“Bible prayers: Jesus prays for Lazarus”
John 11:41-42
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Early in the morning, on Christmas Day of 1977, Oona Chaplin and seven of her eight children gathered around the bed of their dear husband and father, Charlie--Charlie Chaplin--one of the most famous actors of all time. He had already suffered a series of strokes. His end was near. And as his family gathered around, he died that Christmas Day, at the age of eighty-eight. He was buried four days later near Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
Two-and-a-half months later, his wife, Oona, got a call from the police. They said, “Somebody dug up his grave, and he’s gone!”
Apparently, two unemployed immigrants, one from Poland and the other from Bulgaria, got the bright idea to steal Chaplin’s body and hold it for ransom. And all they wanted, (in today’s money), was $600,000! The only problem was, Oona didn’t want to pay. She said, “Charlie would have thought it rather ridiculous.”
But the body snatchers were desperate and the police were diligent. So after wiretapping Oona’s phone and monitoring every one of the area’s two hundred phone booths, the police finally nabbed the suspects and uncovered his body in a nearby cornfield. Then they took it and buried it again in the same place, this time beneath a layer of reinforced concrete.
And if you think that’s bad, think of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll. After his death on August 16th of 1977 at the age of 42, he was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery, just outside of Memphis, in a nine hundred pound, steel-lined, copper-plated coffin.
That is, until two weeks later, when a man named Ronnie Adkins called the police to tell them that he had infiltrated a group that planned to steal his body and hold it for ransom (to the tune of $10 million)! And sure enough, just as soon as the police showed up to investigate, they caught three men snooping around his mausoleum (who were promptly charged with criminal trespassing and thrown into jail).
And to be sure that no one would ever try to steal his body again, they moved it to the Presley estate, to Graceland, where it could be watched and guarded seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.
Grave robbers. Sometimes you have to wonder!
Oddly enough, our Savior Jesus is a grave robber too. In fact, as a nineteenth century preacher named Dwight L. Moody once said, “Jesus broke up every funeral He ever attended.”
I’ll read the words of John chapter 11, starting at verse 1: “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to Him, saying, ‘Lord, he whom You love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it He said, ‘This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it’” (John 11:1-4).
Throughout Jesus’ life and ministry, there were many who loved Him and followed Him. Think of His disciples--Andrew and Philip, Thomas and Bartholomew, Peter, James, and John. They were with Him in the best of times and the worst of times. And along with the twelve, there were seventy-two others--men who went from town to town and village to village to tell the good news about Jesus.
And along with the many who shared in Jesus’ life and ministry, there were others too, friends who shared in His company--two sisters named Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus. John even went so far as to say in verse 5: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”
The first time we meet them was when Jesus first came to Bethany. The Bible says a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. And while she prepared a feast for Him and His twelve disciples, Mary sat listening at His feet. And while the roast was roasting and the flour was flying, Martha suddenly stormed into the room to say, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me!” (Luke 10:40).
And with a smile, Jesus turned to her and said, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is needful. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42).
Then later, in John chapter 12, Mary will pour a flask of oil--pure nard--onto Jesus’ feet, then wipe His feet with her hair. Judas will scoff, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (John 12:5). And Jesus will say, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial” (John 12:7). And He’ll say: “You will always have the poor, but you do not always have Me” (John 12:8).
But here in chapter 11, Lazarus, Martha and Mary’s dear brother, suddenly became ill. We don’t know what exactly happened. The Bible doesn’t say. But whatever it was, in a matter of hours, he would die.
Let’s step back for just a moment and step into Martha’s shoes.
Now Martha, the ever-present, fussing and fretting, probably older sister was all over it, for just as soon as Lazarus became ill, she buzzed around him with cool cloths and chicken soup. But when all she did didn’t seem to matter, she quickly consulted every doctor she could find and tried every cure. And even though she ministered to him night and day, nothing helped at all. And slowly but surely, her alarm turned into panic as she realized that Lazarus was slipping away.
And that’s when her thoughts turned to Jesus. Just days before, in Jerusalem, Jesus had restored sight to a man born blind, and throughout His ministry had healed countless, complete strangers. Surely He would come to help a family friend?
So after she talked it over with Mary, she sent a messenger to find Jesus. “And rest assured, Lazarus,” she said. “You’ll be okay. Jesus will come.”
But Jesus didn’t come, until finally, it was too late. And in her silent, heartbreaking sadness, she watched as he breathed his last breath.
Now let me ask, if you were to get a call or a text with the news that one of your closest friends or family members was sick, what would you do? Would you drop everything you’re doing, no matter how important, and run to their side? Of course, you would! It’s how we show we care.
But what did Jesus do? Verse 6: “So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was.”
Two days longer?!
Imagine their shock and frustration! There they sat with their brother, waiting and hoping for Jesus to come. They had already sent word and they were sure that, any minute now, He would walk right through their door, and stand beside his bed. Or better still, maybe He would pray, where He was, whatever He was doing, and ask His Father to heal him. He had done it so many times before. Why not here? Why not now?
But if truth be known, what was about to happen would be the best, the crowning achievement of all of His earthly miracles. It was part of a much, much bigger plan.
In John chapter 2, He changed water into wine. In chapter 4, He healed a nobleman’s son. In chapter 5, He healed a man at the pool of Bethesda. In chapter 6, He fed thousands with fish and bread. And in chapter 9, He gave sight to a man born blind.
And He had raised others. There was Jairus’ daughter, a little twelve-year-old girl. And in Nain, there was a widow’s son.
But Lazarus was different. He wasn’t dead for only a matter of minutes or hours. He was dead for four days! He was dead dead, as in all wrapped up in linen cloths and laid in a stone cold tomb, as dead as dead could be.
That’s why Jesus said to His disciples, “This is for the glory of God” (John 11:4).
Which takes us chapter 11, verse 17: “Now when Jesus came, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You’” (John 11:17-22).
Did you catch that edge, that sound of rebuke in her voice? “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21).
In other words, we love You, Jesus. We believe in You, Jesus, and we know You carry the weight of the world on Your shoulders. But it’s been four days, Jesus. Four. Days. So don’t bother. It’s too late. He’s dead and gone.
But little did they know that there, right before their very eyes, they would see the glory of God.
Then what? What did Jesus do? He prayed. As it says in verse 41: “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that You sent Me” (John 11:41-42).
So why did Jesus pray that prayer? Because He knew that, spiritually, Martha was okay. She already believed He was the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah. And He knew that, spiritually, Mary was okay too, for in just a few days, she would anoint His feet with oil and wipe them with her hair. And Lazarus was okay too. He was, after all, already resting in God’s hands, serving as part of God’s divine plan.
But the crowd that was standing around--that was another story. Spiritually, they were not okay, because they didn’t know what to believe. Was Jesus the Son of God? Or was He simply another man, just like everyone else?
And so He prayed. “Abba, Father,” He said. “I thank You that You have heard Me and that You always hear Me. But I said this so the people here would believe that You sent Me” (John 11:41-42).
And then came the miracle. For just as soon as Jesus said, “Lazarus, come out!” Lazarus came out, risen from the dead.
Born in March of 1853, Vincent Van Gogh is among the most talented and most famous of painters in the history of Western art. Over his brief thirty-seven years of life, he created more than two thousand works of art, including Irises, Sunflowers, and of course, his most famous work Starry Night.
And in May of 1890, just two months before he died, he painted what he called The Raising of Lazarus. It’s one of only a few of his paintings that have a biblical theme.
Now the color yellow might not be your favorite color, but for Van Gogh, it symbolized the hope and the warmth of the truth of God’s power and love. So when he painted The Raising of Lazarus, he bathed the painting in yellow, knowing what the hope of resurrection really means.
Even more, take a close look at the face of Lazarus, and you’ll see that it’s not just any face. With those gaunt cheeks and ginger beard, it looks an awful lot like Van Gogh himself, “a parallel,” in the words of one critic, “between Lazarus’ return from the dead and his own struggle towards recovery from mental illness.”
In the words of hymn writer John Newton: “Come, my soul, with ev’ry care, Jesus loves to answer prayer; He Himself bids you to pray, and will never turn away.”
By Your great power, dear Jesus, You once raised Lazarus from the dead. Someday, we pray, raise us up that we may forever live with You. This we ask in Your name. Amen