Jesus didn’t
come when His dear friend Lazarus was sick or even show up for his funeral, so now
we’re all paying a visit to the cemetery...(John 11) Yup... Laz is D E A D, really dead - like 4 days dead.
Everyone is sobbing, including Jesus who’s groaning... the air is heavy with grief and despair...
Huh??...He’s
ordering the tombstone be rolled away!...while everyone watches aghast, waiting
for the stench of death to hit them.
Now
what??
Jesus is thanking ‘the Father’ for listening!
Next He shouts out...
Jesus is thanking ‘the Father’ for listening!
Next He shouts out...
“LAZARUS, COME FORTH!!”
...as if Laz would hear!
...as if Laz would hear!
This is the same
Jesus who has publicly claimed in Jerusalem:
“As the Father raiseth
up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will....the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.”
Is this Man really the Son of God?...can He really raise people from the dead?
What about
choosing
who He will raise?...using just His voice??
If
He can pull this off it will be the ultimate 7th miracle – a triple witness to the Father’s approval,
the power of Jesus’ Word and the power of His works....and very public!
Here he comes!!
Lazarus is the 5th of 7 ordinary people recorded in the Bible
as raised from the dead. Wow!
Are the
Jewish leaders now convinced? No, they would
rather be subject to the Romans who will put their Messiah to death than honour
the Son of God with power over death. Yes, the Romans WILL soon enough ‘take
away both our place and our nation’ (AD70) – not for accepting this Man
but for rejecting Him!
Caiaphas
loftily belittles his comrades: “Ye know nothing at all” but doesn’t
realize that Jesus death will ‘gather together in one the children of God
scattered abroad.’
John 5:21 & 25
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