NOT UNTO DEATH

NOT UNTO DEATH 
Jesus and his disciples had fled Judea where the Jewish leaders had tried to stone him and had gone out to the rugged mountainous area far from Judea. It was only a few weeks till Passover and Jesus had set his course to be in Jerusalem for the Passover feast - where he would become the Lamb slain for all Mankind from before the foundation of the world. He had been doing many signs and wonders and crowds were following him everywhere and the Jewish leaders were becoming more and more agitated and threatened by his fame and popularity. While they were out there a messenger came to Jesus that his good friend Lazarus was sick and in need of help. The message was sent by the two sisters of his friend Lazarus in Bethany, which was close to Jerusalem in Judea.
We read the account of this in John’s Gospel.
John 11:1 Lazarus, who lived in Bethany with Mary and her sister Martha, was sick. So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Sir, your good friend is very, very sick.”
But when Jesus heard about it he said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 
Although Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days and made no move to go to them. Finally, after the two days, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go to Judea.” But his disciples objected. “Master,” they said, “only a few days ago the Jewish leaders in Judea were trying to kill you. Are you going there again?”

But that did not deter Jesus, and he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has gone to sleep, but now I will go and awaken him!” The disciples, thought Jesus meant Lazarus was having a good night’s rest and said, “That means he is getting better!” But Jesus meant that Lazarus had died. Then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And for your sake, I am glad I wasn’t there, for this will give you another opportunity to believe in me. Come, let’s go to him.

It seems that Jesus had to remind himself that what he often said was not understood or even heard by those who heard it. And two days later when Jesus knew the time was right, he took his disciples to the place where Lazarus had been buried.
When they arrived at Bethany, they were told that Lazarus had already been in his tomb for four days. Bethany was only a couple of miles down the road from Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish leaders had come to pay their respects and to console Martha and Mary on their loss. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed at home.
Martha said to Jesus, “Sir, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. And even now it’s not too late, for I know that God will bring my brother back to life again, if you will only ask him to.” Jesus told her, “Your brother will come back to life again.” “Yes,” Martha said, “when everyone else does, on Resurrection Day.”
Jesus said, “I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life again. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies like anyone else, shall live again. He is given eternal life for believing in me and shall never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?”
“Yes, Master,” she told him. “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one we have so long awaited.” Then she left him and returned to Mary and called her aside from the mourners and told her, “He is here and wants to see you.” So Mary went to him at once. Jesus had stayed outside the village at the place where Martha met him and when the Jewish leaders who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’ tomb to weep; so they followed her.
When Mary arrived at where Jesus was, she fell down at his feet, saying, “Sir, if you had been here, my brother would still be alive.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jewish leaders wailing with her, he was moved with exasperation and deeply troubled. “Where is he buried?” he asked them. They told him, “Come and see.” Jesus wept. And some of the Jewish leaders saw that as a sign of how much Jesus loved Lazarus 
But some said, “This fellow healed a blind man—why couldn’t he keep Lazarus from dying?” And that caused Jesus to feel deeply troubled and he groaned inwardly at their unbelief in him.

Jesus indeed wept. This was a moment of deep and mixed human emotion for Jesus, not just for the grief that his beloved friends were suffering but also because he had agonised deeply within his spirit many times because of how little his disciples and other followers and critics understood what he said and did in bringing a new Kingdom Age to the earth. And not least he was confronting the reality of his own imminent torturous death and resurrection. He was creating a new spiritual age of faith and love and divine power, not one of human ability and materialism and political power. Noone realized that Jesus did not make up his own mind about when Heaven’s power would touch the earth, and whether someone would or should be healed. It was not done by his own reckoning. He had told his disciples on more than one occasion that he could do nothing until he heard his Father tell him to do it, but people interpreted his supernatural acts as being for people who in their opinion deserved them or were worthy of them. 

Then they came to the tomb. It was a cave with a heavy stone rolled across its door.
“Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. But Martha said, “By now the smell will be terrible, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said, “But didn’t I tell you that you will see a wonderful miracle from God if you believe?” 
So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me – I know You always hear me, but I said it because of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me”. Then he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus came out, bound up in grave cloths and his face muffled in a head swath. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” And so at last many of the Jewish leaders who were with Mary and saw it happen, finally believed on him. But some went away to the Pharisees and reported it to them.
Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened a council to discuss the situation.
“What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “For this man certainly does miracles. If we let him alone the whole nation will follow him—and then the Roman army will come and kill us and take over the Jewish government.”
And one of them, Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, said, “You just don’t understand - let this one man die for the people—why should the whole nation perish?”
This prophecy that Jesus should die for the entire nation came from Caiaphas in his position as High Priest—he didn’t think of it by himself but was inspired to say it. It was a prediction that Jesus’ death would not be for Israel only, but for all the children of God scattered around the world. Then the Jewish leaders began plotting Jesus’ death.
The death of this man Jesus would bring divine life into the world.
The Bible says Through the disobedience of one man, Adam, death came to all men, but through the obedience of one man Jesus life has come to all mankind. (Romans 5:18)
People had a wrong perception of what true faith was, and this constantly troubled Jesus - the Bible says ‘consider Him who endured such contradiction from sinful flesh against Himself, (Hebrews 12:3). Their thoughts were not God’s thoughts nor their ways God’s ways. People followed him out into the fields to hear this greatest teacher and prophet of their time. Many said that he was The Messiah and that he would set up the kingdom of God on the earth. But to the materially and politically minded Jews this meant an army with a leader sent from heaven that would overthrow the Roman Empire and free them from its oppression over them 
Jesus knew something about the resurrection of Lazarus that nobody else knew because his Father had revealed it to him by the Spirit. The consequence of the illness was death. But the purpose of the illness was not death, but glory to God – God on display for all to see - Resurrection. Jesus had spoken the words of life into the spirit of Lazarus and his spirit heard the voice of his friend Jesus saying to him ‘Lazarus come out ‘and his body received that lifegiving word and he came back to life. And something came to life in the spirit of all who believed in Jesus at that moment. The offence of Adam resulted in a mindset of separation from God for all of mankind and that is the pain that every human soul suffers throughout life. Spiritual death is the inner suffering of feeling separated from God. Jesus came to banish the curse of the separation mindset and he bring us into oneness with his life, resurrection life – the joy of the presence of God with us.

Jesus banishes all sense of separation between us and himself in our minds and hearts. There is no more spiritual death and no need to feel separated from the powerful resurrected life of Jesus within us. Jesus waited for his Father to speak from Heaven to call forth human life from Lazarus, and we listen for Jesus to speak from Heaven to call forth his spiritual life from within us. The Holy Spirit helps us pray our heartfelt prayer and Jesus intercedes from his heart and the Father brings about his good and perfect will. No prayer is wasted or discarded. From such a humble and heartfelt prayer healing and salvation for spirit, soul and body flow to us - and through us for others - and nothing is impossible with God.
So bless you all and I just want to pray now that as you go through this week when you feel that inner conflict, that is simply a little signal saying I'd like you closer to me. It's God allowing that to happen because we can't live with an inner peace if we're separated from the source of peace and love. He welcomes us home and it doesn't matter who we are - we say I'd like to be there, and he starts showing you that he is there - it's a miraculous thing. You just know all of a sudden that things change and you say to yourself, that couldn't have been a coincidence – but you think it must have been coincidence, and it happens again and God says that was a God incidence - keep asking and you will receive keep seeking and you will find. We're living in days when God is drawing us closer and closer from his big yes to our yes - as little as it might seem, our little yes, and that just needs to be a ‘thank you Lord for being there’. So thank you Lord for being with us this morning and drawing us closer to you. You are the resurrection and the life, and you live within us. Amen