Latest / Stornoway Free Church of Scotland - Sermons / Hostility Against Lazarus

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Hostility Against Lazarus · Stornoway Free Church of Scotland - Sermons

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John chapter 12 and that little section verses 9 to 11.
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John 12 at verse 9.
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When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there,
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they came not only on account of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
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So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well,
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because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
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Lazarus is a fascinating figure in John's gospel.
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We're never told much about him.
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We never hear him speak.
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We don't know what he did in life.
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Nothing really out with this short reference in these passages, chapter 11 and 12.
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All we know about him was that he was ill, that he died, that he was buried,
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that he was raised by Jesus, and that he's here sitting at dinner as Jesus is an invited guest in the home.
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We know that he belonged to this family, along with his two sisters,
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who love Jesus and who are very devoted to Jesus in following him and his teaching.
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But that's about it.
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Nothing else about him is recorded, and we don't ever hear anything of by way of a confession or a statement about Jesus,
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nothing about his faith, nothing of that.
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And yet, as you look at John's gospel and the passages referring to Lazarus,
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they really provide a very powerful narrative of Christ's own power and place and person.
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The account we have is a very powerful narrative,
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and the place that Lazarus has in it is absolutely central and crucial to presenting the message that Jesus has,
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and especially of illustrating this message that he said about himself,
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one of the great I am statements in the Gospel of John, here in chapter 11,
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where he says to Lazarus' sister, Martha,
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I am the resurrection and the life.
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Whoever believes in me shall never die.
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Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
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Do you believe this?
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And the raising of Lazarus is really, in a sense, the physical outworking of that statement,
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that Jesus, as the resurrection and the life, gives evidence and credence to that by raising Lazarus from the dead.
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Only somebody who is the resurrection and the life could do such a thing.
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Only somebody who has life in himself greater than the strength of death
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could actually do something like raising Lazarus, bringing him back from the dead.
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Now imagine that you are here at this time, that you were there at this time,
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when all of this excitement was taking place in Jerusalem.
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Not only did this event take place, but it was also approaching the time of the Passover.
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Many, many people have been crowding into Jerusalem from country parts in order to celebrate the Passover.
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And just imagine that you're one of those selected or invited to come and partake of this dinner.
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We told here that they had prepared a dinner for him, for Jesus.
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Martha was serving.
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And Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.
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How many others there were, were not told.
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But just imagine that you're there yourself.
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And imagine looking at Lazarus.
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What would you be thinking?
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What questions would be going through your mind?
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What thoughts would you have as you looked at this man?
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And as you could say assuredly, I know that this man was dead some days ago.
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I know that he was buried.
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I even know where his sepulcher was.
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And here he is at this table with me, eating of this dinner.
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Just imagine the thoughts that would go through your mind, because this is a real event.
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And these people knew that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, as indeed did the authorities themselves, as we'll see in the passage.
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Here's the man who was in his grave days before this.
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And he's now alive.
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And he's sitting here with others partaking of this dinner.
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What an amazing sight.
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What an amazing situation.
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And you can just imagine, as I said, yourself or myself, putting yourself there and somehow trying to imagine looking at Lazarus.
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I'm sure I'm sure I would certainly have my eyes fixed on him, just trying to fathom out what had happened.
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How has this man come to be sitting here at the table with me, having been in a sepulcher not that long ago?
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And, of course, that all points to Jesus himself.
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And what we find here is that there were two reactions to Lazarus sitting here at the table.
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And the two reactions are very clear from the passage.
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Now, it's not surprising that you have, as you find in verse 9 here, a large crowd of the Jews.
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When they learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
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Obviously, the news about this would have spread very quickly.
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And especially with so many people crowding into Jerusalem at this Passover time, the news of this would have really spread.
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You didn't need social media in such a context as that to make the news known.
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It would have passed from person to person very quickly.
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And the news would have spread to such an extent that, are you going to see Lazarus?
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Are you coming to Mary and Martha's house?
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Because Lazarus is going to be there.
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They're going to make a dinner for him.
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And we're just curious to see this man.
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We're curious to see, is it really him?
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Did this really happen?
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And the crowd would make their way to see Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
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Because after all, this, of course, was not an everyday event.
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This was something that the crowds had never witnessed or heard of before.
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And they came just to see Lazarus.
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But that actually led to two reactions, two responses to the whole event.
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And the two responses are, first of all, that some believed when they saw what Jesus did.
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If you go back to chapter 12, verse 9 here, when the large crowd of the Jews learned that he was there,
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they came not only on account of him, but to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
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And so some, when they heard about Jesus having raised Lazarus, they believed in Jesus.
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And we read back in the previous chapter as well that a plot was hatching.
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That started actually before this.
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You can go back as far as chapter 7, and you can see it brewing from there onwards.
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And it reaches its climax of push in Jesus coming to be delivered over, to be crucified.
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But what was happening was that many of them actually came to believe in Jesus himself because of what happened with regard to Lazarus.
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That's what happens with changed lives, really, isn't it?
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One of the things you've seen through social media, through news reports in the election of a potential leader for the country is that a lot of the focus has really gone on to Kate Ford because of her testimony.
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Because she's testifying that Jesus is her Lord and her Savior, that her life was changed by him.
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And therefore, people take note of that.
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And people begin to ask a question, well, what is she really saying?
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A lot of vitriol, as Martin mentioned in prayer, of course, has gone out towards her.
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And that's why we have to pray for her particularly, that God will keep her and God will maintain her in her own strength of faith and of will.
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But, of course, what's attracted people is that here's somebody in public life who actually believes the Bible,
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who actually believes the Bible to be true, who actually believes in this Jesus.
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And these people have been drawn, not necessarily to believe in Jesus, but still drawn nevertheless,
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to try and figure out what is it that moves this woman?
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What is it that makes her life so different?
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Why is she so clearly and obviously certain about what she believes, even though many other people ridicule that?
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What's going on with that?
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And that's why it's important for ourselves, of course, to be lights in the world, as Matthew chapter 5 puts it for us.
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Chapter 5, verse 16.
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Let your light also shine, so shine.
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Before men shine, we saw it not so long ago, that passage.
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Let your light so shine.
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Why does it say so shine?
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Well, in the same way as a lamp shines when it's put on a stand.
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Like that, let your light so shine, so that people may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
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That's the purpose.
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We're not shining to draw attention to ourselves.
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We're not shining so that people will admire our good works and say what good people we are.
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We're shining as lights in the world so that their eye may be drawn to this Christ, the light of the world.
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This man, this savior, this person, this great figure who transforms lives, who changes lives, so that people come to take note of the change in their lives.
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That's the first reaction.
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People believed in Jesus because on account of how many Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
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Second reaction, though, is very different because some actually went to the Pharisees.
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Back in chapter 11 there and verse 45, many of the Jews who came with Mary and seen what he did believed in him,
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but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
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Which is a very different reaction on the part of others who, instead of coming to believe in Jesus,
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actually were siding with the Pharisees, with the religious authorities who were determined to get rid of him.
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They didn't like what they had seen.
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And that's a remarkable statement itself of the hardness and of the sinfulness of the human heart.
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That you could actually know that Jesus had raised this man from the dead.
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That you could have all the evidence you needed.
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That this Lazarus who had been dead was now alive.
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That he had come to be alive by the power of Christ.
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And yet instead of coming, as some did, to believe in Jesus, to give their lives over to him,
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it has the opposite effect, the opposite reaction.
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They want to get rid of him just like the Pharisees and the religious leaders do.
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Now it's always like that, isn't it?
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It's always like that, these divided opinions over Jesus.
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It will always be like that.
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It's been like that since human beings first came out on the side of God all the way through time back to the Old Testament.
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Because you'll find some people and they will simply not be prepared to accept the testimony that's put before them.
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Whether it's in the Bible or in lives that Jesus has changed.
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Here are other people with a divided opinion, a different opinion.
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And you know, it's strange, isn't it, how sometimes the plainer the evidence, the more compelling the evidence,
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the more determined some people are to put it behind them, to stamp it beneath their feet,
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and to go on in unbelief and in resistance to Jesus.
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There's a mystery to that, but it's the mystery of sin.
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It's the mystery of rebelliousness against God.
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And you would imagine that virtually everybody who saw Lazarus and knew that he had been raised from the dead
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and now knew that he was sitting here at a table as a guest at dinner,
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you'd imagine that most people would say, I really need to get to know this Jesus.
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Instead, some were saying, we really need to get rid of this Jesus.
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He's a threat to us.
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He's a threat to what we believe and threat to our authority, as the religious leaders were saying about him.
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And that's, of course, true about Christ all the way through the record you have of his life.
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And it's true even to this day when we find the church and when we find the church's witness in the world.
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Take, for example, the two who were crucified on each side of Jesus, one on each side.
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The two malefactors of criminals.
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One of them accused Jesus, passed things in his teeth, just abused him verbally and said,
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Are you not the Christ?
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Then come down from the cross and save yourself and us.
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Whereas the other one said to him,
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Do you not fear God, seeing we're in the same condemnation?
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And that justly or rightly, but this man has done nothing wrong.
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Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
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You see the difference.
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There's Jesus, the cross in the middle.
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And on each side of him, you might say are representatives of humanity.
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On the one side, rejection.
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Hatred.
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On the other side, knowledge, acceptance.
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This is something I need to accept.
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What's happening, this person, what he's doing.
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And all the way through history, that's what you've got.
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Because the cross divides.
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The cross, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, it divides humanity.
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It divides people.
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And there's a great gulf between faith and unbelief.
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And that's what it is like to this very day.
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Where you find faith and unbelief divided over.
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The very person of Jesus.
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And the death and resurrection of Jesus.
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And I think in these days itself, we've seen.
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That the more evidence is given plainly and tactfully and lovingly of love for Jesus, of faith in Jesus,
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the more virulent opposition and enmity against Jesus comes to the fore.
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Social media is not a place really to have great discussions in any way.
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And in fact, it certainly lends itself, like Twitter or whatever, lends itself just to short, snappy statements,
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which, when they're really negative and critical, they just jump out at you and are very sarcastic and biting and bitter.
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But you can see that the reaction to suggestion, even that Christ is living, that Christ is actually alive, that Christ is one who is worshipped,
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that, well, that's just, to some people, that's just anathema.
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But it proves the point, doesn't it?
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It proves the Bible to be true.
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It proves the record of Scripture that responses to Jesus are divided either against him or for him.
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And it will always be like that to the end of the age.
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So these are two reactions to the raising of Lazarus and to Jesus and what he did.
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And then there's the plan here to kill Lazarus.
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So you go back to chapter 11, verses 50 to 53, you can see there the high priest, Caiaphas, he says to the people,
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you don't understand, it's better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.
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He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year,
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he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only.
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And, of course, the fear was, as it's saying there in verse 48,
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if we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him,
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and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.
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We're just going to lose everything.
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The Romans will take over completely, is what they were saying.
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And as Caiaphas said, no, one person, only one person needs to die,
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and that'll be the salvation of the nation.
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That'll be sufficient.
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That'll convince the Romans.
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But, of course, he didn't realize that he was actually speaking a prophecy.
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Without really understanding it, he was actually fitting into the prophecies of the Old Testament,
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that the Messiah would come, and that by his death, salvation would come to human beings like ourselves.
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That's why John is putting it there.
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He doesn't mean that he prophesied in the sense that he knew what he was saying.
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But as John is presenting this to us, he's presenting this as within the greater plan of God.
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This is really how it's worked out.
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So, isn't it really pretty solemn that here's the man Caiaphas, the high priest that year,
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and what he's really saying, really, is that, you know, if we kill Jesus,
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we can be excused to do such a terrible thing because it's going to save the nation.
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As an excuse for you to try and cover up how horrible a thing it is,
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he's contemplating in giving his authority to Jesus being put to death.
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But the reason, that's really the reason that they want to kill Lazarus,
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is because people are going over to this Jesus.
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The authorities can't actually stop people leaving their traditional religion
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and going over to follow Jesus and be his disciples.
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That's what's angering them.
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That's what's really troubling them.
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And they're concerned that this should actually be brought to an end.
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And the only way they can think of bringing it to an end is to just get rid of both of them.
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Let's kill Lazarus as well.
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Let's get Jesus by all means.
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But if we leave Lazarus arrive, he's going to be a thorn in our flesh.
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He's going to keep coming up with this testimony to Jesus.
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He's going to be the very visible evidence of the power of Christ.
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But hostility against Lazarus is ultimately hostility against Christ himself.
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And you know, it's always like that.
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Whenever you find somebody openly Christian, openly professing their Christianity,
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their faith in Christ in a public way,
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opposition to that is not just opposition to that person.
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It's opposition to the person they're testifying to.
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That's the underlying reason why they wanted to put Lazarus to death.
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Because people were going away and were following Jesus.
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They were coming to believe in Jesus.
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Jesus is the problem.
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Jesus is the one that they just cannot stand.
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You can see John 15, if you cast your eye forward for a minute.
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John 15 and verses 18 to 21 connects the two things together.
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Where Jesus is saying to the disciples here in the upper room now,
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If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
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If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
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But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world.
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Remember the world hate.
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Therefore, the world hates you.
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Remember the word that I said to you.
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A servant is not greater than his master.
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If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
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If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.
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But all these things they will do to you on account of my name.
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Because they do not know him who sent me.
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You see what he's linking together there.
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Jesus linking together there.
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The reaction to himself and that of his disciples.
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Well, they're joined together.
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It's essentially the same attitude.
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And it ultimately is against himself.
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They've kept my word.
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So they're going to keep yours also.
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Because they know that you're one of mine.
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That you're my followers.
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That you're concerned to present my words to the world.
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If you go forward to Acts chapter 9, you'll find the same thing.
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Acts chapter 9.
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And these opening verses.
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The famous account that you have there of Saul of Tarsus.
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How he came to faith in Christ.
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The chapter begins.
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And Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
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Went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus.
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And so the narrative goes on.
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And as he was approaching Damascus.
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Suddenly this light from heaven flashed around him.
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Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying.
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Saul, Saul.
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Why are you persecuting me?
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Jesus didn't say to him.
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Saul, why are you persecuting these people?
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Why are you actually causing these people such harm?
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Even to the point of some of them being imprisoned.
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Not even put to death.
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That's not what he said.
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Why are you persecuting me?
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In other words, whenever the world persecutes the church for its testimony to Jesus, it's addressed particularly against Jesus himself.
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That's the underlying cause.
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That's the underlying grit, if you like, that gets in the eye of the world.
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The fact that it's Jesus that's being obeyed.
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Jesus that's being worshipped.
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Jesus that's being presented.
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The claims of Christ over human life presented in the gospel.
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That's what it's about.
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Why are you persecuting me?
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And he said, who are you, Lord?
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And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
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He's making it clear to Saul of Tarsus.
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I'm the one you're getting at, even though you're aiming at my people.
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But you hate them because you hate me.
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And your hatred of me is the reason why you're hating them.
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And that same Paul, of course, as he became Paul in Philippians chapter 3, that wonderful passage of testimony, his own personal testimony, we could take it.
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And what he says in chapter 3, just how things happened in his life, what he was like, what he was brought up as.
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But whatever things were gained to me, I counted as loss for Christ.
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Indeed, I count everything as loss.
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Because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
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For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish.
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In order that I may gain Christ.
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In order that I may be found in him.
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In order that I may know him.
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And the power of his resurrection.
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And may share in his sufferings.
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Why did Paul suffer as he did as a Christian?
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Why did he suffer as an apostle?
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Why did he suffer for preaching the gospel that he preached in all these places?
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Because he was presenting Christ.
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And because the Christ he was presenting was one that Paul was so united to.
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In fact, the same sufferings.
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Christ's essentially were, apart from the fact that Christ were atoning sufferings.
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But sufferings in terms of standing for God.
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Standing for the righteousness of God.
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The commands of God.
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All of these, the same reaction to Paul as it was to Christ.
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Jesus is at the center of it.
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It's a strange thing, isn't it?
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That for so many of these people who say that Jesus, that God is just a figment.
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In fact, I saw one text yesterday, I think it was, against Kate Forbes' faith.
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And a number of things being listed that Kate believed in.
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And especially, as I was with this white guy in the sky.
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A description for what that person really believed wasn't, of course, through that white guy in the sky being God.
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Well, here is what Jesus, what Paul is saying about himself sharing in his sufferings.
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Coming to have participation in the reaction of the world against him as against his people.
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And, of course, that plan was really within the plan of God.
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The plan to put Jesus to death.
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They did put Jesus to death.
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It did actually lead to his accusation unjustly and to his crucifixion, of course, as we know.
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But the plan that they had, the plot to kill Jesus, while in a measure that actually came to be true and carried out,
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it's within the overall plan of God, who by the death of Jesus was obtaining life for his people.
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It's interesting, we looked at this in the Gaelic on Sunday morning.
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Acts chapter 4 puts it this way.
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And again, it's very interesting the way it's put.
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Acts chapter 4, verses 27 and 28.
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When these believers were looking that God would give them the boldness to continue.
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And when they reported what had happened in terms of their imprisonment and so on to their friends.
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They then began a prayer meeting.
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And they quoted the second psalm.
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And as you come to verse 27,
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For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus,
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whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel.
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You see the whole gathering?
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That whole gathering of all the ones that are mentioned there.
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They were gathered against you and against your anointed one, against Jesus,
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to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to make place, to take place.
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Now you'd expect maybe that that would say to do whatever they actually had proposed or planned against us, Jesus.
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But no, what it's saying is, Lord, they were gathered together in this city,
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all of these people together against you and against your anointed one, Jesus, to do whatever you, God, had purposed.
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That's the bottom line, isn't it?
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Whatever God has purposed to come to pass,
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there is no power or ability anywhere that will prevent that.
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Whether it's the promotion of someone like Kate Forbes to office, to first minister, whatever it is.
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If God has purposed that that's what it'll be, that's what it'll be.
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If God has purposed that that's not what the outcome will be, it will not be that outcome.
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But it's safe to leave it in the hands of God.
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There's no point in worrying about it,
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even though we support all who are actually suffering persecution such as Kate at this time.
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Well, there's the two reactions and the plan to kill Lazarus.
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We'll need to leave it there for tonight because of the wake that's coming shortly.
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But this is really giving us an account of the world's reaction to the gospel, essentially,
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and to the way in which we ourselves have to continue to manage our witness for Jesus' independence on the Lord.
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So let's conclude tonight by singing in Psalm 56.
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Psalm 56, that's on page 73, verses 9 to 13.