Facing Death With Courage

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While I’ve had numerous family members die over the years, I got a more intimate look at death when my Father-in-law (to-be), John, passed away. Carolyn’s Dad was diagnosed with an unknown type of cancer a few weeks after I met him for the first time. It was very aggressive, and he passed away less than three weeks after it was discovered, a few days after Carolyn and I had gotten engaged.

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I know the journey was difficult for Carolyn and Elsie, her mother, having to say goodbye far too soon. Still, I know that both they and John experienced that death very differently because of the hope they share about the resurrection of those who have died in Jesus. They bid farewell, but that farewell was for a time, not for all time. When a fellow believer dies, we experience grief with hope.

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Our faith in the resurrection promised in Christian faith means partings with fellow Christians are bitter-sweet. We must go on without them, while we recognize they have passed on to a great reward, and we will see them again someday.

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This confidence is founded in Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday. Death could not hold our Lord. But there is an uncomfortable question that Easter may leave in our minds. How does the resurrection of Jesus, who was perfect, relate to our resurrection, because we are not perfect? Is it solely because Jesus was perfect that death could not hold him? Can it hold on to us?

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In the final miracle of Jesus that we will study, we see an answer to that question. Jesus raises someone who is not perfect, showing that he has the authority to raise us as well.

Lazarus’ Story  

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Lazarus lived in Bethany, about 2 miles from Jerusalem. Jesus had recently fled the area, after a near brush with stoning. But he gets a message telling him that Lazarus is very ill. But Jesus doesn’t go. He stays put for 2 days before he and the disciples make the dangerous trip back to Judea. Jesus tells the disciples that Lazarus has died, and they go to wake him up. By the time they arrive in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days and is buried (incidentally this means that if Jesus had left immediately, he would have arrived 2 days too late). When Jesus arrives in Bethany, Martha, Lazarus’ sister expresses her sorrow that Jesus wasn’t there and Jesus says something that must seem to her very cryptic:

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:20–26, NIV)

Jesus asks Martha if she believes, but it seems she doesn’t fully know what he’s talking about. Mary, Lazarus’ other sister arrives shortly after

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When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “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.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I 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.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The 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.” (John 11:32–44, NIV)

‌This miracle has big repercussions for Jesus’ ministry: The Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council knows that Jesus’ actions will be seen as political (He’s shown himself to be Messiah, a title invested with political expectations). Their interests are served by the status quo, so they begin to plot Jesus’ death.

So, what do we learn from this story?

Jesus Is Sympathetic

The first thing that stands out in this story is how sympathetic Jesus is to Martha and Mary. We might expect Jesus, who knows what’s going to happen, to be calm. Yes, Lazarus is dead. Yes, that is sad. But in a few minutes, he’ll be raised back to life, so why all the tears? Instead, we read that Jesus is moved to tears.

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Why does Jesus weep? Because he loves Mary and Martha and knows how much emotional pain they are experiencing at that moment. But it’s deeper than that too. The death of Jesus’ dear friend and the grief of his sisters drives home the reason why Jesus is on his mission in the first place. Sin and death have distorted the world, and here is a deeply personal example of the consequences.

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It’s easy to imagine God being cool to our suffering. “I know it hurts, but I’ll raise in you in the end, so stop your belly-aching!” But Jesus shows us that God is moved by our emotional pain.

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So if you’re going through a tough patch in your life, don’t be afraid to take it to God. He may not always take away the difficulty you are facing (at least not according to your timetable) but he grieves alongside you. As David says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18, NIV).

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If I believe in a certain vision of God’s sovereignty when the difficult and seemingly senseless things that happen to me are ordained by God, I will experience the pain very differently than if I believe the bad things are a consequence of sin’s corrosive effect in the world and that God grieves alongside me, and is committed to working to undo all that is wrong. Jesus shows us that God cares about us.

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At the same time, one of our jobs as the church is to be God’s representatives in the world. So as Jesus grieves with Martha and Mary in their grief, likewise, we ought to grieve alongside the hurting people close to us. We may seek to keep others’ pain at arm’s length, not wanting it to make us sad, but to have God’s Spirit at work in us is to grieve and lament over the devastation caused by sin in the world. This pain should lead us to prayer. Prayer against the sin. Prayer on behalf of the victims, prayer on behalf of the perpetrators (That God’s redemptive grace could transform someone who harms others into someone who heals). Prayer for God’s kingdom to come. Jesus serves as both a revelation of God’s care for the hurting and also our call to weep with those who weep.

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Jesus Is Lord Over Death

The Hope of the Resurrection

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The most important takeaway from this story is that Jesus is Lord over death. The benefits of that Lordship can extend beyond Jesus himself.

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If you have a friend who is very motivated and studies for a major exam (the bar exam, or medical board exams, for example). If they pass the test, it means they are the one who gets to be a lawyer or a doctor. Being their friend doesn’t mean their accomplishment transfers to you in any way.

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We might wonder if Jesus’ resurrection is like the friend’s accomplishment. Jesus worked very hard, didn’t sin and was raised to a new life as a reward for his accomplishments. But where does that leave us sinners? In this miracle, Jesus shows us that he has authority over death. I’m sure Lazarus was a kind and pious man, but he was not perfect, and so Jesus’ demonstration of his authority to raise someone who is not sinless is reassuring.

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In his resurrection, Jesus reveals that he is Lord, supreme over even death itself, but it is in the resurrection of Lazarus that we find hope that that supremacy is transferrable to those beloved by Jesus.

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Our confidence in the resurrection is what enables us to live a different kind of life. When Paul reflects on the centrality of the resurrection to life as Christians, he summarizes his thoughts by saying, “If the dead are not raised, ‘let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Corinthians 15:32). The self-denial that Jesus calls for from his disciples is pointless if our hope is for this world alone. It is our hope of a resurrection where God rewards the righteous for their perseverance and faithfulness that makes the sacrifices faithfulness requires possible.

Jesus’ Call to a New Life

But there is more to death than biological death. In the Genesis story, God promises Adam and Eve that on the day they eat the forbidden fruit, they will surely die. Yet, we’re told Adam lived a long time after the fall (like almost 1000 years), so did God backpedal, or should we understand death more broadly?

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Death isn’t just the cessation of biological agency. Death is a pattern of life that harms, divides and dehumanizes. It leads to biological death, but it happens long before we get there. You might liken life on this earth to living in a spiritual death zone.

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The Death Zone, in climbing parlance, is any elevation over 8,000 metres. When a human body goes higher than 8 km above sea level, the atmosphere is about 1/3 as dense as at sea level, and the body can’t get enough oxygen. If you rode an elevator from sea level up to 8,000 metres, you’d pass out in under a minute and be dead within a half hour. A mountain climber, spending weeks not-quite-as-high elevation can adapt (That’s why a climbing expedition at Everest takes 2 months, when you could climb up and down the mountain in about 5 days). But even the best-adapted climbers can’t survive more than 48 hours in the death zone (even with supplemental oxygen). When you go into the Death Zone you’re dying a slow-motion death for as long as you’re there. The human body can’t sustain life at those altitudes, even though death doesn’t happen in an instant.

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I think this is an illustration of our lives in this world. We go on living, but because of sin in the world (ours and others), we’re spiritually dying from the moment we’re born.

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When Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb, we’re meant to understand that on a spiritual level, Jesus does the same for us, in response to our faith. We’re meant to read this story as a concrete example that illustrates a spiritual reality. Lazarus was physically dead and Jesus called him to a renewed physical life. We are spiritually dead and Jesus, likewise, calls us to a renewed spiritual life. The new life rejects self-will and self-dependence and embraces God at the centre: submission to his well and dependence on his provision.

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Before Kate came to faith, she was an anxious person. It’s not that her life was unbearably bad, it’s just that she was aware of how quickly things could turn around. Deep down she knew that her success or failure in life was in meaningful ways determined by factors outside of her control. While she had grown up in the church she hadn’t given it much thought since she left home after high school. But amid her anxiety, she heard Jesus’ call to come out of the grave she had been living in. Giving her life to Jesus meant that Kate could live with joy whereas before she experienced anxiety. She knows that Jesus doesn’t guarantee her career or family success, but she does know that Jesus walks with her and lovingly cares for her needs. This new perspective allows her to face life with hope whereas before she would only experience apprehension.

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Jesus calls us out of our old way of being and gives us a new kind of life. But this new kind of life isn’t one we’re meant to live alone. When Jesus tells those present with him to take off the grave clothes and let Lazarus go his actions symbolize the part we play in helping each other navigate the new life we have in Jesus. We assist one another out of the grave clothes when we encourage one another, when we admonish one another in love and when we set an example in humility and kindness, patient endurance and other Christlike behaviors. Living the new life is a team sport that we’re only doing right when we live in loving submission to the community of Christ-followers. If Lazarus hadn’t been helped, he would immediately have gotten tripped up by his grave clothes. Similarly, if we try to live our new life without the help of God’s people, we too will get tripped up.

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The World May Be Hostile

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What Jesus does for Lazarus presents a crisis for those who are invested in keeping things the way they are. The chief priests and the Pharisees summarize the problem:

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Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation” (John 11:47-48, NIV).

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It’s not that they are consciously opposing God. Rather, they interpret God’s will according to their perception of their own interest. Our new life can be similarly threatening. If we obey Jesus’ call to selflessness, our lives reveal the selfishness of the world. If we obey Jesus’ call to dignify all human beings as bearers of the divine image, then our behaviour towards those at the bottom of the social order exposes the hypocrisy of those who preach human dignity but who treat certain groups preferentially. The new life of Christ demonstrates the inadequacy of the old life without him.

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At the same time, not all hostility the church faces is a consequence of God’s new life in us. There are times when the hostility comes from the disconnect between what we say we believe and our actions (like when the engages in a culture war, despite God’s command to love our enemies). So don’t assume the world’s hostility is proof our our righteousness.

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The hostility of the world can be daunting. Lazarus had to deal with people wanting him dead. In the Orthodox tradition, he was forced to flee Judea and took up residence in Cyprus because the authorities in Jerusalem were actively trying to have him killed. This seems panic-inducing until we remember that God raises the dead on our side, watching over us, and turning the opposition against us into opportunities to demonstrate his love and wisdom to the world. As Paul so memorably put it, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31, NIV).

Conclusion

Death is probably the scariest experience we all face. It’s not God’s design for the world, but an inevitable result of our fall into sin. While death is still tragic when our loved ones pass away, our faith in the Lord who reveals himself to have authority even over death, gives us hope as we face death. He has been revealed to be Lord, and in raising the dead man he has shown that his authority means he can raise those whom he loves. He has also shown us that he can arrest the power of death in our lives and call us into a new life, alive to him and dead to sin. So take heart. Death may be the greatest enemy, but Jesus has already defeated it.