Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that! was not there
I.
THE SAVIOUR IS ALWAYS ALIVE TO THE WELFARE OF HIS PEOPLE--“for your sakes.” Here is love beyond compare. Is He abased? “For our sakes He became poor.” Does He suffer? “He bears our sorrows, and for us He dies.” Does He go away? “It is expedient for us.” Does He appear in heaven? Still it is for us. Other people are the subjects of His providence; but His people are the end of it.
II. THERE IS NOTHING HE IS SO CONCERNED TO PROMOTE AS THEIR FAITH--“that ye may believe.” From this learn
1. That faith is no easy matter. Where is the Christian that has not often cried, “Help Thou mine unbelief.” The difficulty of believing may be seen by the means here employed to promote it, and from the persons for whom He wishes it--those who had been with Him and seen His miracles.
2. That faith admits of increase. The disciples believed, or they would not have followed Him, but they did not believe enough. Faith at one time is like a mustard seed, at another like a mustard tree. The blade may do very well in March, but we expect the full corn in August.
3. The importance of faith. Some persons are afraid to say much about faith, as if it were prejudicial to morality, whereas it is the tree which bears all the fruits of holiness. Everything in the Christian life has to do with faith. God is glorified by faith, we are filled with joy and peace, sanctified, purified, by faith; we stand, walk, live, and have access to God by faith, and that this may not fail Christ prays. Hence its importance here.
III. HE CAN ACCOMPLISH THE PURPOSES OF HIS LOVE BY WAYS PECULIAR TO HIMSELF. They would have said He ought to have been there. The sisters expected this. But His absence was to show that His ways were superior to theirs. The case of Joseph, Job, and the Three Children seemed very hard, but what advantage the world has derived from them! When, therefore, your views and His do not seem to harmonize, remember that He acts sovereignly, not arbitrarily; but “He gives no account of His matters.” Suspend your opinions. Never set His sun by your dial, but the reverse. You can see His heart if you cannot see His hand. Where? At Calvary. “He that spared not His own Son,” etc. Alphonsus, of Castile, thought that if the Maker of the world had applied to him he could have given Him good advice. But do you not think the same about the God of Providence? “Blind unbelief is sure to err.” If you see not now you will see hereafter. Ought you to judge of a building while all the materials are scattered about, especially if you had never seen the plan? Judge nothing before the time. The saints above shout, “He hath done all things well.”
IV. THE SUFFERINGS OF SOME ARE DESIGNED FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS. Sometimes persons are afflicted by way of
1. Correction. “If His children forsake My law,” etc.
2. Prevention. Paul was buffeted not because he was proud, but “lest he should be exalted.”
3. Probation. Hence afflictions are called trials.
4. Usefulness to themselves and others. Ezekiel was forbidden to weep when the desire of his eyes was taken from him; not on his own account, but that he might be a “sign.” So Lazarus dies and the sisters weep for the disciples’ sake.
V. THE SAVIOUR IS NEVER TOO LATE IN HIS MOVEMENTS OR TOO CONFIDENT IN HIS RESOURCES. We often begin what we are not able to finish. Then there are different degrees of weakness and strength amongst us, but God has all power, “Nevertheless, let us go to Him,” not them. Why? It is too late, he is dead. “It may be too late for you, but not for Me.” Your extremity is My opportunity. I love not only to do what is needful for My people, but to surprise them; to do above all they can ask or think. It were much to have comforted the sisters, how much more to raise the brother! Let us learn to confide in Him
1. With regard to ourselves. Sinner, your case is desperate as to all relief from men or angels, yet that is no reason why you should despair. He is nigh.
2. With regard to others. Our work is hard, but we can do all things if the Raiser of Lazarus strengthens us. (W. Jay.)
The dark enigma of death
The man Jesus loved lay there on his bed dying. Now, I emphasize that, because there used to be a great deal of thinking about God’s relation to those that love Him and whom He loves--a great deal of teaching in the Christian Church that counted itself mostorthodox, and which was, indeed, deadly heresy, coarse, materialistic, despicable, misunderstanding the ideal grandeur of the Bible promises. Some of you know the sort of thing that used to prevail--the idea that God’s saints should be exceptionally favoured, the sun would shine on their plot of corn, and it would not shine on the plot of corn of the bad man; their ships would not sink at sea, their children would not catch infectious diseases, God would pamper them, exempt them from bearing their part in the world’s great battle, with hardness and toil of labour, with struggle and attainment and achievement. It came of a very despicable conception of what a father can do for a child, as if the best thing for a father to do for his son was to pet and indulge him, and save him all bodily struggle and all difficulties, instead of giving him a life of discipline. As if a general in the army would, because of his faltering heart, refuse to let his son take the post of danger, as if he would not rather wish for that son--ay, with a great pang in his own soul--that he should be the bravest, the most daring, the one most exposed to the deadliest hazard. Ah, we have got to recognize that we whom God loves may be sick and dying, and yet God does love us. Lazarus was loved by Jesus, yet he whom Jesus loved was sick and dying. Ah, and there is a still more poisonous difficulty in that materialistic, that worldly way of looking at God’s love; that horrible, revolting misjudgment that Christ condemned, crushed with indignation when it confronted Him. “The men on whom the tower of Siloam fell must have been sinners worse than us on whom it did not fall.” Never, never! The great government of the world is not made up of patches and strokes of anger and outbursts of weak indulgence. The world is God’s great workshop, God’s great battlefield. These have their places. Here a storm of bullets fall, and brave and good men as well as cowards fall before it. You mistake if you try to forestall God’s judgments, God’s verdict on the last great day of reckoning. Still we have got the fact that Christ does not interpose to prevent death, that Christ does not hinder those dearest to Him from bearing their share of life’s sicknesses and sufferings, that God Himself suffers death to go on, apparently wielding an undisputed sway over human existence. Is not that true of our world today? The best of you Christians, when death comes to your own homes, do you manage to sing the songs of triumph right away? Well, you are very wonderful saints if you do. If you do not, perhaps you say, “If God is in this world, how comes that dark enigma of death?” And others of you grip hold of your faith, but yet your heart cries out against it. You believe that God is good, but has He been quite good to you? Like Martha, you feel as if you had some doubt; you feel bound in your prayers; you say, “O God, I do not mean to reproach Thee;” weak, sinful, if you will, yet the sign of a true follower of the Christ. And then the enemies of Christ, the worldlings all about in this earth of ours, as they look upon death’s ravages, they are saying: “If there were a God, if there were a Father, if there were a great heart that could love, why does not He show it?” Now, I said to you that at first it looks as if nothing but evil came of God’s delay to interpose against death; but when you look a little deeper, I think you begin to discover an infinitely greater good and benefit come out of that evil. I must very briefly, very rapidly, trace to you in the story, and you can parallel it in the life of yourselves, that discipline of goodness there is in God’s refraining from checking sickness and death. Christ said the end of it is first of all death, but that is not the termination. Through death this sickness, this struggle of doubt and faith, should end in the glory of God. That tremendous miracle compelled the rulers of Jerusalem to resolve on and carry out His death. That miracle of Lazarus’s resurrection gave to the faith of the disciples and of Christ’s followers a strength of clinging attachment that carried them through the eclipse of their belief when they saw Him die on Calvary. Now, what would you say? Was it cruel of Christ to allow His friend Lazarus, His dear friends Mary and Martha, to go through that period of suspense, of anxiety, of sickness, of death, and of the grave, that they might do one of the great deeds in bringing in the world’s Redeemer “Ah” you say “you have still got to show God’s goodness and kindness to me individually. My death may be for God’s glory, it may be for the good of others; but how about me and those who mourn?” Well, now, look at it. You must get to the end of the story before you venture to judge the measure, the worth of God’s goodness. After all, was that period of sickness and death unmitigated gloom, and horror, and agony? Oh, I put it to you, men and women, who have passed through it, watching by the death of dear father or mother that loved the Lord and loved you, and whom you loved--dark, and sore, and painful enough at the time; but oh, if I called you to speak out, would you not say it was one of the most sacred periods of your life--the unspeakable tenderness, the sweet, clinging love, the untiring service, the grateful responses, the sacredness that came into life? Ay, and when the tie was snapped, the new tenderness that you gave to the friends that are left, the new pledge binding you to heaven, and to hope for it, and long for it--death is not all an evil to our eyes. Death cannot ultimately be an evil, since it is universal--the consummation, climax, crown, of every human life. It is going home to one’s Father. Yes, but you want the guarantee that death is not the end, and that day it was right and lawful for Christ to give it to anticipate the last great day, when in one unbroken army, radiant and resplendent, shining like jewels in a crown, He shall bring from the dark grave all that loved Him, fought for Him, and were loyal to Him on the road, and went down into the dark waters singly one by one, in circumstances of ignominy often, and yet dying with Christ within them, the Resurrection and the Life. Ah, that great grand vindication of God and interpretation of this world’s enigma was made clear that day when Christ called Lazarus back and gave him alive to his sisters in the sight of His doubting disciples, in the sight of those sneering enemies. (W. G.Elmslie, D. D.)
Lazarus dead and Jesus glad
What strange paradox is here. There was room in Christ’s heart for both emotions. The grief belonged to the Brother born for our adversity; the gladness to the omniscient God who sees the end from the be ginning, Note
I. THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST WITH HIS PEOPLE. Somewhat analogous to the sympathy of the several organs of a living frame. Such is the vital union that every wound inflicted on the members pierces with pain the Head. He “knew the sorrows” of Israel in Egypt, and now He felt the grief which was rending the household at Bethany. By a message, Jesus and His disciples had learned that Lazarus was sick; but the Head, being in closer communion with the member, had secret and better intelligence. The dying throb of Lazarus beat also in the heart of Jesus. “Lo, I am with you alway,” in the dark days of pain as in the bright days of joy.
II. CHRIST HEARS THE CRY OF HIS PEOPLE AND SENDS THEM HELP. They were right in saying, “If Thou hadst been here.” He cannot endure to hear the prayer of His people and permanently to deny their request. Hence He could not remain in visible presence with His followers. It became expedient for Him to go away, permitting multitudes of His friends to sicken and die preparatory to a glorious resurrection.
III. ALIKE CHRIST’S ACTIONS AND EMOTIONS CONTEMPLATE THE PROFIT OF HIS PEOPLE. If He remained distant while Lazarus was battling with death it was for your sakes. If He rejoiced in the immediate issue of that unequal conflict, it was for your sakes. All things are for your sakes. In this case it was that they might believe. The death of Lazarus afforded opportunity for the display of omnipotence, thereby to confirm the disciples’ faith. But other benefits followed. The discipline the bereaved family endured was a means of purging away their dross. Application: The lesson bears on
1. The ordinary affairs of life. You try to obtain a lawful object in a lawful way, but your plans miscarry. This, however, does not prove that Christ lacks the will or power to help. Had He been in visible presence He would have put forth His power, but He is glad for your sake He was not. From the height of His throne He sees that the world on your side at this point would not be profitable for you.
2. Bereavements. “if Christ were standing weeping by the bed your child would not die, but for your sake He is not there. A mother who had lost all her children but the youngest said, “Every bereavement has knit me closer to Christ, and every child I have in heaven is another cord to hold me up”:--(W. Arnot, D. D.)
A mystery! Saints sorrowing and Jesus glad
Jesus was glad that the trial had come.
I. FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF THE FAITH OF THE APOSTLES.
1. The trial itself would do this. Faith untried may be true faith, but it is sure to be little faith. It never prospers so much as when all things are against it. No flowers wear so lovely a blue as those which grow at the feet of the frozen glacier; no water so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand.
(1) Tried faith brings experience, and experience makes religion more real. You never know your weakness nor God’s strength till you have been in the deep waters.
(2) Trial removes many of the impediments of faith. Carnal security is the worst foe to confidence in God, and blessed is the axe that removes it. The balloon never rises until the cords are cut.
(3) Affliction helps faith when it exposes the weakness of the creature. This trial would show the apostles not to depend on the bounty of any one man, for though Lazarus entertained them, Lazarus had died. We are in danger of making idols of our mercies.
(4) Trial drives faith to God. When the world’s wells are full of sweet but poisonous water we pitch our tents at the well’s mouth; but when earth’s water becomes bitter we turn away sick and faint and cry for the water of life.
(5) Trial has a hardening effect on faith. As the Spartan boys were prepared for fighting by the sharp discipline of their boyish days, so are God’s servants trained for war by the affliction which He sends upon them. We must be thrown into the water to learn to swim. If you want to ruin your child, let him never know a hardship.
2. The deliverance of Lazarus would do this.
(1) At the worst Christ can work; in the very worst He is not brought to a nonplus. The physician, Herod, Caesar, and all their power can do nothing here; and Death sits smiling as he says, “I have Lazarus.” Yet Christ wins the day.
(2) Divine sympathy became most manifest--“Jesus wept.”
(3) Divine power was put forth--“Lazarus, come forth.” All this was the best education the disciples could have for their future ministry. When in prison they would remember how Lazarus was brought out. When preaching to dead sinners they would remember the power of the word which brought Lazarus to life.
II. FOR THE GOOD OF THE FAMILY. The sisters had faith, but it was not very strong, for they doubted both Christ’s love and His power. Because He specially loved these people:
1. He sent them a special trial. The lapidary will not spend much time on an ordinary stone, but a diamond of the first water he will cut and cut again. So the gardener will a choice tree.
2. Special trial was attended with a special visit. Perhaps Christ would not have come to Bethany had not Lazarus died. If you are in trouble Christ will go out of His way to see you.
3. The special visit was attended with special fellowship. Jesus wept with those who wept. You may be well and strong, and have but little fellowship with Christ, but He shall make all your bed in your sickness.
4. And soon you shall have special deliverance.
III. FOR GIVING FAITH TO OTHERS. Afflictions often lead men to faith in Christ because
1. They give space for thought.
2. They prevent sin. A lad had resolved against advice to climb a mountain. A mist soon surrounded him, and compelled him to return. His father was glad because, had he gone a little further, he would have perished.
3. They compel them to stand face to face with stern realities. How often has God’s Spirit wrought in illnesses that have seemed hopeless.
4. They are sometimes followed by great deliverances. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Five paradoxes
I. IN THE LIFE OF AN INTELLIGENT BELIEVER GLADNESS SOMETIMES GROWS OUT OF GRIEF. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus, for it was a personal bereavement, but He was glad because it was a fine opportunity for glorifying God. This is the lowest form of Christian experience. Our light affliction works out an eternal weight of glory, This, understood as a means of exalting God, will enable the believer to glory in tribulations.
II. ONE’S ADVANTAGE IS SOMETIMES HID UNDERNEATH ANOTHER’S TRIALS. It was a surprising thing to announce that He had not intended to prevent Lazarus’s death; but it was still more surprising that it was for their sakes. What had they to do with it? Now, while all believers are independent of each other, and each stands or falls to his own master, yet the trials of one are often intended to benefit another. The law of vicarious suffering holds the race. A parent suffers for a child, a child for a parent. Joseph was sold into Egypt that Israel might go into Palestine. Peter’s imprisonment may have been needed to discipline Rhoda’s faith, and Paul’s confinement may have been ordered for the jailor’s conversion. Let us be resigned, then, when we suffer for others, and attentive when others suffer for us.
III. INCREASE OF A CHRISTIAN’S SORROW SOMETIMES ALLEVIATES IT. In the opinion of the disciples the sickness of Lazarus was a disaster, but the most unfortunate circumstance was the absence of Jesus. But a strange comfort now entered their hearts. They were worse off than they supposed, but they were better off, too. Up to this disclosure the event was a hard calamity of domestic life, and Jesus’ absence a melancholy accident. But now they perceived that Divine knowledge embraced this also, Divine wisdom was dealing with it, and Divine mercy was going to turn it to fine advantage. A great sorrow with a purpose in it is easier to bear than a smaller one which seems to have no aim now and no benefit hereafter.
IV. IN THE TRUE BELIEVER’S EXPERIENCE DOUBT IS SOMETIMES EMPLOYED TO DEEPEN TRUST. The one simple intention of this bereavement was to increase the faith of those who felt it. This was accomplished by permitting them to imagine for a while that they were forgotten of God. Just as a mother hides herself from a child who has grown careless of her presence that the child may run impulsively into her embrace and love her all the more, so God says, “In a little wrath I hid My face,” etc. The way to render faith confident is to make large demands upon it by onsets of trying doubt.
V. ABSOLUTE HOPELESSNESS AND HELPLESSNESS ARE THE CONDITIONS OF HOPE AND HELP. The turning point of the story is in the “nevertheless let us go,” and He goes to work His most stupendous miracle to remedy what His delay had permitted. By this time the sisters had given up all hope; but Hope was on the way. So one after another of our props must drop away, till at last we are shut up to God. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Death knocking away our props
“See, father!” said a lad who was walking with his father, “they are knocking away the props from under the bridge. What are they doing that for? Won’t the bridge fall?” “They are knocking them away,” said the father, “that the timbers may rest more firmly upon the stone piers, which are now finished.” God only takes away our earthly props that we may rest more firmly upon Him.
The uses of bereavement
When engineers would bridge a stream, they often carry over at first but a single cord; with that, next they stretch a wire across; then strand is added to strand, until a foundation is laid for planks; and now the bold engineer finds safe footway, and walks from side to side. So God takes from us some golden-threaded pleasure, and stretches it hence into heaven; then He takes a child, and then a friend: thus He bridges death, and teaches the thoughts of the most timid to find their way hither and thither between the shores. (H. W. Beecher.)
Build beyond the reach of death
Build your nest upon no tree here, for ye see God hath sold the forest to Death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end that we might flee and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. (S. Rutherford.)
Relief under bereavement
1. There are reliefs arising from our constitution. There is a self-healing principle in nature. Break a branch from a tree, etc., wound the body, cut the flesh, or break a limb, and you see the self-healing power exude and work. It is so in the soul. Thought succeeds thought like the waves of the ocean, and each tends to wear out the impression its predecessor had made.
2. There are incidental reliefs. New events, new engagements, new relationships, tend to heal the wound.
3. There are Christian reliefs, the assurance of after life, the hope of a future reunion, etc. Such are the reliefs. These, like the flowers and shrubs of a lovely garden, spring up around our hearts and cover the grave of our sorrows and trials with the shadow of their foliage. Yes; though we have our trials, we have still our blessings.
