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Yeshua was coming, she went to meet him.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him.”
Lord God
Ἰησοῦν κύριε – Iēsous kyrios – Jesus Lord
Martha addresses their Messiah and friend.
“I know that God, theosin greek referring to any gods, but for Jews and followers of Christ (a Greek word for Messiah), Martha’s confidence in God includes a mysterious relationship between this Son of Man and the HOLY SPIRIT of the LORD God!
“God with” – ὁ – ho – with the Holy Spirit, the very breath of life which hovered over creation.
Jesus, God with us, frequently answered religious critics with personally relational replies like,
“God is spirit, and those G3588 who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Now, out of compassion for a deceased friend and love for the family of Lazarus, the Messiah Jesus returns to Judea with nothing more to prove. (For the Lord had already raised others from death and healed some near to death of likely life-ending ailments to a cleansing of the flesh with life!)
Death and Resurrection
Death and resurrection always have connection. Will you rise again from the grave?
For Jesus’ friend Lazarus, temporary restoration of health and life in his case. Yet all understand judgment by the Lord God requires a raising of the spirit of your soul to life.
After flesh fails and bones decay to dust and ashes will the Lord also breathe life into a new body of each soul?
“..even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him.”
23 Yeshua told Martha, “Your brother will come back to life.”
24 Martha answered Yeshua, “I know that he’ll come back to life on the last day, when everyone will come back to life.”
25 Yeshua said to her,
“I am the one who brings people back to life, and I am life itself. Those who believe in me will live even if they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
The Messiah of God!
Do you believe that?”
Pause to think:
“I am life itself!” Those who believe in Jesus ( יְהוֹשׁוּעַ ) will live even though we die. The Lord God IS our Salvation!
27 Martha said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was expected to come into the world.”
She has said this – that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God – with witnesses surrounding her home — Jews who believe and Jews looking for excuse to kill Jesus.
… she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly,
“The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
When Mary heard this she sprang to her feet and went to him.
30 (Yeshua had not yet come into the village but was still where Martha had met him.) The Jews who were comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave. So they followed her…
The Messiah approaching death and resurrection
Compelling drama! – with much expectation.
Those who loved this family and mourned the loss of Lazarus would not have expected Mary’s sudden joy.Rather, they followed her to continue their expected public mouring for the death of a fellow Jew.
Imagine their surprise at the scene about to unfold.
33 When Yeshua saw her crying, and the Jews who were crying with her, he was deeply moved and troubled.
34 So Yeshua asked, “Where did you put Lazarus?”
They answered him, “Lord, come and see.”
35 Yeshua cried.
36 The Jews said, “See how much Yeshua loved him.”
An appropriate witness of the true personal compassion of the Lord Jesus. Yet listen to the dissent of hardened hearts.
37 But some of the Jews asked, “Couldn’t this man who gave a blind man sight keep Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus hears our complaints and the Messiah hears our kind words. All those comments of the crowds did not matter to the Son of Man sent to this place to weep – sent here to suffer for our sins.
Just a reminder to Christians of this 21st century, Jesus was Jewish.
Yeshua, from Ἰησοῦς in Greek, Iēsous from יְהוֹשׁוּעַ Hebrew meaning Yĕhowshuwa` (Joshua or Jehoshua = “Jehovah is salvation”) in English: Jesus. (The One born to a Jewish mother, a virgin betrothed to a faithful Jew, Joseph son of Jacob {Matthew 1:16}.)
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Gospel of Matthew 1:1 KJV
Although we have been following Jesus through the Gospel of John, for our understanding of the Messiah and His jewish upbringing as the Son of Man, we have just left some predictions of the Prophet Amos.
Then He brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces the east; and it was shut. The LORD said to me, “This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the LORD God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut.
Ezekiel 44:1-2 NASB
“The priest shall take some of the blood from the sin offering and put it on the door posts of the house, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar and on the posts of the gate of the inner court.
2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
7 Yeshua emphasized, “I can guarantee this truth: I am the gate for the sheep.
John 10:7 NOG
Later Jesus will tell the Apostles to also be wary of these religious hired hands determined to devour all opposition.
John tells us how Jerusalem’s religious leaders opposed the Messiah after Jesus healed a man blind from birth. But Jesus tells the crowds a parable against them.
12 A hired hand isn’t a shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep. When he sees a wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and quickly runs away.
John 10:11 NKJV
19 Again the Jews were divided because of these words…
After this, a most popular Messiah Jesus enters Jerusalem for a festival.
Jewish festivals
22 Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter.
A brief overview:
The Hebrew Civil Year began with Tishri [October]. At the Exodus the Ecclesiastical Year was made to begin with Abib [April], which, after the Captivity, was called also Nisan.- Hitchcock’s Topical Commentary
“Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed.
Deuteronomy 16:16 NASB
But this minor feast (we now call the festival of lights) held importance to a Jerusalem which presumed to have purified and rededicated the Temple. In commemoration of the cleansing and re-dedication of the Temple after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes. –H.
The Story Behind the Feast of Dedication
Prior to the year 165 BC, the Jewish people in Judea were living under the rule of the Greek kings of Damascus. During this time Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes, the Greco-Syrian king, took control of the Temple in Jerusalem and forced the Jewish people to abandon their worship of God, their holy customs, and reading of the Torah. He made them bow down to the Greek gods. According to ancient records, King Antiochus IV defiled the Temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar and spilling its blood on the holy scrolls of Scripture.
23 Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews surrounded him and asked,
“How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 “I did tell you and you don’t believe,” Jesus answered them.
Do you believe His signs?
Even in this day some will believe and come to faith through the Messiah, He IS the gate to salvation and the door to heaven. Others remain blind to truth.
Jesus has already given several signs, proofs in various places of miracles only God could do. The most recent of these, of course, was giving a blind man sight right there in Jerusalem.
“The works that I do in my Father’s name testify about me. But you don’t believe because you are not of my sheep.
Who do you follow?
Some preacher, a rabbi or teacher?
None are the Son of God, the Shepherd of the chosen ones of God our Father.
The Way to heaven
27 My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.
Why would you doubt the authoritative gentle voice of the Shepherd at the door?
If you believe in God Almighty our God and Father, do you not see His power and compassion in the Only Son, Shepherd of the chosen to enter into His Glory?
Is Jesus your Lord and Shepherd?
For His love and anointing must be clear to those who are no longer blind.
Would you humbly turn from your sin to hear His gentle voice?
“Follow Me.” “I am the way the truth and the life.”*
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
A decision of life or death
How many times can you recall that the LORD strikes down the one who sins?
More times in scripture than we can recall.
The LORD GOD IS ALMIGHTY! Fear only him, the LORD, the Existing One.
John the Baptist had testified of the Holy Spirit of God descending upon Jesus.
The Lord Jesus raised the dead, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind. A Man of God thought to be from Nazareth asked men and women to follow Him.
Jesus, Son of Man as He referred to himself, showed signs and wonders to many.
What is left for the Messiah to tell us?
If we must follow Jesus, is He God in Person? – a “Son of Man” the very human Image of God (as a Son of His Father born to a woman)?
For the LORD God is One and our decision to obey the LORD is a matter of eternal life or judgment and punishment of our soul in death.
“I and My Father are one.”
John 10:30 KJV
Truth? or Blasphemy?
31 Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone him.
32 Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these works are you stoning me?”
33 “We aren’t stoning you for a good work,” the Jews answered, “but for blasphemy, because you—being a man—make yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, I said, you are gods? If he called those whom the word of God came to ‘gods’—and the Scripture cannot be broken— do you say, ‘You are blaspheming’ to the one the Father set apart and sent into the world, because I said: I am the Son of God?
Jesus, Son of Man filled with the Holy Spirit of Almighty God! Once again the Lord confronts the hired hands of Herod, wolves luring the faithful away from the Shepherd, with Scripture and Truth.
How can they refute what everyone has seen with their own eyes?
37 “If I am not doing my Father’s works, don’t believe me…”
You too have seen many signs and miracles. Those in addition to Jesus’ compassion and love for the lost who have sinned.
A few repent seeking return to the safety of the Shepherd.
38 “… But if I am doing them and you don’t believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.”
Jesus and God the Father are One! Jesus and the Holy Spirit of God are One!
What was it Jesus told the Pharisee Nicodemus?
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
But those who will not bow down to the LORD God accuse the Son of Man of blasphemy. (Let the casual 21st c. reader understand the significance of blasphemy– a sin against God requiring death of the offender.)
39 Then they were trying again to seize him, but he eluded their grasp.
A return to the wilderness
40 He went back across the Jordan River and stayed in the place where John first baptized people.
41 Many people went to Yeshua. They said, “John didn’t perform any miracles, but everything John said about this man is true.” 42 Many people there believed in Yeshua.
The Apostle John has already revealed the Good News of the Messiah proven by many signs in many places.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
“But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
“You have sent to John [the baptist], and he has testified to the truth.
“If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
“Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?
The One Truth & nothing but The Truth
“I and the Father are One!”
John 10:30 – Strong’s: b) metaphorically, “union” and “concord,” e.g., Jhn 10:30; 11:52; 17:11, 21, 22; Rom 12:4, 5; Phl 1:27
This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.
What other sign do you need to open your eyes to what Jesus plainly has said?
I and the Father are One!
NEXT: The Resurrection of Lazarus ... God-willing...
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