John 11:1-7; 17-27; 38-44 (NIV)
1Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2(This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
38Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.39“Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
40Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Reflection
Deadline literally means a line beyond which you die and referred to a line a prisoner could not escape beyond. In this passage, there was also a deadline, the deadline to make it to Lazarus before his sickness turned to death. But as we read in the passage, Jesus stayed two more days before going to Lazarus, and by that time he made it to Judea, Lazarus had been dead in the tomb for four days! One thing is clear is that Jesus said that “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Jesus takes a deadline and turns it into a lifeline. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus raises Lazarus to life, not where Lazarus needs to be awoken or someone needed to go in to retrieve him, but by Jesus’ command, Lazarus walks out by himself. This is God’s awesome display of resurrection power.
Responding to the Transmission
Jesus invites us to come out into his lifeline. He is the Resurrection and the Life. Let’s pray that by Jesus’ speaking into our lives through prayer, through ministry, through others, that we would live in Jesus’ resurrection power. Let’s live lifeline to lifeline, becoming a display of how awesome God is.
