The Impossible Life - Part 2
Read: John 11
No wonder He cried…
We lose a little in translation when we read John 11:33: “When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.” “Deeply moved” – our English translation does not do justice to the depth of Jesus’ emotions here. The Greek word implies outrage, fury, or anger (Burge, 318). The NIV Life Application Commentary continues by describing the reason for Jesus’ anger:
“But what arouses Jesus’ anger? Why is he outraged in the deepest level of his being? He is certainly not angry at Martha, Mary, or their mourners. Rather, he is overcome by the futility of this sorrowful scene in light of the reality of the resurrection. God’s people possess knowledge of life; they should possess a faith that claims victory at the grave. But here they stand, overcome in seeming defeat. And here stands the One in whom victory, life, , and resurrection are powerful realities. Jesus is angry at death itself and the devastation it brings. His only interest now is to locate the tomb (11:34) and begin to demonstrate divine power over humanity’s foe.” (Burge, 318)
Martha, Mary, and the mourners have just heard Jesus declare that He is the resurrection and the life, but they do not grasp that He is the resurrection and the life right now. This is not a future promise but a present reality.
Jesus knows that the people don’t fully see Him yet, and their sorrow becomes His. He weeps. It is the shortest verse in the English New Testament, yet it packs a punch. According to Wiersbe’s commentary, this is a silent weeping, not the loud mourning of the surrounding crowd. In this one moment, we see Jesus’ full humanity as He shares in the pain of loss we experience as humans. But paradoxically, we also see Jesus’ full divinity as He sorrows over the ugly reality of sin and the fact that humanity did not yet see Him as the Giver and Source of all Life. The people knew Jesus as a man full of authority and filled with God’s presence. They did not yet know He reigned over life.
No wonder He shouted…
Jesus reaches the tomb of the all-dead Lazarus and tells them to remove the stone covering the entrance. Sweet Martha says, “Lord, he’s been dead four days! It stinks!” (my paraphrase). Martha has already attested that Jesus is the Messiah and states, “‘Yet even now I now that whatever you ask from God, God will give you’” (John 11:22). She cannot imagine that this means the defeat of death itself. Death is interwoven so deeply in the human narrative; we cannot imagine a world where death is not king.
Jesus understands this, but He will still do what He always does – reveal the glory of God. He prays, “‘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’” (John 11:41-42). This miracle is the seventh in the series of miracles in the book of John. Seven – the number of completion and perfection. How appropriate that the final miracle John narrates is the one that shows Jesus' ultimate authority not just over nature, illness, space, and time but over life and death itself. May we finally believe.
He shouts, “‘Lazarus, come out!’” (John 11:43). This was not just any shout – this was the voice of God commanding life to be. Over and over again in Genesis 1, we hear: God said…and it was so…and it was good. The voice of God speaks again, now, and once more, new life is formed, and it is indeed very good.
The all-dead man comes out. R.C. Sproul writes:
“The moment the voice of Christ called on Lazarus to come forth, Lazarus’ heart began to beat again, nerve impulses began to race throughout his body, and his rotting, putrefying flesh became whole and healed. Then Lazarus got up and walked out of the tomb with the graveclothes hanging from his body. He was alive again.”
Christ gives us the most glorious picture of what God intends for all of humanity. As Martha had said, we have the promise of resurrection at the last day, but God has even more in store for us. He intends for a re-creation to restore the good. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” This new creation follows a second birth. When Jesus was speaking with Nicodemus, He told him, “‘Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). The first man was imbued with life by the very breath of God. Now, we are granted new life with the breath of the Spirit. The old has gone; the new has come.
**To be continued…**
