Sickness and Death for the Glory of God

John 11:1-16

Why do people get sick and die? That is one of the great questions of mankind, and something everyone has questioned God about on occasion. “Lord, why did you let me get sick?” or “”Lord, why did you let my loved one die?”

None of us like getting sick, unless of course it is just sick enough to have a legitimate excuse to avoid something you do not like such as a particular meeting or taking a test, but not so sick you are miserable. We all understand that sickness and disease are our enemies. That is why we work hard to avoid getting sick and work even harder trying to recover if we do get sick.

As I explained when we looked at the man born blind in John 9, the common view among the Jews of that day was that any physical disease or handicap was caused by sin, usually that of the afflicted individual. In case of the man born blind the disciples asked (John 9:2), “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus took that opportunity to answer their theological dilemma by correcting their false premise (John 9:3), Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”

This morning we are going to see an expansion of this idea as we see God’s working in the case of Lazarus. God is wise enough and powerful enough and loving enough to use things like disease and death to bring glory to Himself, regardless of whether the cause is the individual’s sin, someone’s sin or just the consequences of living in a sinful world.

Please open your Bibles to John 11. Most of you know this story well; but, I hope you’ll give careful attention to God’s Word today. This is an amazing chapter. It is the account of the miracle of our Lord raising Lazarus from the dead. Today we’re only taking on the first 16 verses because there are truths so massive here that we must take time to see them.

John 11:1-16

1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3 Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” 4 When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.

7 Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to Him, “Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”

11 These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” 12 Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” 13 However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.” 16 Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”

At the end of John 10 Jesus had left Jerusalem and was ministering across the Jordan River, where John was at first baptizing (John 10:40). Because Jesus had claimed that He was the Son of God (John 10:36) and said, “I and My Father are one,” the Jews in Jerusalem were seeking to kill Him.

John 11:1-3 lays out for us:

The Situation — “he whom You love is sick” (John 11:1-3)

John 11:1 takes us to the village of Bethany, only about two miles from Jerusalem on the east side of the Mount of Olives. This family of Lazarus, Martha and Mary are good friends and disciples of Jesus. Martha had welcomed Jesus into her house and served the meal while Jesus taught in her home (Luke 10:38f). John makes sure the readers understand exactly whom he was talking about for Lazarus (short for Eleazar) and Mary were common names. This is specifically the Lazarus of Bethany and his sisters including that particular Mary that anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume and wiped them with her hair (John 12:3).

We do not know what sickness Lazarus had, but it was serious enough for his sisters to send a messenger to let Jesus know about it. Where Jesus was beyond the Jordan is more than 20 miles from Bethany in Judea. So it would have been more than a day for a messenger to get there. The sisters do not demand anything of Jesus, but simply let Him know that Lazarus, “whom you love is sick.” They rest completely in the knowledge that Jesus will do what is right because of His love for them.

Perhaps this is the first lesson for us in this chapter. For most of us, if someone we love is sick, our tendency is to complain and demand. Often that tendency is even stronger if we are the one sick. They simply informed Jesus and left it in His hands.

Look at their request. First, they addressed Jesus as “Lord.” Sometimes this title means the equivalent of “sir”, but since they are good friends with Jesus I think this indicates an acknowledgement that Jesus is the Lord, the Messiah. Martha will confess that very thing in John 11:27, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” Jesus is the Lord, the promised anointed one, God in human flesh, who is fully capable of healing Lazarus.

That is the best place to start when making an appeal to God. Recognize first and foremost to whom you are bringing your request and His capability in dealing with whatever problem you may be facing. God does not exist for our pleasure. He is the Creator who brought us into existence for His own purposes. Therefore, we ought to approach Him with a proper reverence toward Him and submission to Him. Mary and Martha indicate this by addressing Jesus as Lord.

Secondly, they recognize Jesus’ love for them and they make their appeal based on that love. They have a confidence that they can trust Jesus. They do not tell Him what to do or how to do it. They simply let Him know the situation with a full expectation that Jesus will respond to the information they sent and act in accordance to His love for them. “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”

We can come to God the same way. The Lord does not need us to tell Him what to do and how to do it. We need only let Him know of our need. He will care for us. He is the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep (John 10:11-14).

Jesus’ Response — “for the glory of God” (John 11:4)

Jesus initial response and the message that would have gone back by the messenger to Martha and Mary is recorded in verse 4, When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Our Lord’s words are very carefully chosen. Jesus is not assuring these women that Lazarus won’t die, although that is probably how they understood it. He is assuring them that death will not be the end of the matter. He is also informing them that this crisis has a divinely-intended purpose—to bring glory to God the Father through the glorification of the Son of God.

We saw the same thing with the man born blind (9:3), “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Does it shock you that God would allow a man to be born blind and live many years in that condition so that God would receive glory through his eventual healing? What about God taking all ten of a man’s children, all of his material possessions, and his health, so that God would be vindicated before Satan and the angels? That’s the story of Job.

If that sort of thing bothers you, then you don’t have a big enough view of God. That was the answer that God finally gave to Job: for several chapters God hits Job with questions like (Job 38:4), “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” And (Job 40:2), “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” Job’s final reply was (Job 42:6), “Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Although Job was the most righteous man on earth in his day, he had to learn that God’s glory and God’s purpose was far greater than any suffering or loss that Job endured. John Piper (desiringGod.org, “This Illness is for the Glory of God”) writes:

Love means giving us what we need most. And what we need most is not healing, but a full and endless experience of the glory of God. Love means giving us what will bring us the fullest and longest joy. And what is that? … The answer of [John 11:4] is clear: a revelation to your soul of the glory of God—seeing and admiring and marveling at and savoring the glory [of] God in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is fully aware of what the future will hold and why things happen as they do. He knew that Lazarus was going to die and then He would raise Him from the dead and through that the Father and the Son would be glorified. But as we will see in the rest of the account, no one—not the sisters nor the disciples—would have guessed what Jesus was going to do.

Jesus’ Love – John 11:5

Three times here John either directly or indirectly emphasizes the close, loving relationship that Jesus had with these three. In verse 2 John identified Mary as the one who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair. Mary’s anointing the Lord showed her love for Him and Jesus’ tender feelings for her. Also, in John 11:3, the messenger reports to Jesus, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” And now John adds (John 11:5), “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

John uses a different word for love here (agapao). Jesus had much more than just fond feelings of affection. He had the committed love that will sacrifice itself for the best interest of those so loved. That is the same love that He has for us. We do not always understand what God is doing or why, much like a child does not understand the love and actions of parents. But just because we do not understand what God is doing, does not mean that He does not love us.

Jesus’ Delay – John 11:6

How does Jesus act in love in the case of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus? He delays (John 11:6), So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. This seems incredible to us, doesn’t it? If Jesus loved them so much, why didn’t He go to them right away and heal Lazarus? Or since Jesus can heal from a distance as demonstrated early in His ministry with the Galilean official’s son in John 4:46-54, why not just command Lazarus to be healed from where He was then?

But Jesus does neither of those things. Instead He stayed where He was for two days longer. And the text indicates that the reason He waited was because He loved them. John 11:6 begins, “So,” it’s a conjunction that indicates that something follows from another necessarily. It means “therefore.” Jesus loved them, therefore He waited. He delayed because He loved them. John is saying that Jesus’ special love for these three was His reason for letting them suffer. His love did what was best for them.

I am sure that Jesus’ delay didn’t immediately feel like love to Mary and Martha, much less to Lazarus. We don’t know the cause of Lazarus’ death, but it probably involved pain and discomfort. The sisters helplessly watched their beloved brother go downhill. But their suffering did not mean that Jesus did not love them, but the reverse: He loved them, so He stayed two days longer where He was.

What has been your response when you have not understood what God was doing and tragedies have overtaken you that do not make sense and you know could have been avoided? Has God lost control? Was He indifferent to you? Has He left you alone? Is He Cruel? The answer is No, No, No, and NO! God loves you. The Bible is clear that the godly suffer and their suffering is not due to a lack of faith or to the lack of God’s love for them.

After the two days delay we find Jesus decides to,

Return to Judea — “Let us go to Judea again.” (John 11:7-10)

7 Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to Him, “Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?” 9

Now Jesus calls on His disciples to go back with Him to Judea (John 11:7). Jesus’ disciples are baffled! They question the wisdom of Jesus’ plans, “Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?” (John 11:8). They are fully aware of the danger of going to Judea where the Jewish leaders are seeking to kill Jesus.

Jesus answers in John 11:9-10 with are figures of speech that to illustrate a beautiful and comforting spiritual truth. Jesus has used this figure of speech before in John 9:4, so the disciples should have understood it. Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” The light of day refers to the length of life. We walk and work while we have light, while we have life. When death comes there is no more light in the life and the work ceases. Jesus was going back to Judea where people were seeking to kill Him, but Jesus’ work would not be over until the full length of day (length of life) the Father had determined for Him would end, and this was not that time. Jesus is not fearful of the danger in Judea. The disciples need not worry.

When Jesus waited for the Father’s timing, He walked in the light and led His followers through the danger in the light. If He had started back for Bethany as soon as He heard He would have been walking in darkness because it wasn’t God’s time yet.

This is a great example for us. For us it’s a little different. What we must seek to do is walk in the light of God’s Word. When we live our lives in accordance with God’s Word, we are walking in the light.

(1 John 1:5-7) 5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

(Psalm 119:105) Your word [is] a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

That is a confidence that you can also have, even though you do not have the knowledge like Jesus did of the length of your life. The confidence is that if we walk with the Lord, in His light, according to His word, we will not stumble.

Finally we see in John 11:11-15,

A Purpose in Lazarus’ Death – John 11:11-15

Jesus was now more direct with the disciples about the reason for His return to Judea (John 11:11), “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” The scriptures often uses the euphemism of sleep to represent death (Dan. 12:2; Acts 7:60; 1 Cor. 18:15; 1 Thess. 4:14, etc.). But the disciples did not understand the euphemism of sleep that He used for Lazarus’ death.

So Jesus is even more direct with them in John 11:14 telling them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, but He adds (John 11:15), “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.” Jesus is starting to explain to the disciples why He did not go earlier and the purpose for Lazarus’ death. Back in John 11:4 it was for “the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Now we see how God will be glorified. It will be when Jesus “wakes him” from the sleep of death. And it will be for the purpose that they may believe.

What did He want them to believe? That He is the Christ, the Son of God (John 20:31). They had seen Jesus do many miracles including raising people from the dead before (Luke 7:14-15), but this miracle would both be dramatic and involve someone they knew. By the time of their arrival, Lazarus would have been dead four days and his body would have begun to stink from the decay. In the earlier resurrections that Jesus had performed, the individuals had been dead only a very short time, so it could be claimed that the person was just asleep or in a coma and just been awaked by Jesus. In the case of Lazarus, that would not be possible. Their noses would confirm the reality that Lazarus had died. Raising Lazarus from the dead would be for the glory of God and the Son and the benefit of the disciples and others who would be encouraged in their belief in Jesus.

Thomas’ Pessimism – John 11:16

Yet, even after being so direct, the disciples did not really understand what was going to happen. Verse 16 adds, Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”

Thomas is the disciple who is both devoted and despondent. He is completely committed to the Lord. His first thoughts are not of Lazarus or himself, but of the danger the Lord would face in Judea. In his devotion to Jesus he proclaims his courage in being willing to die with Jesus, but in saying that he also shows his pessimism.

Sometime we are like that too. We can only see the dark side and expect the worse to happen. Even though we have the benefit of the completed New Testament and know better than even the disciples the loving character and power of Jesus Christ, if we are not careful, we can become gloomy and despairing. That can be especially true when there is sickness, tragedy or death, but we do not yet know what purpose God has in it. Those can be tough times, but that is when faith is most needed.

Thomas did not understand what was going to happen, in fact he expected worse things to occur including the death of Jesus, himself and the other disciples, yet he continued to believe in Jesus.

The ultimate good that we can experience in any situation is to see the glory of God by believing in Jesus, trusting in Him. We all have a belief problem, and that’s ultimately because we have a spiritual vision problem—we don’t see Jesus rightly. So God orchestrates our circumstances to wake us up to the fact that Jesus is better than anything… He’s better than our sin, He’s better than our comfort, He’s even better than our very lives.

Suffering comes to us all and one day if the Lord does not return first, we will all die. But God in His kindness is working in and through all of that to display His glory and to strengthen our faith. So if you haven’t truly believed in Jesus yet, I invite you to do so now; turn from your sin and trust in Christ; see Him as the Lord and Savior that He is. See His great love for you and be changed. Jesus loves us at great cost to Himself, the greatest cost—His very life. And His love shows itself to be true love because it is a love that opens our eyes to His glory and enables our hearts to be eternally satisfied in Him.