Reverend Jonathan Waits
Where Is Your Sting? (John 11)
April 13, 2025
The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is an incredible one. It is one that has inspired countless other stories since. The idea that someone actually defeated death and returned to tell about it has given hope to untold millions over the course of the 2,000 years since it happened. We’ll talk more about all of that this Friday and next Sunday as we give all of our attention to the resurrection itself. For the moment, I want to draw your attention very briefly to one part of it.
One of the strangest stories associated with Jesus’ death on the cross only gets mentioned by the apostle Matthew. He gives it a total of two verses’ worth of attention when describing the chaos that was unleashed when Jesus took His last breath from the cross. There was darkness and the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and there was an earthquake that shook the city. The earthquake may have been the immediate physical cause of the veil’s being torn asunder. But Matthew tells us something else happened in that moment. “The tombs were also opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.”
As a general rule, scholars don’t have any idea what to do with these two verses. Given how thoroughly Matthew’s Gospel is shaped by the Old Testament, it is highly likely that he saw this as a direct fulfillment of Ezekiel 37:12-13 where the Lord says to Israel through the great prophet, “I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them, my people, and lead you into the land of Israel. You will know that I am the Lord, my people, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.”
God had long told the people of Israel that He planned to defeat death. Then Jesus showed up and started to deliver on that promise. It happened here somehow upon His death and resurrection. The other Gospel authors probably didn’t mention it because they weren’t as concerned with showing how Jesus’ life and ministry fulfilled Scripture as Matthew was, and they knew that observing that particular detail would invite more questions than they knew how to answer.
The apostle John, though, tells us about another time Jesus fulfilled God’s promise to overturn the power of death, and he identifies this one as the seventh major sign pointing to exactly who Jesus is. I want to look at this seventh sign with you just very briefly this morning, and then we’ll head out of here for an afternoon packed with fun. If you have your copy of the Scriptures handy this morning, find your way with me to John 11, and let’s take a look at what’s going on here.
Everything got started when Jesus got word that His friend, Lazarus, was gravely ill. “Now a man was sick—Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent a message to him: ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’”
This is where you would naturally have expected Jesus to jump into action in order to go and save his friend. Surely the disciples expected Him to go. They knew how close Jesus was with this family. That may be why Jesus immediately announced to them in response to the messenger’s report, “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.”
What John writes next, though, is really interesting: “Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was sick…” and this is where we expect John to tell us that Jesus went immediately to save the day. But that’s not what happened. “So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. Then after that, he said to the disciples, ‘Let’s go to Judea again.’”
The disciples knew the danger that awaited Jesus—and them—in Jerusalem, and so they asked Him about it. He tried to euphemistically tell them Lazarus had died, and that He was going to go raise His friend from the dead, but they didn’t at all understand what He meant. He finally had to just spell it out for them, but they still didn’t get it. They surely figured it out when they arrived in Bethany and saw and heard the commotion because Jesus’ friend had died. In fact, by the time they arrived, Lazarus had already been dead and in the tomb for four days.
Martha, who was definitely the more direct and social of the two sisters, met Jesus as He arrived with His entourage and expressed her grief and her regret that He hadn’t been able to get there because if He had gotten there in time, she knew He could have healed Lazarus. She didn’t know He had come “late” on purpose. That probably would have resulted in a different conversation. She also didn’t believe there was anything Jesus could do to help at this point. Her brother was dead and gone and that was it. Even when Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again,” indicating what He was there to do, she still didn’t get it. She couldn’t see past the standard Jewish belief she had been taught since she was a little girl to see who Jesus really was. “Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’”
Jesus finally had them take Him to Lazarus’ tomb. Once there, He did something totally unexpected and incredibly offensive. Jump down to v. 38 with me. “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ‘Remove the stone,’ Jesus said.” This would be like taking a grieving family to the grave of their loved one four days after the funeral service and telling them to dig up the vault and open the casket. It is probably greatly to her credit that Martha restrained herself in responding to Jesus’ command by protesting, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.” The King James version of that, by the way, is great: “Lord, by this time he sinketh.” Can you hear the subtext there? Where were you four days ago when you could have actually done something useful?
But Jesus was there for a purpose, and Martha’s totally understandable unbelief wasn’t going to stop Him from achieving it. “Jesus said to her, ‘Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’ So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you heard me. I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.’ After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’”
This was a moment that was rich with made-for-TV drama. Jesus put Himself all the way out there here. Either something really awesome was going to happen, or else He was going to look like a complete fool. Thankfully, the former is how things played out. “The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unwrap him and let him go.’”
Can we just spell out what’s happening here, friends? Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Now this wasn’t a resurrection like He Himself would soon experience. Lazarus eventually died again. But Jesus demonstrated here that He is the Lord of life. Death is no foe before the Lord of the living and the dead. And the thing is, Jesus had just said this to Martha. She didn’t understand at all what He meant then, but I’ll bet she had a better clue now.
Come backup to v. 25 with me and look at what Jesus said. He had told her that Lazarus was going to rise again. She took this as one of those nice but meaningless things people say at a funeral when they don’t know what else to say, and basically said, “Yes, I know that one day I’ll be able to see him again.” What she didn’t say but was surely thinking was, “And that doesn’t help me feel even a little bit better right now.” But look at what Jesus said in response to her reference to the resurrection. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’” She didn’t, of course, because she still didn’t have a category for what He was talking about. But when Lazarus came walking back out of that tomb she did.
Jesus is the Lord of life who wants to bring us into an experience of real life. In Jesus we can find real life. Do you believe this?
When people draw near the end of their life, especially when that end is being hastened by a disease of some sort, it’s not at all uncommon for them to begin having conversations with close family members about the difference between extending life and quality life. People fall all over the map on that discussion, and that’s okay because there’s no one right answer. But what the presence of the conversation itself indicates is that we are fully aware that there is a difference between existing and living. There’s even a difference between being alive and living. The former can be reduced to a set of basic biological functions. The latter implies a great deal more than that.
I think it is no coincidence that in the chapter just before this one John includes another conversation Jesus had with the Jewish religious authorities in which He claimed to be the gate by which God’s true sheep enter the fold of His kingdom. In making and unpacking this claim, Jesus said this: “Truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”
Did you catch that last part? “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” And not long after He made that claim, Jesus demonstrated His ability to give that life in an incredibly tangible way. In Jesus we can find real life.
What Jesus gave Lazarus was just a taste of the real thing. His resurrection was like an appetizer. It was a pointer to the real power Jesus had. He wants us to have life. He wants that so badly that He was willing to put His own life on the line in order to secure it for us. But He wants more than that for us. He wants us to live, really live, and not merely play at living. We far too easily content ourselves with mere echoes of God’s kingdom in this life. Those are good because God is good. But they aren’t the full substance of the life Jesus wants for us, of the life we can find in Him. And the person who contents himself with only those echoes and shadows of the kingdom foolishly, arrogantly insisting they thus have no need for the real thing, or proclaiming that the real thing doesn’t even exist are the equivalent, to borrow from C.S. Lewis, of the child who keeps on making mud pies instead of joining his family for the real feast. In Jesus we can find real life.
In Jesus we can find real life that takes all the sting out of death. It has no power or even meaning in light of the life we have available to us in Jesus. It is at best a momentary pause ahead of an eternal reunion for those who have placed their faith in Him. That doesn’t mean the separation isn’t still hard. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt. It does. A lot. Lazarus’ family certainly mourned him. And they would mourn him yet again one day. But the life Jesus has for us goes beyond mere respiration, beyond mere existence, even beyond merely being alive. In Jesus we can find real life. This is a life that goes beyond this one and which all those who are in Christ will one day enjoy in full together when His final kingdom comes. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. If you want to live—really live—He is the way to experience that. This Friday and next Sunday, we’ll talk about how all of that came about. For now, know this well: In Jesus we can find real life. I hope that you will.