The Sleep of Death (part 1 of 2) ...

Everyone wonders if there is something beyond the grave.  Some who have had their hearts stopped describe a bright light.  Others say their lives flashed before their eyes.  Some have described out of body experiences.  Most Christians believe that our souls face an immediate judgment at our death and though disembodied we transcend to either heaven (for those who are “good”) or hell (for those who have been “bad”).  Yet no Christian ever refers to a departed loved one as being anywhere other than “up there”.  There are those who believe in re-incarnation, where upon death our souls return in the form of some other life either more or less evolved based on our last experiences.  I would suppose the most hopeless ideology is the one of the Atheist, who being forced to base his theories only on empirical evidence would have to surmise that after death we simply rot, and exist no more.  But despite all our disparate beliefs John’s gospel chapter eleven details an account of life and death, and the state of us in both conditions.  And like almost every other encounter with Christ, we find that what we believe is undone by the reality of Christ.

John begins his account in verse one by identifying who Lazarus was (the brother of Mary and Martha), and where he was from, the town of Bethany of Judea.  Lazarus was well known, wealthy, respected, and loved by Christ.  John tells us right from the beginning of the story that Lazarus was sick.  We know from the rest of this story that his sickness was fatal.  Wealth, respect, and even the love of Christ, does not prevent us from contracting illness that is fatal to us.  We can eat all the right things, do all the right exercise, breath the fresh air, and get plenty of sleep, yet still find ourselves with an illness bent on killing us.  Living well, is better than living poorly, but it is not an absolute defense against terminal illness.  If I were to venture a guess, I would say that in an effort to hurt Christ, the devil was up to his usual tricks of inflicting pain and death on someone who Christ loved, as a way to get to Him.  But in any case, our story continues.

Though women in the time of John were not as culturally significant as men, John spends time in his first few verses identifying specifically both Martha and Mary.  He further identifies Mary as being the one who anointed the feet of Jesus with costly ointment and wiping them with her hair.  Even though this act has not yet taken place, John still wants his readers to know, that the women of this story are every bit as important as the men.  In fact, all the dialogue will be with the sisters of Lazarus, as poor Lazarus will be dead soon within the story.  It is therefore the sisters of Lazarus who send word to Jesus in verse 3, a very specific message that intends a very specific response … “Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.”  Mary and Martha have every confidence in Christ’s healing abilities.  They have followed His ministry for some time.  It is likely that Mary is the same woman who Christ spared from stoning, forgave, and blessed.  Both Mary and Martha are absolutely confident that if Jesus is made aware that Lazarus is seriously ill, He will drop what He is doing, get there as fast as He can, and heal Lazarus like He has healed so many others.  This was the intent of their message.  They knew if He came, the life of Lazarus would be preserved.  But the response they expected of God was not the one He offered.

Instead Jesus foretells the future and makes a statement that almost no one understood.  He says 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 might be glorified thereby.”  On the surface, this looks like Jesus is saying the illness is really not as serious as the news-bearer would have us believe.  If the illness is not fatal, there is no rush to get to Lazarus.  But the phrase “but for the glory of God” implies that God the Father will be glorified in what will happen (perhaps another healing) and more importantly that Jesus will be identified unmistakably as being the Son of God.  Keep in mind that despite all the previous healings up to date, Christ has been largely thought of as a prophet, or teacher, or “holy-man”.  The people, even Mary and Martha, hold Him in high regard, but few have been willing to make the leap to tagging Him as the “Son” of God.  All the miracles to date have not been enough to make that transition.

This is perhaps why Jesus offers this announcement upon hearing the news of Lazarus.  The “glory” He is referring to will belong to God the Father (as the author of all life, and being greater than death itself), and the new “proof” that Jesus is indeed the true and only “Son” of God.  John then makes a specific note in verse 5 that Jesus did indeed love Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  John does not want us to think that Jesus was being cavalier with these three, or that He truly did not care as much for them as they believed He did.  In fact, they were all greatly loved by Christ; so the delay that Christ does in verse 6, was not done for lack of concern, or because He was unaware of seriousness of Lazarus’ condition.  No, Jesus waits another 2 days in the place where He was, instead of going directly to Lazarus.  It is likely that Lazarus was nearly dead by the time the messenger reached Jesus.  By the time Jesus reaches Lazarus, he has been 4 days in the tomb.  So the delay, literally insures that Lazarus is not just in a coma, or sleeping, or has any hope of living through this event based on local medicine.  The delay actually assures that Lazarus will have been dead for a while before He arrives.

The message to God had been sent with the utmost urgency.  Lazarus had a need.  It was a life and death need to Lazarus.  Those who loved Lazarus knew that Jesus could heal him.  But, He did not.  Despite the message (or our prayers), despite the idea that Lazarus was a generally regarded “good” person, despite the fact that John explicitly tells us Lazarus was loved by Christ – Jesus let him die.  The message was not answered, the prayers seemed to go unheard, and Lazarus died.  From our point of view, there is nothing more important than our lives.  We can recover from a failed relationship that results in breaking our hearts.  We can recover from a job loss that leaves us financially ruined and destitute, though we may never have what we once had.  We can recover from failure and disappointment.  We can live on through injustice and persecution.  But when death knocks upon our door, we know this is not something we can recover from.  So our lives become most precious to us, when faced with imminent demise.  We want to live, above all things to remain alive.  But God does not look at our existence here on this planet, in this self-embraced condition of pain and torture, as being our ONLY life.  God looks at us, and sees our potential through being remade through His Son.  He sees us living a life of service throughout eternity in perfection, without the pain of self-service and the death that comes with it.  Our Salvation is HIS highest priority, NOT our lives in the world of pain we create.  So our greater good, sometimes outweighs our immediate needs, even when our need is life and death to us.

Then I am sure to the surprise of His disciples, Jesus announces in verse 7 … “Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.”  So I am sure His disciples were wondering why?  If Lazarus was not truly as sick as the messenger seemed to think, and Jesus sort of proved it, by delaying for 2 full days where He was.  Why bother going back to see Lazarus, right in the middle of Judea, where the temple leaders had recently thought to stone Christ?  They ask Him in verse 8 … “His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?”  Did You forget these people were serious about killing You?  If You show Your face in Judea again, You are likely to be summarily executed by the leaders if they can find You.  It is crazy to go back there.  But then God often does what we think is “crazy” … and impossible.

Jesus answers them in verse 9 … “Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. [verse 10] But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.”  Referring to the priests, Christ again states that their evil intentions are a result of looking away from the Light (meaning Himself).  When we look away from truth we find only error, it is the only other choice.  When we look away from love, we find only hate, pain, and death.  This is where the Pharisees had gone.  They chose to abandon Love for power, and as a result were willing to kill the author of love and life, in order to preserve their power, and remain in their pain.  And there is no difference between us and them.  When we choose to hold on to our cherished sins; we embrace with them the pain and eventually death that ALL sin leads to.  For sin leads away from God, away from life and love, leaving it no other destination but pain and death.  It is our stubborn refusal to give up the entirety of our lives to Christ, that gives pain and death, its entrance within us.  Like the Pharisees we turn from the light and find only darkness.  But when we look to Christ and let Him have the whole of us, He can remove from us anything that must be undone.  He can remake us, absent even the desire for the thing that once brought us only pain and misery and blindly the thing we thought we could not live without.  Christ has a habit of remaking lives entirely over from scratch.  He restores that which was dead to life, in more than one sense.

Jesus continues in verse 11 … “These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.”  There it is folks, the truth about the condition we are in when we have died, been buried, and lay in the grave as Lazarus was at that moment.  It is equivalent to sleep.  We do not know anything under the sun.  Time passes in an instant; it means nothing to the dead.  When you fall asleep each night, the very next thing you remember is waking up.  The hours that passed in between were as seconds to you, the concept of the passage of time is understood, but not felt, not realized, not lived.  If Christian common beliefs held true, Lazarus would not be “sleeping”, instead he would be very aware of where he was.  Either in heaven, which I would imagine would be the time of his life (so to speak); or in hell where he would be most unhappy (to say the least).  In order for Lazarus to be in heaven, his character would have had to been completely perfected and absent sin.  Having achieved this, why would he ever want to return to this planet of pain?  Why would anyone?  Once having tasted of perfection, coming back to middle-age Roman occupied Judea, would have been tantamount to torture beyond belief.  Imagine knowing the perfection of love and service all around you, and then being ripped back to the condition your body was in, the condition of the people around you who remain far from perfect.  Even if you maintained your own perfection, the challenge of living with the pain of others all around you would be too much to bear for perfect love.  Indeed it broke the heart of Christ.

On the other hand, if Lazarus were in hell, then bringing him back to life would offer him another chance at redemption that no other soul would have achieved.  It would hardly be fair to remove one person from eternal punishment while others remained in torture.  God would be considered unfair; though frankly eternal torture without relief would have already achieved that label for Him.  So if common Christian thinking were correct, bringing Lazarus back would either be torture to him, or offer him an unfair advantage no one else ever received.  Either way God would be doing himself a disservice.  Now if reincarnation were in fact the reality of life after death, then what would happen to the thing Lazarus had become, would it instantly die again?  Is it OK for God to end one new life, in order to restore an old one?  Another no win situation for God.  And if our Atheist friends were correct, then the rotting corpse of Lazarus should be incapable of reanimation.  No, the only truth that makes sense about our death in this world, is the one where we “sleep” – neither in heaven, or hell, or in the form of some new creature.  Just asleep, blissfully unaware of anything, including the passage of time; to be woken up from this condition would NOT be a punishment, nor an unfair advantage, it would simply be a continuation of the only life we had ever known.  Death would have been like an extended nap, irrelevant to what actions we take now.  No memories, no regrets, no perfection, no torture, just another day like all those we faced in mornings past.  The life of Lazarus would be just as it was before, only extended now for a while.

John then confirms beginning in verse 12, that Jesus was indeed speaking about the death of Lazarus, and of his condition in death … “Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. [verse 13] Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. [verse 14] Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.”  The situation now made even less sense to His disciples.  First Jesus had seemed to imply that the illness was not so serious.  Now He was saying Lazarus was sleeping the sleep of death.  But for some reason He wants to go back to Judea where they are hunting Him to see the dead friend Lazarus anyway?  It made no sense from a human perspective.  In verse 15 Jesus seems to make it even less clear as He tells them … “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.”  What Jesus was actually saying was that what would occur there would affirm the faith of His disciples, that He was in fact the Son of God, the author of Resurrection, and author of life itself.  This is why Jesus now wants to visit Lazarus, to show his disciples and to Mary and Martha, that He is more than just a prophet.  He wants to show us all that though we are dead, we can be reborn, remade, reanimated.

But his disciples did not understand this intent.  They thought that perhaps Christ was lamenting the death of Lazarus so much, that He was willing to join him in death.  Thomas speaks for the others at this prospect as he responds in verse 16 … “Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  If Christ is to die, we might as well join Him.  After all if the Jewish religious leaders are bent on killing Christ, it won’t be long until they pursue his disciples as well.  When trying to kill an idea, one must extinguish anyone who might have embraced it.  And so the solemn company travels to see the dead friend Lazarus in Judea.  From the disciples point of view this was to at least show their respects, for God it was something entirely different.