Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Josh. And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: And today on reading the gospel. We are studying the event, the resurrection of Lazarus. This is found in John, chapter eleven. And we're going to read from verse one all the way to verse 45. Follow along with us.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Now, a certain man was ill. Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment. And wiped his feet with her hair. Whose brother Lazarus was ill.
So the sister 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.
Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when he heard that Lazarus was ill. He stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Then after this, he said to his disciples, let us go to Judea again.
The disciples said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And are you going there again?
And Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.
After saying these things, he said to them. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.
The disciples said to him, lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.
Now Jesus had spoken of his death. But they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep.
Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I am glad that I was not there. So that you may believe, but let us go to him.
So Thomas, called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go, that we may die with him.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Now when Jesus had come. He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about 2 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. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection. On the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me. Shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who is coming into the world.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling for you.
And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.
Now, Jesus had not yet come into the village. But was still in the place where Martha had met him.
When the Jews were with her in the house, consoling her. Saw Mary rise quickly and go out. They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
Now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, lord, if you have been here, my brother would not have died.
When Jesus saw her weeping. And the Jews who had come with her also weeping.
He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
And he said, where have you laid him?
They said to him, lord, come and see.
Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, see how he loved him.
But some of them said, could not he, who opened the eyes of the blind man. Also kept this man from dying?
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days. Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said. Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this on the account of the people standing around. That they may believe that you sent me. When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The man who had died came out. His hands and feet bound with linen strips. And his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did. Believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
So this is an amazing story, the resurrection of Lazarus. Jesus seemed to have a special relationship with Lazarus and Mary and Martha. And we find him in their home on a number of times. And so he's here knowing what's going to happen. And he's here to comfort those who are sad.
Why did Jesus even allow Lazarus to die? Couldn't he have just kept him alive the whole time. And stopped crying and mourning? And any of this?
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. But Jesus said, I'm very glad that I was not there.
So you talking to his disciples, will see the glory of God? That is in verse 15.
For your sake, I'm glad that I was not there.
So you may believe.
So sometimes God allows things to happen in our lives.
So our friends, our coworkers, our family members, those around us will be exposed to the presence of God in their lives and will have an opportunity to recognize Jesus Christ as the sent one, the messiah.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: You would call that the glory of God, then seeing the glory of God, what is this seeing the glory of.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: God in this situation? The glory of God was the glory of God being manifested through the power of resurrection.
And the glory of God can be manifested in different ways. The glory of God was manifested when Stephen, the first christian martyr, died and the skies were open, and Jesus Christ was there, standing, responding or looking down to Stephen. So practically, Jesus revealed himself to Stephen and to other people. They didn't recognize the meaning of the vision, but they are impressed by the visual and the audio component of that vision. So the glory of God can be manifested in different ways. So this is one common way in the time of Jesus to show the power of God with a purpose that they will accept his role as messiah, as a savior for which he came.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: We have this conversation with Martha. She comes out to Jesus and meets him on the road. And it's an interesting conversation. She has faith, right? There's some faith there.
She's not wonderfully pleased with Jesus when she sees him.
I wonder what the tone of her voice was like.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Sounds a little bit like a reproach.
There is no elegant introduction, of course. She fell on his feet, on Jesus'feet, and Mary did the same. But both sisters started with the same statement. It seems that they have been talking about this for a while. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. For some reason, we have the faith that if God was present in a specific moment of life, we would not have been in the situation we are today.
This is the faith for the past.
And Jesus tried to point and says, your brother will resurrect. And Martha, as well as Mary, as good disciples of Jesus Christ, said, I know they will resurrect in the last day. Yeah, but Jesus Christ's answer is for the present. I am right now. I am the resurrection and life. Then think just about your faith for the past, and then focus just on your faith for the future. There is a face for now and here for the present.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: So Mary and Martha thought that Jesus didn't do what they wanted him to do.
They thought it was too late. And they said, yeah, he's going to rise again in the resurrection. You could have kept him alive if you had have been here, but you weren't here. So their prayers, I guess we could say, weren't answered. They said, we know you can do a lot of things, but they weren't expecting Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead.
I think many times we as Christians find ourselves in these situations where what we are expecting from God doesn't happen.
And we ask why? Like, why didn't you show me your glory? You've done it in the past. And we can quote Bible stories. We can look back and say these things, know they could have looked back, or they probably looked back to Jesus'miracles as he's going through towns, you did those things. Why didn't this happen to us?
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Well, if someone asks me this question, I will bounce it back to them and I will point to the fact that even God's expectations or desires, some of them will not be fulfilled ever.
The Bible says that God wants everyone to be saved. And we know from the Bible and we know from reality that not everyone will be saved. This is one of God's desires that will not be fulfilled. And if we read the Bible carefully, we see a number of God's desires which are not fulfilled. It was not God's desire for job to suffer, to lose his kids, and to get into a situation of mentally and emotionally and physically and maybe spiritually, to ask questions and to doubt the power of God in his life.
That is not what God expected from that situation. But because the backdrop of that reality is the conflict between good and evil. And there are rules of engagement in this cosmic conflict.
Some of God's desires or expectations will not be fulfilled. If that happens with God, it is logical to happen with us. Some of our desires and expectations and prayers will not be fulfilled on this side of the eternity. Some might be fulfilled in the future after the second coming of Christ, and some of them might never be fulfilled.
We should learn to trust God anyway.
We should learn to build a relationship with him because in his infinite wisdom and love, he know what's the best for us and he will do everything possible to work that best for us in the current condition of the conflict between good and evil.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And finally, at the very end, the most important part, Lazarus raising from the dead. Jesus starts by getting them to roll away the stone.
And he could have done it. He could know just as easily as he raised Lazarus from the dead, he could have moved that stone.
Why do you think he didn't move it away?
[00:14:22] Speaker A: So he asked people to take the stone away, and also he asked other people to unbind him.
That means in this work of salvation, we human beings should cooperate with God.
God will do everything.
But once in a while, God will ask us to help with something. So we feel part of that something.
The same way with that little child that was having his right hand on his father's bucket full of water.
And you ask the little child, what are you doing? Oh, I'm so proud because I'm helping my dad to carry the bucket with water. But the little child was more kind of pulling it down than lifting it up.
But we should learn that we have a part in the work of salvation. Otherwise, we are not coworkers with Christ. We do not cooperate with him, even if our part is beyond 100% of what God can do for our salvation. Let us pray.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Father God, we are so thankful that you have the power over death. We're so thankful that you work with us in unique ways.
We're so thankful, Father, that you answer our problems in your own way and not ours. And I pray that you will open our eyes of faith to see your glory. That in the little things, the blessings you surround us with each day, that we will find your glory in the deep tragedies of our lives, we will see your glory.
Please be present with us.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: In.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.
