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 in 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” (John 11: 11-16).
How blessed we are when we walk closely with
Jesus. As we spend time with Him, listening to His voice through His word and
sharing our heart with Him in prayer Jesus reveals Himself to us. The Holy
Spirit attracts us to Him and we begin to think and feel like He does. We
become more like Him… “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the
glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of
glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2
Corinthians 3:18). Jesus called those who had left the crowd of
followers and had drawn close to Him disciples. They walked with Him from the
crowds in Judea, across the Jordan River, and shared in His ministry among the
Gentiles east of the river. They were with Him when He got the news that His
good friend Lazarus was ill. They were encouraged when He told them that
Lazarus was merely sleeping. They were shocked when He explained that Lazarus
was dead and that He was glad He was not there when his friend died. He was
sharing His perspective about death with these struggling disciples. Thomas’
hasty declaration, “Let us also go, that we may die with him”,
showed that they did not get the message Jesus was trying to convey about death.
His disciples believed that all that awaited them in Judea was death. They
believed Lazarus was dead and that Jesus and themselves would soon join him in
death at the hands of the angry Jewish elders. They believed that traveling to
Judea would culminate in the end of Jesus’ ministry and the end of their
relationship with Him. But the Christ was about to show His disciples that from
His perspective, death was merely sleep. This journey to Judea would not end in
death, but it would climax in a glorious victory of life over death that would
confirm that Jesus is the Christ and would convince the disciples and many
others that death is not the end of our story.
We all
face death. We cannot escape it. From the moment we are born our natural bodies
are progressing toward death. But the end of our physical life is only one form
of death. There is the death of a relationship or a friendship that was caused
purposely by some sin or unintentionally by some uncontrollable circumstance.
Many of us have experienced the death of a career, a ministry, a vision, or a
dream. In all these forms of death we can be fooled into believing that death
had the final say. We are vulnerable to the lie that because death so abruptly interrupts
and terminates our well planned lives, death always seems to win. But Jesus
Christ does not see death from our perspective. Our eyes, minds, and hearts see
from a perspective that is clouded by the limits of this natural world… “For
now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I
shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Jesus wants His disciples to see and live life as He does, from an eternal
perspective. He wants us to see through and beyond the death-provoking trials
of this temporary life… “For this light momentary affliction is preparing
for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the
things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are
seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians
4:17-18). From God’s heavenly perspective, death is a part of life. It
is through death that broken, corrupt things receive new, glorious life… “What
you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Corinthians 15:36).
Jesus used the same illustration to preview the glory of His own death and resurrection…
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I
say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains
alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:23-24). In Christ,
death is often God’s way of changing our lives for the better. The disciples
who willingly followed Jesus to the tomb of His friend Lazarus would soon witness
this truth in action.
As we grow
up into Christ we can live victoriously here because He has shown us that…
Death is Not the End of Our Story.
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