John 11:28-37

00:00:00:32 – 00:00:23:07
Clint Loveall
Thanks for joining us and welcome as we continue through the Gospel of John. We are continuing to make our way through the 11th chapter, the story of Lazarus as it is unfolding. If you’ve not been able to be with us the last couple of sessions, those may be helpful as we’re kind of about mid story here, but, Jesus has talked with Martha.

00:00:23:22 – 00:00:49:50
Clint Loveall
Lazarus has been in the tomb four days. So has been dead some amount of days longer than that. And the crowd is there mourning, weeping. This was fairly typical. Fact, there’s an interesting comment that, I’ve been thinking about based on today’s reading. We’ll get there later, but let me jump in here. Verse 28, and then we’ll come back and and talk it through.

00:00:49:55 – 00:01:10:36
Clint Loveall
When she, Martha had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, the teacher is here calling for you. And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out.

00:01:10:40 – 00:01:33:06
Clint Loveall
They followed her because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she nailed at his feet and said to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.

00:01:33:10 – 00:01:55:58
Clint Loveall
He said, where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dying? So yesterday we saw a very similar version of this conversation with Martha.

00:01:55:58 – 00:02:15:56
Clint Loveall
Today, Mary, who has stayed in the home, whether that indicates a certain reluctance on her part or not, it is difficult to tell. That’s one way to interpret it, that perhaps she’s upset, though the text does not tell us that, and we should be careful speculating. But it is one way of one lens that you can look at this.

00:02:16:01 – 00:02:39:48
Clint Loveall
But she hears that Jesus is calling, for she goes to him. She kneels with all signs of respect and and maybe indicate that she is not, in fact, angry with him. But she says the same thing. If my brother, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And as we talked yesterday, you can hear that as a statement of faith, or you can hear in it a little bit of unhappiness or accusation.

00:02:39:48 – 00:03:09:56
Clint Loveall
And, I think it’s interesting that John takes time to tell us that Jesus has essentially a similar experience with both sisters. I think clearly that’s a way of telling us what we can already assume that both of these women are deeply impacted at this loss. They hurt, they have lost their brother, they’re grieving, they’re wounded. And Jesus responds to that.

00:03:10:01 – 00:03:32:15
Michael Gewecke
That Jesus is now present. Right. And we know that he actually told the disciples, no, we’re going to wait. And so now he comes and we’re on the scene. We’re greeted by what is thoroughly expected, a group of people who are deeply grieving and are seeking in this moment, to try to find a way forward in the midst of loss.

00:03:32:15 – 00:03:52:24
Michael Gewecke
Remember, four days have passed so that this is now an extended nearing the end of the period that well past half way now, in the process of the funeral. And it is a a moment here as people are trying to start to put it together, some of the threads that come with the loss of a loved one.

00:03:52:24 – 00:04:20:04
Michael Gewecke
And here when she comes out to Jesus and she makes this statement, it’s absolutely clear that she is coming to Jesus earnestly. Now, whether or not you read this as a statement of, of faith, and you have to read this as a statement of great, sadness and pain. Right? The idea that if only you could have been here, Jesus, he would have lived.

00:04:20:04 – 00:04:46:57
Michael Gewecke
And that is ultimately, I think, the foundation here that John wants us to see is that where, yes, we are seeing the loss through the lens of these characters. Absolutely. But this is a story about Jesus. It it includes characters like Mary and Martha and Lazarus, but it’s, about how Jesus comes and enters into all of their lives and how his life transforms and changes their lives.

00:04:46:57 – 00:05:14:20
Michael Gewecke
Right. So what’s fascinating here is how we’re going to see Jesus respond. And I think that verse 33 is powerful when Jesus sees her weeping. The Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply disturbed in spirit. And he was deeply moved. And I think, Clint, the way that John teases out the humanity of Jesus in this story is unbelievable.

00:05:14:20 – 00:05:41:51
Michael Gewecke
It you know, Jesus does these amazing miracles throughout the Gospels. He encounters people who are some of them at the very edge of the worst scenarios we can possibly imagine. And we often hear conflict that comes with the Jewish leaders. Or we often hear, you know, a question or statement of faith that’s made. But very rarely do we get this kind of intimate view of Jesus’s response in the midst of one of these stories, and John offers it in spades here.

00:05:41:51 – 00:06:07:45
Michael Gewecke
Just an amazing glimpse into Jesus’s not unaffected by this moment. Jesus himself is moved by it, and that movement is going to become really a point of revelation as we watch and wait and see. As Jesus, who is the one who is the life, encounters death, what’s going to happen to each and specifically to one?

00:06:07:49 – 00:06:47:52
Clint Loveall
Yeah, but I think there’s a very interesting discussion to be had here about Jesus own response and in reaction to grief before we get there, Michael, there’s an interesting, it’s not really a lesson of the text, but I think that it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting thing that is perhaps helpful. The assumption in the culture here, the Jewish people, is that there are those when when there is a loss, when there’s death, there’s this assumption that people should help others grieve.

00:06:47:52 – 00:07:14:38
Clint Loveall
And I think it’s such an interesting look at a different culture. You know, we sometimes are we don’t know what to do with grief when someone has had a powerful loss, a painful loss. We’re reluctant. And here you have people there with Mary. And then when she leaves, they think she went to the tomb. So they go with her to weep where she weeps.

00:07:14:38 – 00:07:39:07
Clint Loveall
And there’s it’s such a beautiful image, the idea that there are people there helping Mary and Martha grieve and, and and by the way, that if that sounds overstated, what we think we understand of the culture was that that was an expectation people would show up for, in some case, days over the course of this grieving period. And they would do exactly that.

00:07:39:07 – 00:08:03:12
Clint Loveall
They would sit, they might cook, they they would clean. They would simply be there with them to share this experience. And Jesus in his own way, shares that grief as well. And people, if you’ve ever played Bible trivia, you may know this verse 35 is the shortest verse in in the Bible. I believe it’s two words in Greek.

00:08:03:12 – 00:08:28:49
Clint Loveall
Jesus wept and much has been made of that through the years. Why would Jesus cry if he’s one? If he knows what he’s going to do? He’s already told us. John’s already told us where this story is going, and yet Jesus is moved by the grief around him when he sees the tomb, when he sees Mary suffering, Jesus allows that grief to affect him.

00:08:28:49 – 00:08:54:24
Clint Loveall
He doesn’t stand off. And and it would be easy to imagine that Jesus could stand over there saying, well, I’m, I’m going to do something about all this. And why are all you people crying right? Jesus enters into the reality of this pain from those around him. And, I, I think it’s one of the beautiful lessons of this part of the story.

00:08:54:28 – 00:09:13:34
Clint Loveall
People help Mary and Martha grieve and Jesus without losing hope, knowing that he’s going to bring life to this story. He also allows himself to be affected, and it brings tears to his eyes. And I just think there’s a powerful lesson there.

00:09:13:39 – 00:09:51:41
Michael Gewecke
I think another way of saying that is that in Jesus, we discover through this story that power does not save one from vulnerability. Jesus, of course, is all knowing and all powerful in this story. John has made that abundantly clear. But but let’s not miss the fact that when we come face to face with the power of death and its ability to tear out the hearts of people who we love, Jesus is vulnerable, emotionally to that that he is moved by it, is affected by it.

00:09:51:41 – 00:10:10:57
Michael Gewecke
And I think a mistake that we make in our own lives, Clint, is we we believe this idea that if we had more power, if we could control things, that we would just make them all better, that we could keep them from affecting us. But Jesus, in the gospel, John is is fully God, but he’s also fully man.

00:10:10:57 – 00:10:33:30
Michael Gewecke
And I think it’s a very developed understanding of Jesus, of his purpose, of his life, of of what he came to do. And specifically, I think in this story also what he came not to do, he did not come to rid the world of the messy parts in this moment. Ultimately, yes, the restoration of all things. Right? I mean, he’s already made that claim.

00:10:33:30 – 00:10:55:57
Michael Gewecke
Anyone who believes in me will have life, forever. Right? So there’s this hope and there’s this promise. But even intrinsic in this story, Jesus encounters these people who, though they’re about to experience joy like they’ve never experienced before. They also will never be rid of the grief and the pain that they felt up to this point. Clint.

00:10:55:57 – 00:11:11:18
Michael Gewecke
I mean, yes, celebration comes, but there’s still something in this moment of the struggle itself that we learn not just about the people, but I think we also learn something about Jesus and what Jesus has come to do right now.

00:11:11:18 – 00:11:37:39
Clint Loveall
The ultimately, that’s the focus of John’s story. And John’s gospel is to show us something about Jesus and Michael three times now in in three different contexts. First Martha, then Mary. And now at the end of this section, we’re on verse 37, the crowd, the people who are mourning some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind kept this man from dying?

00:11:37:39 – 00:12:03:42
Clint Loveall
So three different times it is now been voiced if if he had been here, he could have done something. Now that is a declaration of faith. Yeah, that is a profession that they believe that Jesus could have changed the scenario they’re in know, but they don’t yet know the full power. They think of Jesus as having a power that is limited.

00:12:03:46 – 00:12:40:59
Clint Loveall
Maybe he could have prevented him from dying. Maybe he could have changed the scenario. But now it’s too late and I think John does a nice job of echoing that three different times. And in storytelling, three is an important number because it means something else is coming, right? And so John takes us up now to the point where we’re ready to see that these folks as well meaning and to some extent as, as believing or trusting as they might be in Jesus, aren’t able yet to see the full picture.

00:12:41:04 – 00:12:57:55
Clint Loveall
They still think of Jesus as having a limit, a limitation. There’s something outside of Jesus power, and we and they are about to learn together. When we get into the next part of the story that that’s in fact not the case.

00:12:57:55 – 00:13:22:57
Michael Gewecke
Two really, really great things. One verse 34, where have you laid him? There is some interesting context setting here that is going to pay off once we get to verse 38. The idea where have you laid him? Meaning that he’s buried, he’s now no longer in a public sore viewing or, grieving kind of space. Of course, you know, in the ancient world involvements not like what we have today.

00:13:22:57 – 00:13:50:24
Michael Gewecke
So, that process happened relatively quickly, all things considered. And so that at this point, it matters that Lazarus is now he’s been laid to rest. He’s now been put into the place of death itself. And that has, of course, a kind of physical reality. But it’s also in the Gospel of John. It has a kind of spiritual reality that that he is, now needing to be sought out because he’s not there anymore.

00:13:50:24 – 00:14:10:26
Michael Gewecke
I also want to point out the imagery of, the one who opened the eyes of the blind man. Just want to make sure that we don’t miss the economy of storytelling that John uses here. So we we are looking all the way back to the blind man who was healed in that declaration. You know that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, right?

00:14:10:39 – 00:14:35:18
Michael Gewecke
But you also have in death the ultimate blindness, the ultimate darkness. Or you have in this story, not a man who has been impaired and restored to life, but a man who has lost life itself, the ultimate darkness. And do not miss a yes, that’s a different physiological reality, but spiritually it it has more of an ultimate kind of sense.

00:14:35:18 – 00:15:10:40
Michael Gewecke
If you look at this from a spiritual frame, and John is always relishing the moments to show us that there’s more happening here than what just appears to be the story element happening, right? Of course, the saying is there’s more here that meets the eye, but realistically, I just think it’s worth noting that that Jesus, as he continues to, progress in this story, is increased, sort of showing us a rising tide of action, that there’s Jesus who makes the choice to not go.

00:15:10:42 – 00:15:36:10
Michael Gewecke
The initial awareness of Lazarus death, the grief that follows that Jesus then coming in himself, being moved by it then. And then there’s the ultimate question what? If only, or could it be possible this man who had done this healing work to the blind man could could have he had the power in this circumstance to keep him from dying.

00:15:36:19 – 00:16:01:49
Michael Gewecke
And then, of course, the answer to that which, if you join us in our next study, is going to be one step beyond what that crowd can imagine. And that’s the amazing set up the John is slowly laying out with this story. Is it is it goes from the start. The foundation had just simply builds up until that ultimate showdown where Jesus and death will meet, I think.

00:16:01:49 – 00:16:29:56
Clint Loveall
Check me on this, Michael. But I, I think that John devotes entire chapters to single stories, more so than the other gospels, at least to what I can think of off the top of my head. And when he does so, they are really carefully put together. They’re well crafted and they’re leading us somewhere carefully. And the details in these stories really matter a lot.

00:16:29:56 – 00:16:49:21
Clint Loveall
And so, hope that you can be with us. We won’t be together tomorrow. I’ll have, some stuff in the afternoon that will take me out, but we’ll be back on Thursday as we’ll kind of look at the culmination of this part of the story. I hope you can be there, because it is, I think, where John has been trying to get us in this 11th chapter.

00:16:49:22 – 00:17:11:13
Michael Gewecke
This is a gospel that spends a lot of time making sure that we understand the gravity of who Jesus is. And there are few stories that are so carefully told so as to make sure that we don’t miss the point of who we are finding in the revelation of Christ. So we certainly hope you won’t miss it. Like this video.

00:17:11:13 – 00:17:20:03
Michael Gewecke
If it’s been interesting as we’ve explored the build up to it, and then certainly subscribe so you can be with us as we continue on to that story on Thursday.

00:17:20:07 – 00:17:20:47
Clint Loveall
Thanks to everybody.