I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1-2 KJV
Each year as the festival crowds approached Jerusalem, weary and faithful Jews making the pilgrimage would pause to rest in places nearby before their walking ascent up the hill leading to the Temple.
Bethany would have been one of these places – a town where Jesus would stay with a good friend and later perform a sign the He IS the Messiah of Israel.
John’s Gospel begins by mentioning the village along with details of Mary and Martha which do not happen until later, but of course have already happened by the time John writes his Good News to the churches and unbelievers.
Although we have just read of a story from the festival of Hanukkah where Jesus may have also stayed over at Bethany (we cannot be certain), I remind us that John’s Gospel is not strictly chronoligical.
The importance here relates to the characters – the real people of this family living in the village of Bethany outside Jerusalem. And what we are about to witness is not only a miracle and sign of Jesus, but the human love of true friends of this family by the Lord.
A messenger asks Jesus to help a friend
3 So the sisters sent a messenger to tell Yeshua, “Lord, your close friend is sick.”
These friends knew where to find Jesus, where He was preaching.
Jesus most likely had already been in this part of Judea, but departed for Samaria and other distant places as was His custom traveling from town to town preaching the Good News.
4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
John gives us an important background to their friendship without providing specific details of where Jesus was teaching, but he tells us something important about this family in Jesus’ earthly relationships.
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
John 11:5
It is the same description John uses so often to describe the Incarnate Lord Jesus – ἀγαπάω – agapaō – ‘of persons to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly.
Christians are to love the world in this same way Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. For John uses this same word to describe how God ‘loved’ humans made in his image.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Yet the messenger might have thought Jesus’s response to be somewhat dismissive. “This sickness is not to end in death…”
6 Yet, when Yeshua heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days. Then, after the two days, Yeshua said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”
What do we fear?
Even in the unexpected crisis of these last days what does man fear most?
Death!
It was the death of their brother Mary and Martha feared. And the Apostles also fear capture and death due to several previous attempts by Jerusalem’s religious officials to kill their friend Jesus. The Disciples fear death even though Jesus had demonstrated His power over nature time and time again.
8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, not long ago the Jews wanted to stone you to death. Do you really want to go back there?”
9 Yeshua answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day don’t stumble, because they see the light of this world. However, those who walk at night stumble because they have no light in themselves.”
Jesus again assures His own Apostles that He is the Light of the world and reminds that Jerusalem’s leaders have no light of God in their actions.
Lazarus
… and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.”
Of course the Apostles continue in their regular banter questioning the Lord as to His motives. Yet before we proceed to Jesus’ sign, let’s take a closer look at His friend Lazarus.
Λάζαρον –
Λάζαρος Lazaros – Lazarus = “whom God helps” (a form of the Hebrew name Eleazar)
Jesus also tells a parable of another man, Lazarus, a poor beggar who died and God helped.
אֶלְעָזָר
el·ä·zär’ – same meaning in Hebrew was the name of Aaron’s son, also a Levite Priest, as well as several others in this Bible.
Clearly, if Jesus is going to help Lazarus it is God who helps the man close to death.
Lazarus is dead
Jesus has not spelled it out in His first mention to the Apostles as they attempt to convince the Lord not to return to Judea.
12 Then the disciples said to him,
“Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”
(The Disciples certainly do not care to risk returning to Bethany near Jerusalem.)
14 Then Yeshua told them plainly,
“Lazarus has died, but I’m glad that I wasn’t there so that you can grow in faith. Let’s go to Lazarus.”
How does Jesus know these things?
Can a mere man know such truths?
Of course the Disciples had witnessed such knowledge possible only from God before. Yet like us, they lack faith that Jesus can take authority over the situation as it involves their mortal lives.
16 Thomas, who was called Didymus, said to the rest of the disciples,
“Let’s go so that we, too, can die with Yeshua.”
Isn’t that how we feel when confronted by death?
How will Jesus help us, we ask ourselves?
Can the Son of Man HELP a man already dead?
That’s the question lurking in the back of our minds when we pray to God.
Can God help me even though I am dead? Will the Lord keep me from death?
Jesus returns to Bethany and eventually Jerusalem to answer the immediate questions of Lazarus’ death, the soon-to-be asked questions about the Disciples’ deaths due to following Jesus and most importantly our eternal questions about death appointed to each mortal man and our only hope of resurrection to the Light of eternal life.
We had been at the foot of the Cross where they crucified Jesus; three of us, all named Mary. (They alway called me, Magdalēnē, after my hometown by the seashore of Galilee). I heard the Lord cry out, “teleō (it is finished),” as His Spirit left Him.
Later we wailed as a centurion pierced His already dead and lifeless torn flesh hanging on the Cross. Other disciples came to the skull beyond the gate where they gathered His body into a clean shroud and gently carried it to a nearby tomb.
We followed Jesus’ body and the men carrying it to a newly carved tomb. Uniformed guards rolled a stone in front of the cave and they made us leave. As darkness fell upon us we knew it our duty to somehow complete His preparation once the daylight after the Sabbath allowed us to return.
I returned on the first day of the week even before dawn. When I arrived at the tomb, expecting to ask the Roman guards to remove the stone at the entrance, I was amazed to see it had already been rolled away.
What could I do? I ran back to tell Peter about the empty tomb.
Mary returns to the tomb
Peter and John had left after running to the empty tomb and examining it briefly. I returned to find them looking inside. They didn’t know what to make of the empty tomb and went back to town talking to each other. There I was alone, I thought.
I cried as I fell to my knees. What had happened, I wondered? Then through my tears I looked into the darkness of the tomb and thought I saw the two guards sitting where Jesus’ body had been laid on the day before the Sabbath.
“Woman, why are you crying,” one of them asked?
“Because they’ve taken away my Lord,” I told them, “and I don’t know where they’ve put him.” I was about to tell them how I had to prepare His body for burial, how Joseph and Nicodemus had only brought the shroud and the myrrh, but we had to finish the preparation of our Lord for burial.
The First Witness
Then I turned to look beyond the door of the cave. It was brighter outside and there stood another man I had not seen before. He spoke to me as men always addressed women with work to do.
15 “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it that you’re seeking?”
This man probably also has work to do, I thought. But I continued to plea for my Lord’s body which was not there.
“Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve put him, and I will take him away.”
Then I recognized His gentle smile and loving voice.
“Mary.”
I turned to embrace Him as I poured out my joy at the sight of Him:
““Rabboni!”
“Don’t cling to me,” Jesus cautioned after I called Him teacher, “since I have not yet ascended to the Father…”
It took every bit of obedience to restrain my joy to listen, but not to touch the Lord. As I struggled with my emotions, He continued:
“… But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
Of course, I ran back to town and announced it to the Disciples. Jesus always called them His brothers and all of us His family.
“I have seen the Lord!”
John 20:18b CSB
As quickly as I could I told them all I had seen, then Peter ran out the door followed by John.
I am Simon, son of John the fisherman, owner of the fishing fleet on the Sea of Tiberias. Jesus calls me Cephas or Peter, but I denied knowing Him when the soldiers took Him away. It was just as He had said.
The trial was no trial at all and they convicted Him of nothing. But they tortured and killed Him anyway, mocking Him before the crowds. I was afraid. We were all afraid and we hid from the authorities.
On the first day of the week after His execution Mary Magdalene comes bursting in the door. “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!”
I took the lead, not waiting for anyone, and darted out the door. John followed closely, the young man running a bit quicker than me. When I arrived he was stooping down looking into the empty tomb. He was looking at something.
I stooped down and went on in and saw the linen cloths lying there. 7 The wrapping that had been on his head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded up in a separate place by itself.
This makes no sense, I thought. John stepped in behind me and also saw the neatly folded linen cloths and the wrapping that Joseph had placed around Jesus’ head as we had carefully held His lifeless body.
James, chosen randomly for this post-resurrection witness, represents any of the unnamed Disciples in the locked room where the Lord appeared.
I am James the elder or the greater, as I am sometimes called so as not to confuse me with Jesus’ younger half-brother, son of Joseph. John, my younger brother and I were followers of John the Baptist until we met the Lord.
John, Peter and I had all witnessed the transfiguration of our Lord when He appeared with Moses and Elijah. We knew He IS the Messiah of God.
But I feared for my own life after Peter cut off the ear of a centurion arresting Jesus in Gethsemane. Even then He healed the man as if it had never happened. It was like so many miracles of Jesus we had witnessed the last three years.
Most of us had gone back into town to the room where our Lord had washed our feet. And we kept the doors locked.
On the first day of the week Peter and John had answered an early and urgent knock at the door. They left hastily, following Mary. When they returned my brother John told us he was certain the Lord was alive. Peter agreed and confirmed the evidence of all they had seen at the empty grave.
We all discussed it, all, that is, except Thomas who was not there. But we once again began to hope and thought hard about scripture Jesus had so often discussed with us. Then in the evening an amazing thing happened, and as I said, the door was locked.
Jesus came, stood among us and said, shä·lōm, that is, “Peace be with you.”
Having said this, he showed us his hands and his side. I shed tears of joy, but also of sorrow as I looked upon the Lord’s hands and the place where the nails had been driven through. He also showed us his spear-pierced side. How was it possible? Yet there our Lord stood among us.
And ever so briefly as we were all still rejoicing the Lord left, disappearing instantly as He had appeared in our room with the locked door.
Θωμᾶς Δίδυμος – Thomas
Jesus and the others called me Thomas or Didymos, which means, ‘the twin.’ My given name is Judas, but they call me Thomas so as to not confuse me with Judas, half-brother of Jesus or Judas Iscariot, who betrayed our Lord.
Word had reached me that Jesus IS alive and had appeared to the others. I hurried back to Jerusalem to the room where we had celebrated the Passover feast before our Lord’s suffering and death. The door was locked, of course. I knocked and announced myself, ‘it is Didymos.’
‘Thomas,” Peter replied as he opened the door and quickly locked it once more. “Last week the Lord appeared to us here.” “Thank you for sending the messenger with the good news to me,” I responded.
“We’ve seen the Lord!” all the Disciples were telling me.
Yet even though I had come back with my heart full of hope I replied,
“If I don’t see the mark of the nails in his hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
For they had all told me how they had seen the scars of His crucifixion.
Jesus tells Thomas, “Put your finger here..”
Suddenly, the Lord also appeared in the locked upper room to me. The Lord greeted us all, “Peace be with you.” Then He turned to me.
“Put your finger here and look at my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Don’t be faithless, but believe.”
I touched the bloodless indentation in the Lord’s right hand, buckled to my knees, weeping and looking into His familiar loving eyes.
“My Lord and my God!”
Jesus’ look accepted my belated worship. Then He said to all of us:
“Because you have seen me, you have believed.”
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
John 20:29B CSB – words of the risen Christ Jesus
Μαθθαῖος לֵוִי – Matthew Levi
The Gospel of Matthew
The Hebrews know me by Levi and I collected the Roman tax for their leaders. But once the Lord called on me to follow Him, I was mostly called by my Greek name, Matthew.
Besides John, I am one of the twelve witnesses to the incarnate life of the Messiah Jesus. We were all, of course, Jews, who spoke Aramaic and Greek with the Romans. My Gospel adds other detail to John’s Gospel.
The Gospels of Mark and Luke
You would probably call us second generation disciples of Jesus. Just a short time after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, Peter came to us after Herod executed James, John’s brother with the sword. John Mark began recording all that Peter witnessed and then interviewed other Apostles as well.
The physician Luke also wrote a detailed Gospel of the events in Jesus’ life and a second scroll of the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke faithfully records the events of Pentecost. John also recorded the receiving of the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Jesus had promised.
John – Much more to say
The Apostle John closes his Gospel and resurrection account in this way:
The Purpose of This Gospel
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:30-31 CSB
The young Apostle John would be the only Disciple to live to old age. (All others sacrificed their own lives for the sake of the Good News of Christ Jesus).
John wrote three letters to the church as well as the closing book of the Bible about the apocalypse of the close of the age, Revelation.
Παῦλος שָׁאוּל – Paul [Saul of Tarsus]
Our witness of the risen Christ would not be complete without that of a zealous Jewish scholar and Pharisee once opposed to the Lord Jesus and a murderer of followers of The Way, Paul, known as Saul.
3 As he traveled and was nearing Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him. Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? ” “Who are you, Lord? ” Saul said. “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting,” he replied.
Paul’s later letter to the church at Corinth speaks to us about the all-important witness of the resurrection of Christ.
Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand.
.. that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter]
then to the Twelve)
Then he [the risen Christ Jesus] appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep.
1 Corinthians 15:6
7 Then he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time,a he also appeared to me.
Resurrection Essential to the Faith
13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised… 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins…
If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.
1 Corinthians 15:19
Christ’s Resurrection Guarantees Ours
20 But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep… If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
Note that he does not call on us to party (as the world misquotes), but warns that to live in this way is fruitless, since we believe in the resurrection. Our certainty of eternal life in Christ guarantees that the fruit of this life becomes our reward for eternity.
A closing thought for Easter
John has told us that he could have told us many more convincing things to convince us that Jesus IS the Messiah. Many witnesses, even historians outside the Bible testify to Jesus.
Paul continues his eloquent witness for Christ and the resurrection of Jesus, which I commend to your prayer and study.
Question is: Do you believe in the Lord, Christ Jesus?
I will close with Paul’s own further witness, which I pray you will take to heart for the sake of your eternal soul.
Death has been swallowed upin victory. 55 Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting?
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sinis the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
That you may have Certainty in these Uncertain Times
Can you think of any transitions of our years more difficult than dealing with death? Any death of a loved one brings uncertainty for times ahead.
Luke and the other Gospel writers must have had second thoughts after the Cross, transitions of faith challenging the teachings of Jesus. “Did you know Him,” those who had witnessed His triumphant entrance into Jerusalem for the Passover festival would have asked?
The Messiah of God: humiliated, tortured and executed as a spectacle on a Roman cross!
How those leaving Jerusalem must have hung their heads during the transitions of these three days until certainty of the Resurrection. But then a risen Christ appears.
I have always wondered what stories from scripture Jesus must have told his disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Luke 24: 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
In Hebrew,-יָדַע yâdaʻ, yaw-dah’; a primitive root; to know (properly, to ascertain by seeing); used in a great variety of senses, figuratively, literally, euphemistically and inferentially (including observation, care, recognition; and causatively, instruction, designation, punishment..
This is the certainty of which Luke, the gentile, speaks of in detailing the record of Jesus’ life. For a Hebrew people conquered by Rome and accustomed to a Greek culture, Jesus assures them of God’s unrelenting faithfulness.
So what might Jesus have told these defeated Jews after His death and resurrection about Joshua? We might conjecture the inclusion of certainty [yâdaʻ], used roughly 900 times in Hebrew scripture
The Certainty of the Jews
The impact of the resurrection of Jesus surpasses all transitions of history. Yet Jesus speaks first to followers of a past of promise, rather than this new transition for believers. Jesus had spoken often of Moses, but among transitions between Hebrewleaders few surpass the journey of Joshua.
Moses, David and the Prophets had predicted a Messiah King. The LORD affirms the certainty of His covenant with Abraham through Moses. Yet Moses dies before crossing into the promised land. Transitions from a forty year leadership of the 120 year Moses to following his assistant,Joshua. He would command this untested Hebrew army crossing the Jordan into enemy lands.
If ever a people journeyed into uncertain times, transitions from the wilderness into lands beyond the Jordan lay before the Hebrew people. Yet here rests faith in the certainty of God’s promise.
נָגַד More Certainty
Another Hebrew root word translated as certainty is nagad. Without getting into Hebrew and English parts of speech we find an additional 370 uses of this word for certainty.
נָגַד – nagad – to be conspicuous, tell, make known, to tell, declare, announce, report, expound, to inform of, to publish, proclaim, to avow, acknowledge, confess, to be told, be announced, be reported.. plus a few additional definitions and ‘to bring to the light.’
Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Just a reminder that Moses is synonymous with the Law, Torah and five Books of Moses, from which we will begin.
7 Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. 8 It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
Do you know the meaning of Joshua’s name? יְהוֹשׁוּעַ The transliteration is: Yĕhowshuwa` from: יְהֹוָה Yĕhovah – The Existing One and יָשַׁע yasha` – savior.
The LORD told Moses I AM THAT I AM! He IS The Existing One from whom the Savior is sent.
14 And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, the days approach when you must die. Call Joshua and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, that I may commission him.” And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting. 15 And the Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud. And the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance of the tent.
16 And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.
The LORD’s promise is a promise of certainty.
… Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success[a] wherever you go.
Yet as with Moses and later, Jesus, the followers of God fail in their faith. We love to sing of our victories in the Lord [Joshua 6 video], but in these transitions of faith watch what happens next.
But the people of Israel broke faith… 2 Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai…
5 and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water.
6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads. 7 And Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us?
Uncertain times, then Certainty from the Lord
And so it goes in difficult transitions. Men (and women) will sin. The Lord must draw us back to faith.
Jesus, Savior of sinners, tells His faithful why the Messiah must die. He is resurrected and becomes our resurrection and our life!
Joshua, Jehovah is Salvation, appeals to Jehovah God for mercy and the Lord speaks certainty of deliverance.
3 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, 4 they on their part acted with cunning… 8 They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” And Joshua said to them, “Who are you? … because of the name of the Lord your God. For we have heard a report of him, and all that he did in Egypt, 10 and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan…
They go on with their deception of Joshua, but they praise the Lord.
15 And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
16 At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them.
Now comes the assurance of certainty from the Lord. נָגַד
24 They answered Joshua,
“Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you—
so we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing. 25 And now, behold, we are in your hand. Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it.”
Are you a King?
What did these kings, destined to fail before the Lord think of Joshua? Surely they feared the anointed of the Lord (though at that time they were not named king).
Pilate, Governor of Judea had asked the accused Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” For the Jews had accused Jesus of blasphemy, for He had said: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they crucified Jesus on a Cross and buried our Lord in a grave. Now, in the greatest of transitions ever, the risen Christ tells His followers why He had to be crucified for our sins. He IS and was and is to be, the Lord! He is the redeemer of those facing certain death and inevitable judgement.
For fifty days a risen Jesus will once again lead disciples into the uncertainty of a new and everlasting covenant. Like followers of Joshua, these disciples must have had times of uncertainty turn into a certain faith in the Lord.
Whether forty years, fifty days, two millennia or a few moments of transitions of this life, certainty remains in Christ the Lord.
