The Sleep of Death (part 2 of 2) ...

In verses 17 to 19 of chapter eleven John sets the scene for us.  He first tells us that Lazarus has been in the grave for 4 days by the time Jesus arrives.  It is unknown how long they may have waited to bury him there where he would have been dead in the home (but this is believed to be a short time).  Next, John tells us that Bethany is only 15 furlongs away from Jerusalem, and given the reputation of Lazarus, there were religious leaders who had traveled to the home of Mary and Martha to pay their respects and try to comfort them.  In fact, John uses the words “Many Jews” came to comfort the sisters of Lazarus, a testament to his fame, fortune, and character.  It is against this backdrop that Jesus arrives in the area.  Martha hears of it, and runs out to greet Jesus, and much more importantly to find out – “why”?  Why did He not come?  Why did He delay?  Why would He “let” her brother die?  From Martha’s perspective it is too late now.  The damage has been done.  The thing that cannot be reversed has happened.  A good prophet and man of God might have been able to prevent death, but now that it is here, and it has already been so long, all hope is lost.  History demonstrates this.  Reality is defined by this.  Nothing but this has ever been our lot.  So for Martha, the only question left to know, is why?

Martha begins in verse 21 … “Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”  Her faith in His ability to heal and prevent death was absolute.  But something more was going on here.  Martha must have sensed it.  Perhaps it was a look of love in His eyes.  Perhaps it was His non-verbal responses, His gestures, His motions, an intention of His that she could not put a finger on, but spoke volumes about potential still to come which she could not understand.  So she continues in verse 22 … “But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.”  There it is.  Martha swings the door wide open on the possibility of resurrection right here and now.  What else is there to ask on behalf of her brother.  He is dead and sleeping.  But even now, she knows that His Father listens to His Son, and gives Him what He asks.  Jesus responds to her instinct in verse 23 saying … “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.”  He means right here and right now.  He means, the door of possibility you just opened, I have every intention of walking through.  You are about to witness His restoration from the grave.  But her mind goes instinctively to what she believes from the scriptures as she responds in verse 24 … “Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”  She is sure he will be saved in the Kingdom of God, and that on the “last day” of our world, when calamity is falling on the wicked, Lazarus like all the rest of the dead who put their faith for Salvation in Jesus Christ will rise again.  Notice, this happens at the end of time, not throughout it.  Lazarus will sleep until that “day”, not be aware of everything between now and then.

But Jesus has a larger point to make.  He wants to assure her that on that great day, the mechanism by which the dead will rise, is the same mechanism that is standing before her, he continues in verse 25 … “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: [verse 26] And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”  Jesus is the mechanism by which all who sleep will be awakened as He promised.  Jesus is the mechanism by which all who desire Salvation, restoration, and perfection will find it.  He will create it within us, raising us from death unto life, and a more abundant life at that.  Jesus asks Martha, the true question that matters, do you believe it is ME who will do this?  It is different to believe that “God” will do it, than that Jesus is “God” who will do it.  Knowledge of scripture is not the same as knowledge of Christ that is experienced first-hand as He saves you and does what He promises.  Those who have a first-hand testimony of the saving power of Christ are sure about what He is doing, not just a theoretical discussion about what He can do if we let Him.  Jesus is making this very personal for Martha.  Notice this conversation John records is the very essence of Salvation between man and God, and it is being held with a woman.  This is the meat-and-potatoes of the gospel itself, and the question and the faith is between Christ and Martha.  Mary may often get top billing for her sensitivity and love for Christ, but here is Martha questioning the very source and origin of life itself.  Here is the faith of Martha being verified, despite the logic and the history, and the reality of what she “knows”.

In verse 27, Martha makes her stand, her choice, and her declaration for now and all time.  Her brother is still dead and in the grave.  Nothing has been “proven” to her yet.  But live or die, sickness or health, there will only ever be ONE true Messiah, and ONE true Son of God, and ONE true hope for her own restoration and redemption and He is standing in front of her.  She declares … “She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”  She has made her choice about what she will believe – BEFORE – any actions or proof are offered that Christ can do what He says He can do.  And with this declaration, the “why” question is no longer important.  In point of fact, it was never answered.  Jesus never told her “why” he delayed, and did not simply heal her brother.  He never answered why.  But he offered so much more.  And now, no matter what, she was at peace, and returned inside the home.

On arriving back through the grieving crowd of support, Martha finds Mary and tells her that Jesus has arrived and is asking for her.  Mary immediately gets up and runs to Jesus.  John records that Jesus was still where Martha had left Him, He had not made much progress to getting to their home.  So when those who were trying to comfort Mary, saw her get up so quickly and head out of the house, they just assumed she was running to the grave site in order to continue to grieve.  For Mary was as sad, as sad gets.  Her heart was broken for her brother to the core.  Those who were with her just assumed she was going to the grave to weep.  But Mary, like her sister, wanted to know “why” as well.  She may have come at this question from a different point of view.  For her it was about love.  Her brother treated her well despite her life and past.  He was merciful and loving to her.  To lose that kind of love was a loss she could not bear.  Then complicated because the love of the Master was so great, having restored her life when she should have lost it; how could a love that great seem apathetic in the time of so great a need?  Love could not do this.  So for her, the “why” was even more important.

In verse 32 John records … “Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”  Having said this Mary began weeping.  She was literally on the ground at the feet of Christ, no pride left, no hope left, only a sadness that cut her to the core.  How could love not have responded to a pain only Christ might fully understand.  The empathy of Christ was keen.  He saw through human eyes what it was like to lose one who was loved so much.  He saw through Mary, how great a loss death is to us who have no vision beyond the grave.  Love laid on the ground in front Him weeping.  And for the first time in John’s record of the gospel, He records that this sight moved Christ to His own core.  John records of this experience in verse 33 … “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, [verse 34] And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.”  Those who were with Mary still thought she was on her way to the grave to weep.  Mary wept because she could not reconcile how love could let this occur.  She knew that Christ could have prevented it and did not understand why He would not.  She knew she had lost a love of her brother and would not see him again.  For Mary the possibility of resurrection is not something she will be entertaining today. 

And so John records in verse 35 the shortest and perhaps most profound insight into the character of God throughout scripture … “Jesus wept.”  Now keep in mind, that Jesus knows what He is about to do.  He is not weeping over the loss of Lazarus, because Lazarus is about to be alive again.  He is weeping because the heart of Mary is SO broken, that her sadness breaks His own heart.  Jesus feels and sees the loss of death through the eyes of Mary, and sees the question she poses of why Love could allow this to occur.  He knows the answer.  But the answer does NOT stop her pain right now.  He knows that in heaven, there will be an eternity of joy, with a life that Martha, Mary and Lazarus will never see end.  But that does not stop her pain right now.  She weeps right now.  And so, in the most tender sympathies He weeps with her.  He shares her grief, even though He knows what is about to happen.  He sees her pain and it cuts Him to the core. 

Jesus weeps, for all who experience pain, and death.  He weeps that pain and death exist at all.  It was NOT His intention.  It is why He came; to see removed from our lives.  But we cling to it.  We won’t let Him take it away.  We hold on to it like it is a prize, instead of the cancer it truly is.  And He weeps, because He cannot force us to let it go.  Jesus weeps because He is not allowed to end ALL death, all pain, all sin within us.  He wants nothing more than our joy, and He weeps with heart that is broken, because we will not.  He shares her grief, and experiences His own, on a more profound level than any with a broken heart from a love rejected will ever understand.  For His love for us is deeper than any we have ever known, and too often, it is rejected by us.  And so He weeps.

Those who accompanied Mary see Jesus weeping, and His profound sadness is rightly interpreted as an indicator of how much Jesus loved Lazarus.  But it is not just for Lazarus or Mary, that Jesus weeps, He weeps for all of us who reject His perfect love.  He longs that all would be saved from pain, death, and this thing we have made of ourselves.  Then those who are there begin asking the same question as Mary and Martha have posed.  If Jesus healed all these others, why not heal Lazarus?  This question causes Jesus much pain as well, for while He must act in overall best interest, sometimes the pain is still something we experience in the short term.  John continues his account in verse 38 … “Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.”  But it was time now, for grief to give way to joy.

Jesus calls for them to take action in verse 39 … “Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. [verse 40] Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?”  It does not make sense to do what Jesus is asking of them.  How many times did what God asked of His servants not make sense from our point of view?  Martha responds to Jesus by citing Him the facts as she knows them; she gives Him the reason why this request is a bad idea.  4-day old dead bodies in a hot desert climate are not the stuff anyone is going to want to smell.  Logic, history, the facts, all support Martha’s concern.  But Jesus is asking Martha, if she is willing to believe in spite of what she “knows”.  It is the same question put to the Pharisees.  It is the same question put to us.  It was the same question Lucifer walked away from; trust his own instincts, or the word of God.  Ultimately it is the question that will see evil permanently extinguished.  When we trust God more than we trust our own wisdom, the facts will be revealed to be something more than we knew, and evil will be gone forever.

In verse 41, they obeyed the request of Christ, probably due to the urging of Martha to listen to Him.  Notice that Mary is still too overcome with grief to be functional in this story.  She is there, but the interactions are largely between Christ and Martha.  Each of us are different.  Yet each of us are loved by Christ for who we are, not just as a part of a larger group.  Christ interacts with Martha differently than Mary or Lazarus, but loves all three of them.  Jesus was moved to tears with Mary, not so with Martha.  And it will be the faith of Martha, to trust in Christ, in spite of what she “knows” that will see what transpires next.  Verse 41 reveals … “Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. [verse 42] And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.”  This prayer is a revelation.  It had already been answered to Christ, but He said it aloud so that those standing near Him could hear Him give His Father the glory of what was about to happen.

This was why Christ was here this day.  This was “why” He had delayed returning to Lazarus, and “why” He had not simply just healed him like He did for so many others.  He was here to establish once and for all definitive proof that He was the author of life and of our resurrection both from evil and from death.  He was more than just a prophet.  He was more than just a “good man” with good ideas.  He was and remains the only Son of God, able alone to do, what no other man will ever be able to do.  Christ alone would be our salvation.  Verse 43 continues ... "And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.”  An old professor of mine once told me, and I agree, that had He not called Lazarus by name, He might have called forth every dead person who had ever walked the earth.  In point of fact, this is what He will do at the last day that Martha described.  He was loud enough for Lazarus to hear, but more so, for the crowd thereabouts to clearly know what was going on.  John continues with the immediate results in verse 44 … “And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.”  What might have appeared like insanity at Jesus’ loud command, is now revealed to be a miracle ONLY God could perform.  He had now fulfilled His promise to Martha, and the crop would be a harvest of souls much greater than just her, his disciples, and the family and friends of Lazarus gathered there that day.

John records in verse 45 the two responses we have to the miraculous love of Christ … “Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. [verse 46] But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.”  Some of the Jewish leadership there that day were willing to accept the proof and fight no longer against the Son of God.  Others only saw the conversions as a continued threat to their power and went to discuss the matter with the Pharisees who would not believe.  Verses 47 through 54 record the epitaph of this story among those who refuse to believe.  They acknowledged that something must be done about Him, or else “all” might believe in Him.  Then in a twist of fate that defied even their own expectations, they reasoned that if these conversions continued, the Romans would come and take away their place, and their nation.  So the high priest, rationalized that it was better for one man to die than for a nation to be destroyed.  All along they had looked for a Messiah who could undo the Roman occupation, now that they thought this might actually happen, they grew afraid, and decided it was better to kill Christ, than take the chance He might fail in that effort.  Hypocrites.   They could not even keep their motives of hate straightened out where it came to preserving their own power.  But when no proof will ever be enough, there is only one response to love – kill it, or be converted by it.  So John records that Jesus walked no more openly among the Jews, and went to a city called Ephraim.

Jesus had now done something that could not be ignored, or pushed off as merely being a prophet, or good man of God.  He had resurrected the dead.  This was done in front of a great many witnesses.  The story was not even argued by His enemies.  They knew it was true.  They knew it would something they could not refute.  So they opted to kill Him.  But for those who were watching a bit more closely, there was another hope revealed in the story of Lazarus.  It is not ONLY our physical restoration that Christ is capable of performing.  It is our spiritual one as well.  Though we are dead in our sins, and unable to call ourselves back to life – our Savior is more than capable of doing just that.  He is able to fulfill His promise to bring us back to life in the here and now, NOT just in the last great day.  This was a message in the story of Lazarus.  Hope does not need to be deferred to see life in the here and now.  We can be saved today.  We can have a new life that He is the author of.  It is a life without pain and death, and will never see an end.  This is the life He refers to as having no ending, and the only one that matters from the perspective of God.  This is what His mission was that day, and remains today.  The sleep of death is a mere nap, a moment of time we cannot recall.  The life He offers starts today, and lasts forever in His kingdom.  We can be resurrected from sin today, and from death at the last great day, and know life both now and then without the pain we embrace for ourselves.  That is His gift to us.

 

The Sleep of Death (part 1 of 2) ...

Everyone wonders if there is something beyond the grave.  Some who have had their hearts stopped describe a bright light.  Others say their lives flashed before their eyes.  Some have described out of body experiences.  Most Christians believe that our souls face an immediate judgment at our death and though disembodied we transcend to either heaven (for those who are “good”) or hell (for those who have been “bad”).  Yet no Christian ever refers to a departed loved one as being anywhere other than “up there”.  There are those who believe in re-incarnation, where upon death our souls return in the form of some other life either more or less evolved based on our last experiences.  I would suppose the most hopeless ideology is the one of the Atheist, who being forced to base his theories only on empirical evidence would have to surmise that after death we simply rot, and exist no more.  But despite all our disparate beliefs John’s gospel chapter eleven details an account of life and death, and the state of us in both conditions.  And like almost every other encounter with Christ, we find that what we believe is undone by the reality of Christ.

John begins his account in verse one by identifying who Lazarus was (the brother of Mary and Martha), and where he was from, the town of Bethany of Judea.  Lazarus was well known, wealthy, respected, and loved by Christ.  John tells us right from the beginning of the story that Lazarus was sick.  We know from the rest of this story that his sickness was fatal.  Wealth, respect, and even the love of Christ, does not prevent us from contracting illness that is fatal to us.  We can eat all the right things, do all the right exercise, breath the fresh air, and get plenty of sleep, yet still find ourselves with an illness bent on killing us.  Living well, is better than living poorly, but it is not an absolute defense against terminal illness.  If I were to venture a guess, I would say that in an effort to hurt Christ, the devil was up to his usual tricks of inflicting pain and death on someone who Christ loved, as a way to get to Him.  But in any case, our story continues.

Though women in the time of John were not as culturally significant as men, John spends time in his first few verses identifying specifically both Martha and Mary.  He further identifies Mary as being the one who anointed the feet of Jesus with costly ointment and wiping them with her hair.  Even though this act has not yet taken place, John still wants his readers to know, that the women of this story are every bit as important as the men.  In fact, all the dialogue will be with the sisters of Lazarus, as poor Lazarus will be dead soon within the story.  It is therefore the sisters of Lazarus who send word to Jesus in verse 3, a very specific message that intends a very specific response … “Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.”  Mary and Martha have every confidence in Christ’s healing abilities.  They have followed His ministry for some time.  It is likely that Mary is the same woman who Christ spared from stoning, forgave, and blessed.  Both Mary and Martha are absolutely confident that if Jesus is made aware that Lazarus is seriously ill, He will drop what He is doing, get there as fast as He can, and heal Lazarus like He has healed so many others.  This was the intent of their message.  They knew if He came, the life of Lazarus would be preserved.  But the response they expected of God was not the one He offered.

Instead Jesus foretells the future and makes a statement that almost no one understood.  He says in verse 4 … “When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.”  On the surface, this looks like Jesus is saying the illness is really not as serious as the news-bearer would have us believe.  If the illness is not fatal, there is no rush to get to Lazarus.  But the phrase “but for the glory of God” implies that God the Father will be glorified in what will happen (perhaps another healing) and more importantly that Jesus will be identified unmistakably as being the Son of God.  Keep in mind that despite all the previous healings up to date, Christ has been largely thought of as a prophet, or teacher, or “holy-man”.  The people, even Mary and Martha, hold Him in high regard, but few have been willing to make the leap to tagging Him as the “Son” of God.  All the miracles to date have not been enough to make that transition.

This is perhaps why Jesus offers this announcement upon hearing the news of Lazarus.  The “glory” He is referring to will belong to God the Father (as the author of all life, and being greater than death itself), and the new “proof” that Jesus is indeed the true and only “Son” of God.  John then makes a specific note in verse 5 that Jesus did indeed love Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  John does not want us to think that Jesus was being cavalier with these three, or that He truly did not care as much for them as they believed He did.  In fact, they were all greatly loved by Christ; so the delay that Christ does in verse 6, was not done for lack of concern, or because He was unaware of seriousness of Lazarus’ condition.  No, Jesus waits another 2 days in the place where He was, instead of going directly to Lazarus.  It is likely that Lazarus was nearly dead by the time the messenger reached Jesus.  By the time Jesus reaches Lazarus, he has been 4 days in the tomb.  So the delay, literally insures that Lazarus is not just in a coma, or sleeping, or has any hope of living through this event based on local medicine.  The delay actually assures that Lazarus will have been dead for a while before He arrives.

The message to God had been sent with the utmost urgency.  Lazarus had a need.  It was a life and death need to Lazarus.  Those who loved Lazarus knew that Jesus could heal him.  But, He did not.  Despite the message (or our prayers), despite the idea that Lazarus was a generally regarded “good” person, despite the fact that John explicitly tells us Lazarus was loved by Christ – Jesus let him die.  The message was not answered, the prayers seemed to go unheard, and Lazarus died.  From our point of view, there is nothing more important than our lives.  We can recover from a failed relationship that results in breaking our hearts.  We can recover from a job loss that leaves us financially ruined and destitute, though we may never have what we once had.  We can recover from failure and disappointment.  We can live on through injustice and persecution.  But when death knocks upon our door, we know this is not something we can recover from.  So our lives become most precious to us, when faced with imminent demise.  We want to live, above all things to remain alive.  But God does not look at our existence here on this planet, in this self-embraced condition of pain and torture, as being our ONLY life.  God looks at us, and sees our potential through being remade through His Son.  He sees us living a life of service throughout eternity in perfection, without the pain of self-service and the death that comes with it.  Our Salvation is HIS highest priority, NOT our lives in the world of pain we create.  So our greater good, sometimes outweighs our immediate needs, even when our need is life and death to us.

Then I am sure to the surprise of His disciples, Jesus announces in verse 7 … “Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.”  So I am sure His disciples were wondering why?  If Lazarus was not truly as sick as the messenger seemed to think, and Jesus sort of proved it, by delaying for 2 full days where He was.  Why bother going back to see Lazarus, right in the middle of Judea, where the temple leaders had recently thought to stone Christ?  They ask Him in verse 8 … “His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?”  Did You forget these people were serious about killing You?  If You show Your face in Judea again, You are likely to be summarily executed by the leaders if they can find You.  It is crazy to go back there.  But then God often does what we think is “crazy” … and impossible.

Jesus answers them in verse 9 … “Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. [verse 10] But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.”  Referring to the priests, Christ again states that their evil intentions are a result of looking away from the Light (meaning Himself).  When we look away from truth we find only error, it is the only other choice.  When we look away from love, we find only hate, pain, and death.  This is where the Pharisees had gone.  They chose to abandon Love for power, and as a result were willing to kill the author of love and life, in order to preserve their power, and remain in their pain.  And there is no difference between us and them.  When we choose to hold on to our cherished sins; we embrace with them the pain and eventually death that ALL sin leads to.  For sin leads away from God, away from life and love, leaving it no other destination but pain and death.  It is our stubborn refusal to give up the entirety of our lives to Christ, that gives pain and death, its entrance within us.  Like the Pharisees we turn from the light and find only darkness.  But when we look to Christ and let Him have the whole of us, He can remove from us anything that must be undone.  He can remake us, absent even the desire for the thing that once brought us only pain and misery and blindly the thing we thought we could not live without.  Christ has a habit of remaking lives entirely over from scratch.  He restores that which was dead to life, in more than one sense.

Jesus continues in verse 11 … “These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.”  There it is folks, the truth about the condition we are in when we have died, been buried, and lay in the grave as Lazarus was at that moment.  It is equivalent to sleep.  We do not know anything under the sun.  Time passes in an instant; it means nothing to the dead.  When you fall asleep each night, the very next thing you remember is waking up.  The hours that passed in between were as seconds to you, the concept of the passage of time is understood, but not felt, not realized, not lived.  If Christian common beliefs held true, Lazarus would not be “sleeping”, instead he would be very aware of where he was.  Either in heaven, which I would imagine would be the time of his life (so to speak); or in hell where he would be most unhappy (to say the least).  In order for Lazarus to be in heaven, his character would have had to been completely perfected and absent sin.  Having achieved this, why would he ever want to return to this planet of pain?  Why would anyone?  Once having tasted of perfection, coming back to middle-age Roman occupied Judea, would have been tantamount to torture beyond belief.  Imagine knowing the perfection of love and service all around you, and then being ripped back to the condition your body was in, the condition of the people around you who remain far from perfect.  Even if you maintained your own perfection, the challenge of living with the pain of others all around you would be too much to bear for perfect love.  Indeed it broke the heart of Christ.

On the other hand, if Lazarus were in hell, then bringing him back to life would offer him another chance at redemption that no other soul would have achieved.  It would hardly be fair to remove one person from eternal punishment while others remained in torture.  God would be considered unfair; though frankly eternal torture without relief would have already achieved that label for Him.  So if common Christian thinking were correct, bringing Lazarus back would either be torture to him, or offer him an unfair advantage no one else ever received.  Either way God would be doing himself a disservice.  Now if reincarnation were in fact the reality of life after death, then what would happen to the thing Lazarus had become, would it instantly die again?  Is it OK for God to end one new life, in order to restore an old one?  Another no win situation for God.  And if our Atheist friends were correct, then the rotting corpse of Lazarus should be incapable of reanimation.  No, the only truth that makes sense about our death in this world, is the one where we “sleep” – neither in heaven, or hell, or in the form of some new creature.  Just asleep, blissfully unaware of anything, including the passage of time; to be woken up from this condition would NOT be a punishment, nor an unfair advantage, it would simply be a continuation of the only life we had ever known.  Death would have been like an extended nap, irrelevant to what actions we take now.  No memories, no regrets, no perfection, no torture, just another day like all those we faced in mornings past.  The life of Lazarus would be just as it was before, only extended now for a while.

John then confirms beginning in verse 12, that Jesus was indeed speaking about the death of Lazarus, and of his condition in death … “Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. [verse 13] Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. [verse 14] Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.”  The situation now made even less sense to His disciples.  First Jesus had seemed to imply that the illness was not so serious.  Now He was saying Lazarus was sleeping the sleep of death.  But for some reason He wants to go back to Judea where they are hunting Him to see the dead friend Lazarus anyway?  It made no sense from a human perspective.  In verse 15 Jesus seems to make it even less clear as He tells them … “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.”  What Jesus was actually saying was that what would occur there would affirm the faith of His disciples, that He was in fact the Son of God, the author of Resurrection, and author of life itself.  This is why Jesus now wants to visit Lazarus, to show his disciples and to Mary and Martha, that He is more than just a prophet.  He wants to show us all that though we are dead, we can be reborn, remade, reanimated.

But his disciples did not understand this intent.  They thought that perhaps Christ was lamenting the death of Lazarus so much, that He was willing to join him in death.  Thomas speaks for the others at this prospect as he responds in verse 16 … “Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  If Christ is to die, we might as well join Him.  After all if the Jewish religious leaders are bent on killing Christ, it won’t be long until they pursue his disciples as well.  When trying to kill an idea, one must extinguish anyone who might have embraced it.  And so the solemn company travels to see the dead friend Lazarus in Judea.  From the disciples point of view this was to at least show their respects, for God it was something entirely different.