The raising of Lazarus is the last of the seven signs John chose to record in his gospel to show us the truth about Jesus, Who He is, and what He does. It makes a fitting climax to the series. Illuminating as all the other six are, they only partially suggest Christ's Saviourhood. But there is something satisfyingly complete about the raising of the dead. That is a sign which says, with absolute finality, "There is no limit to His Saviour-hood. There is nothing He cannot do. He can restore to life everything that suffers death in this world, even those things which, humanly speaking are lost and gone for ever." So long as Jesus is in our world, it is never a time to despair.

It is a marvellous story, this, and superbly told. And so much in it cries out for comment, but we must be selective.

The story is told in four stages, each in a paragraph to itself, with a prologue and an epilogue. Let me spell it out for those who find these analyses a help in getting to grips with the meaning of a passage.

Prologue	vs. 1- 4	The Meaning of the Play
Act I	vs. 5-16	The Master's Delay
Act II	vs. 17-27	Martha's Response
Act III	vs. 28-37	Mary's Response
Act IV	vs. 38-44	The Master's Deed
Epilogue	vs. 45-53	Men's Responses

We shall comment on the salient feature of each section, and try to tie them together into one whole, so as to develop a single theme.

PROLOGUE : THE MEANING

The salient feature of the Prologue is Jesus' own statement in v.4, "This illness is not unto death: it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."

In one sense of course, the illness was unto death. By the time Jesus received the message from Martha and Mary, Lazarus was already dead of it, and Jesus knew that. The journey the messengers took was one day's journey. Jesus then delayed two more days. Then it took him another day's journey to go back with the messengers. That is four days, and when He arrives, Martha says Lazarus has been dead four days. So he had died almost as soon as the messengers had left Lazarus' bedside. When therefore Jesus said, "This illness is not unto death," He did not mean "Lazarus will not die." He meant, "Death is not the end of the matter." Death will not have the last word - the Son of God will have the last word, when He stands at the entrance of the tomb, and cries, "Lazarus, come forth."

That is the faith of the Christian. Death does not have the last word in our lives. Christ has it.

Jesus knows that He will shortly demonstrate His absolute mastery over what Paul will rightly call mankind's last enemy - death. It is in the exercise of that mastery that the Son of God will be glorified. He will be seen as our Champion - as the David who defeats the Goliath of death who holds all the hosts of humanity in dread of his strength.

To none but Christ does that glory belong. The ultimate good you seek cannot be given to you by any man, but only by Christ Himself. That glory belongs to Him, and to no other. Only He can give you life. Seek it not in any creature. Seek it only in Him. And be aware, it may need the death of some things before you find it in Him.

ACT I : THE MASTER'S DELAY (vs. 5-16)

The feature of Act I to which I direct your attention is the word of Jesus in vs. 14 & 15. "Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe."

Why did Jesus delay His going?

So that death might take hold ... to allow it to advance so far that there would be no doubt of His power utterly to undo it, so that His disciples might believe.

It is more important that men believe than that they be healed. Peter, by the time he wrote his epistle had grasped the point. In I Peter 1:6 he wrote, "Now for a little while, you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold (which though perishable is tested by fire) may redound to the praise and honour and glory of Christ in the day of His final triumph."

The one thing above all others to which your Lord is devoted in you is your growth in faith ... your absolute reliance upon Him in every circumstance of life, even for what is against nature. Sometimes, to strengthen your faith, He will answer your prayer, and give you what you ask. Sometimes, to strengthen your faith, He will deny you your prayer, and not give you what you ask. In that hour, He is not denying His Name, nor going back upon His promise. He is challenging you to trust Him to know better - to let go your own knowing, and trust His. Lazarus, upon whose preservation you have set your heart, must die. What you so greatly desire must be lost, so that you are left only with what He gives you. Then you will believe, because what He gives you will be so much better and greater, so unimaginably better and greater, than the lesser thing you had thought was the only thing that could satisfy you ... and the only way you thought He could keep His promise.

I suppose it is the most testing experience of our Christian life this - to let go the one thing we believe to be the gift we may expect of Christ to make us truly happy that we may be given a better.

There must come a time in all our lives, I believe, when we must hear Christ say to us, "Your Lazarus is dead (whatever that 'Lazarus' was for you) and for your sake, I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe."

ACT II : MARTHA'S RESPONSE (vs. 17-27)

The salient feature here is the thing Martha says to Jesus in vs. 21 & 22: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you."

It is an altogether astonishing thing to hear this woman say.

Martha in fact is at this point a living example of the faith we have just been speaking about.

I cannot tell you how impressed - how challenged I am by this, and I do want to try and bring this alive. (Martha's faith here is superior, far superior to Mary's.) When she says "Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died," she was not accusing Jesus of having failed them. She knew that Lazarus had died before their message could have reached Him. This was a lament, not a complaint. "O Lord, he's gone. We've lost Him. We didn't get to You in time."

But then she says this astonishing thing: "Even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." She has no idea what Jesus will do ... no idea at all. She could not have dreamed that Jesus would raise her brother from the tomb. Indeed, when Jesus orders the stone to be removed so that He may, she recoils from the very idea with horror. "Lord, it's four days; it'll be ... revolting!"

But in the presence of her loss - and she reckoned it to be final - she trusted Christ to bring her some gift - to do some new thing in her life - that would absolutely satisfy her. She was in total ignorance of what it might be. The only reality in her life at that point was her loss. But she believed in His gift, before it could be given, and before she could even guess at it.

By contrast &emdash;

ACT III : MARY'S RESPONSE (vs. 28-37)

By contrast, Mary fails in faith. It is sad, this. Despite all the advantage she had previously had - sitting at the Rabbi's feet while Martha did the serving (going to the Christian conventions while her sister did for the old folks at home!) - despite all those advantages, Mary's faith failed. All she can say is "Lord, if you had been here ... if only you'd been here!" And she sobbed out her misery, unaware that Christ could do anything to assuage it.

And what does John observe? (and he was there, remember; this is an eye-witness's account.) "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews with her, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled, and He said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to Him, 'Lord, come and see.'"

Jesus wept. He sobbed!

For Mary and the rest there was nothing to see but a grave ... a grave where not only her brother lay dead, but her faith and hope as well. She had eyes only for what she had lost - she had no eyes for Jesus and the power of God that He brought with Him.

That is what made Jesus weep - Mary's loss of faith. Or at least, that was part of it ... a real part of it.

When you and I fail in faith it reduces Christ to tears. Did you know that? He is our Saviour given to us by God to save us, and to do it - to make us whole, He needs our trust.

For see what He can do.

ACT IV : THE MASTER'S DEED (vs. 38-44)

We need not spend long on this.

He stands at the entrance to the tomb where Lazarus is fast bound in the iron grip of death, and He cries, "Come forth" - and all the power of God is in His voice. His cry fills the long corridors of death where Lazarus is lost to the life of this world. His voice is resonant with life, and Lazarus is made vibrant with life and struggles against the confining bonds of his grave-clothes to assert his response to the living Christ, and when the bandage is taken from his eyes, he looks into the face of His Redeemer who has given him life.

That is what Christ can do.

It does not matter what things have died for you - in you - throttled, it may be, by others ... by their lovelessness, by the suffocation of their cruelty and oppression in years gone by; or killed in you by your own sin and waywardness and unbelief; to all of them Christ can cry, "Come forth in this man, in this woman," and they will tremble into life again - will thrill into fulness of being in your heart again, so that you are made alive in every part of you with a life that is Christ's gift and heavenly blessing to you.

Trust Him to do it. Let there waken in you what He would summon into life, that you may rejoice to look into His face and (rejoice) in the abundance of His love for you.

Let it be with you, as it was with some at least of whom John tells us that day.

EPILOGUE : MEN'S RESPONSE (vs. 45-53)

Never mind those who turned against Him. Be among those of whom it is said, "Many, therefore, who had seen what He did, believed in Him."

And they, I promise you, were among the 120 who gathered in an Upper Room only a few weeks later during the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, and were filled - every one of them - with the revivifying fulness of the Holy Spirit, and made new men and women in Christ.

Let Christ have you. Let Him suffer to die in you what He wills. Let Him summon into life in you what He wills, until you are made truly blessed.