Time to Get Up

Text: John 11:17-27, 38-53

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

          We could all use some good news right now. War and strife and sickness and poverty are all around us. The Badgers lost in the first round. I’m sure we could all make a list of the things that could be going better, which is why we need some Good News. And I have Good News for you: A little glimpse of Easter right here on the 5^th Sunday in Lent. Here it is. God has a resurrection for you! He wants to bring you out into the light again. He wants to bring you out of that tomb of sickness, or grief, or despair, and certainly of sin, and give you a new start. And He has the power to do it. He can bring you back to life. And because He can, and He will do it, what I want you to hear this morning is that it’s

TIME TO GET UP.

Time to get up and hear your Lord calling to you, just as He called to Lazarus, and get up out of whatever tomb you’re in. Not by yourself because these are states that we can’t come out of on our own. But by the power of God, come out. Hear the Lord calling to you in your despair, your grief, your sickness, and your sin. All these are graves we find ourselves in. But for God, the grave is temporary. I heard one preacher describe the grave as fragile when it is met with the power of God to overcome it. Which is what we see in the account of Lazarus who, “when Jesus came…had already been in the tomb four days.”

This powerful account in John 11 speaks to this resurrection that Jesus accomplished for Lazarus, and the one He has in store for you. Let’s recap the details quickly. Mary and Martha who live in Bethany are some of Jesus’ closest friends. They send word to Him that their brother Lazarus is desperately ill. “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But by the time Jesus gets there, Lazarus has died and has been in his grave for four days. Martha comes out to meet Jesus and expresses her grief, with just a little bit of accusation thrown in. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And Mary follows suit with the same statement as soon as she sees Jesus.

Family and friends have gathered and in their deep sorrow, they weep over the loss of their loved one, Lazarus. The heart of Jesus goes out to them…and Jesus weeps with them. He loved Lazarus, too. And he loves them. And he shares their pain. Jesus goes out to the tomb and He says to them, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the practical sister protests saying, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus reminds her what He had said to her before, which is, “If you believed you would see the glory of God.”

So, they roll the stone away and Jesus “cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.” His four-day brush with death is over. It’s time to get up. And incredibly, amazingly, miraculously, before their very eyes Lazarus is resurrected! He comes out of the tomb. He still has on his grave clothes. His head and feet are still wrapped with bandages. Jesus then turns to the friends and family and says to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Unwrap him and set him free.

In this graphic and dramatic account, there are two lessons that jump out at us. Probably more than that, but for today, we’ll address two great truths which emerge and can be so very helpful to us today.

First, Jesus wept with those He loved…and He still does.

Second, Jesus raised people up…and He still does.

Jesus wept with those He loved…and He still does. Many people try to point out that it made no sense that after Jesus heard that Lazarus was ill, that He “stayed two days longer in the place where He was.” They’ll say that if He really loved Lazarus, He would have raced off to Bethany immediately to heal Him. But Jesus had many lessons to teach. And one of them is that He is able to sympathize with us because He is one of us, except without sin.

Last week we heard about the man who was born blind that “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” In the same way, what happened to Lazarus needed to happen so that Jesus could display His care and compassion for those who would otherwise have been lost in their grief. He needed them to know that He was right there with them. Displaying those same human emotions we do when we lose a loved one. And it’s not just grief that He can sympathize with us in. He knows the struggles of stress, anxiety, trauma, sickness, pain, and even the temptation to sin. This is why He had to be fully human.

It’s easy to see how Mary and Martha must be feeling when their brother falls sick and dies. We’ve been there. And we’ve been there when despite our most fervent prayers it seems like Jesus doesn’t’ show up to answer them. It’s easy to see how in these times that even faith could begin to falter. What we wanted didn’t happen. Jesus, who absolutely could have arrived in time to save Lazarus, allows this to happen so that He can then be with those who are experiencing these human emotions. He’s right there in the awful, dark, scary, and painful times so that we will all know that He cares. And He’s right there with Mary and Martha. He even weeps with them. Jesus may not always prevent the terrible things from happening in your life, but He will be with you right through them all. Walking with you and carrying the burden that’s too heavy to carry on your own.

And while that’s a tremendous comfort to know that the Lord is with us through thick and thin, in the good times and the bad, the second point is even more powerful. Jesus raised people up…and He still does. Jesus allowed Lazarus to die so that He could walk through the grief with His friends. But He also did it so that He could raise Lazarus from the dead. As I said before, Jesus had many lessons to teach His followers. And His time is becoming very short. In fact, right after the resurrection of Lazarus, Jesus is anointed there in Bethany and then makes His way triumphantly into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, which begins the final week of His earthly life. So, getting the disciples, the rest of His followers, and anyone else who is willing to hear to understand that He has power over even the grave is essential for Jesus to do.

Just as the blind man needed to be born blind so “that the works of God might be displayed in him,” so also Lazarus needed to be dead so that they “would see the glory of God.” It’s interesting in this account to note that this group of Jesus’ followers don’t doubt that He could have saved Lazarus had he gotten there when he was still alive. They’ve witnessed tons of healings and other miracles. But their faith wasn’t prepared for God’s power over death! After all illness and hunger, and even casting out demons are one thing, but death is another. Or is it?

For God, it’s not. If God could breathe life into those dry bones in the valley, and use Ezekiel to prophesy and make that happen, then He can also raise a man from the dead. And if He can raise one man from the dead, then He can raise two. And if He can raise two then He can raise every single person from the dead. And He will. But not before He does exactly what He was sent to do. Which is to die Himself that He might rise from the dead. Because His ultimate power over death is sealed with His own resurrection. It’s the victory over the first problem that ever entered into God’s perfect creation, which is sin that leads to death. From that moment on, everyone will know and experience death. But through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we don’t need to fear that death. For through it, He conquered death and the grave. Our sin which leads to our death was carried by Jesus to that cross and there He paid for it. Which is why in His resurrection, Jesus can promise to us that our death is not the end. And why we can confidently say, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting.”

To believe in Jesus is to have His resurrection be the promise of your resurrection. And to have the ability to live in that resurrection reality even today. Our Lord let Lazarus die so He could teach this to the world. May the Holy Spirit who comes to us through His Word, teach us the same thing, that we too may believe and have eternal life. Eternal life that has already begun for us, because our Lord has already called us out of the grave and tells us that it’s time to get up. Time to get up and live in that resurrection reality so that many more might know and believe, and live in it too. So today, we celebrate a little glimpse of that Easter reality, even as continue our walk with Jesus toward the cross, where He won that victory over the grave for us. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.