Meditation on John 11:1-45
April 6, 2014
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of
Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with
perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So
the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is
ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to
death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified
through it.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days
longer in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to the disciples,
‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews
were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus
answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the
day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those
who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’
After saying this, Jesus told them, ‘Our
friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The
disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all
right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they
thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them
plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so
that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the
Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with
him.’
When Jesus arrived, he found that
Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was
near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to
Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard
that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at
home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would
not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask
of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha
said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last
day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those
who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives
and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him,
‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one
coming into the world.’
When she had said this, she went back and called
her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling
for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to
him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place
where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling
her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought
that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
When Mary came where Jesus was and saw
him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my
brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who
came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply
moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come
and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved
him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the
blind man have kept this man from dying?’
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to
the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said,
‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord,
already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus
said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory
of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said,
‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me,
but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may
believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud
voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet
bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to
them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come
with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
***
I have to confess, I like calendars! I have
quite a few.
My obsession isn’t
with knowing the date or making sure I am keeping to my schedule. I like the pictures
that go with each month – and the anticipation that every time we finish a
month, I turn the page and see a new photo, perhaps one more beautiful or
interesting than the last.
Calendars with
pictures of animals in the wild or breathtaking scenes from nature are my
favorite. They never fail to lift my spirits and draw my attention to our
awesome Creator!
As we finished
March last week, I turned the page of my American Museum of Natural History
calendar and was thrilled with the photo for April. A ruby-throated hummingbird
hovers over a mass of red flowers. My first thought was, “Wow! How lovely!” And
my second was, “Where was this photographer that he saw flowers and
hummingbirds in April? Definitely not in Minnesota!”
The photo reminded
me of the warmth of summer and filling the plastic red and yellow hummingbird
feeder with red sugar water —and sometimes looking out my window at just the
right moment to catch an occasional hummingbird visitor, hovering and sipping
for just a little while, before zipping off to another feeding place.
The day I first admired
my hummingbird photo, I discovered an article online from Voice of America called, “Birds of a Feather, Hummingbird Family
Tree Unveiled.” I was impressed to read that hummingbirds are the smallest
birds and the smallest warm-blooded animals on Earth. They have the fastest
heart rate and fastest metabolism of any vertebrate—so fast that they have to
constantly feed on nectar and small insects, or they will starve to death. They
are the only birds that can fly backward! And it’s their wings that make the
humming sound. The largest variety—the giant hummingbird of South America—is 8
inches long and flaps its wings 15 times per second, while the smallest
variety—the bee hummingbird of Cuba—is only 2 inches long and flaps its wings
80 times per second!
The main point of
the article was a recent study that showed the hummingbird’s complicated
evolutional history. Researchers have constructed a hummingbird family tree
using genetic information from most of the world’s 338 species. They have traced the common ancestor of every
species of hummingbird in existence today to a bird living 22 million years ago
in South America. Fossils have led them
to believe that this South American bird is related to a group of small birds
called swifts that lived in Europe or Asia about 42 million years ago, but
somehow found its way to South America. [1]
Today, hummingbirds only live in North, South and Central America.
Christopher Witt,
a New Mexico ornithologist, says scientists don’t know when the European
species died out because the fossil record is so poor. It could be 30 million
years or a thousand years ago.
I finished the
article and looked back up at the photo of the elegant, ruby-throated hummingbird
on my home office wall—and I praised the Lord for His magnificent Creation that
still remains so much of a mystery to us, no matter how hard we try to figure
it out, often without giving God the glory. I marveled at the hummingbird’s
survival for so many centuries, despite its size and metabolism that requires
the bird to continually feed on God’s creation—or die.
***
Our gospel today
tells of Jesus healing his friend, Lazarus, brother to Mary and Martha, but
waiting several days after hearing of his illness before beginning the trip to Lazarus’
home in Bethany. The reason for delay, Jesus says, is for “God’s glory, so that
the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
But the disciples
cannot understand why Jesus would want to leave the wilderness and the Jordan
River where John had baptized, since Jesus had fled there after narrowly escaping
stoning in Jerusalem. He had angered the Jews by saying, “The works that I do
in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not
belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I
give them eternal life and they will never perish.” Many people came to Jesus
in the wilderness and went away believers, saying “everything that John said
about this man was true.”
The disciples are amazed and dismayed at
Jesus’ announcement that it’s time to go to Lazarus—after he has died! Thomas
says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him!”
Jesus has another
sign to reveal, one greater than all of his miracles so far, to lead his
disciples to believe that he is the Messiah, the Son of God. But even knowing
what will happen, that Lazarus will be raised from the dead, Jesus is still
moved at the sight of his beloved friends, Mary and Martha, crying. Even knowing
all things past, present and future, Jesus began to weep. Greatly disturbed, he
goes to the tomb, where there is the stench of a man already dead four days.
Jesus says, “Take away the stone!”
Lazarus will live again!
***
Friends, we mourn
the loss of loved ones. We struggle with illness or disease and suffer with our
loved ones when they struggle with illness and disease. But as we cry out to
the Lord for His healing and comfort— as He urges us to do—we can be sure that Jesus
weeps along with us, just as He wept with Mary and Martha who grieved the loss
of their brother.
We can trust in God’s loving care for all His
creatures. We can trust in our merciful and compassionate Lord, who surely loves
those who were fashioned in His image even more than the beautiful hummingbird,
the smallest bird on Earth, needing to continually feed on God’s creation—or
die.
Brothers and
sisters, our Savior has conquered death! We have no reason to fear!
Our Redeemer offers eternal life to all His
sheep that hear his voice—and follow after Him.
We can trust in our Lord who weeps with us
when we suffer and grieve, and hears our prayers for healing. The one who wept with Mary and Martha, all the
while knowing that he would cry out, “Take away the stone!”
And Lazarus would live again!
Let us pray.
Holy One, we praise you for your magnificent Creation—for
your loving care for all your creatures great and small—even as small as the
tiny hummingbird who continually relies on your provision. We thank you for
loving us so much that you were willing to suffer and die so we would not
perish in our sins. Thank you for hearing our prayers for healing and offering
the gift of eternal life to all your sheep that hear your voice and follow
after you. Forgive us for our many sins, for all the times we have failed to
trust in you—for when we have not listened to your voice and have chosen to
disobey. Lead us to praise and follow you all of our days and to be a witness
to the world of your everlasting glory and healing love. In Christ we pray.
Amen.
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