The Glory of God Revealed That You May Believe When
You Follow Him and When You Die
John 11:1-16
Associate Pastor Doug Forsberg
July 10, 2005
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (said bravely)
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (said in monotone)
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (said with sadness/resignation)
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (said with excitement)
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (said with bitterness)
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (said with compassion)
You know, we don’t know exactly how Thomas spoke these words. We aren’t told how he was feeling or the inflection he used. We’re given the text and have to figure out from the context what Thomas must have been feeling when he said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Many of us know of Helen Keller, a woman who faced so many difficulties with courage and a brave heart. She was a follower of Jesus, who was thankful to God for his goodness to her. She wrote, “For three things I thank my God every day of my life: thanks that he has given me knowledge of his works; deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; deep, deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to – a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song.”[1]
The disciple Thomas seems to understand in part what Helen Keller grasped in fullness: those who follow Christ are sure to die in two ways. First, they die to themselves as they follow their Lord; and second, they face physical death, even as they look forward to their bodily resurrection.
Today is our second Sunday in a six week series in which we are studying John 11. Last week we studied the first 6 verses of this chapter and we were reminded that this story is not Lazarus’ story; it is Jesus’ story. Jesus is at the center of what happens in this account, and he is the center of our lives. Since Jesus is the center of our story, we need to follow him wherever he leads. Jesus’ first disciples discovered this and we must too. Today we will be focusing on verses 7-16 of John 11 and we will find that following Jesus is dangerous, that following Jesus means dying with him, and that following Jesus brings new life.
Following Jesus is dangerous. We do our best in American churches to hide this fact; you wouldn’t know it when you visit most churches, but it is true. Following Jesus is dangerous. Jesus leads all those who follow him to places they would rather not go, places they would not go if they were not led there.
After waiting two days, Jesus tells his disciples that he’s going back to Judea. Jesus is a wanted man in Judea. He has faced stoning twice in that region and he seems to have a knack for making the people there angry. He keeps telling them that he is like his Father in Heaven, that he is “I am,” that he is God. This kind of talk is blasphemy and it gets you killed in Judea.
We can almost feel the noose tightening around the disciples’ necks as they say to Jesus, “You do know those people were just trying to stone you. Are you sure you want to go back there again?” Try as they might the disciples couldn’t make Jesus see the danger he was getting himself into, not to mention the danger he was getting them into.
Jesus replies to the disciples by speaking about the need for light to walk and the difficulties of walking in the darkness. This seems to be an indirect answer to the difficulties they will face in Judea, but Jesus was making a point to his disciples that we should not miss. Remember that Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5, 12:46). Wherever Jesus goes there is light. When we follow him we are in the light as he is in the light.
We all know that light is needed most in dark places: an alley in the city, our home when we get in after dark, a child’s bedroom. Certainly Judea was a place that the light of Christ had not been able to penetrate fully. The people refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah; they would not believe his miracles, and they would not acknowledge his authority. Jesus returns to Judea and raises Lazarus from the dead in order to give the people there one more chance to believe in him. That’s the point, that’s what Jesus is up to here. Jesus wants people to believe in him, so he goes to them and it is dangerous to go to people who do not believe. It is dangerous to follow Jesus; he takes us where we would not go ourselves.
In The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis notes that Job knew something of God’s dangerous character. As Job sits amidst the ruins of his life he says, “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me” (Job 3:25). Curtis explains that, “Job was a God-fearing man and yet something in him suspected that faith in God did not necessarily translate into peace and safety.”[2] (50) Curtis goes on to describe what he and most of us want from God as we play our parts in the Lord’s story: he writes, “I am filled with not a little outrage as well as anxiety that wants to ask for a much smaller part in the play than Job had; possibly a role in an off Broadway production. You know, something like God Helps Brent Curtis Pursue Money, Wealth, and Fame While Living a Quiet Life.”[3] We all would like to be in that kind of story, but friends, the quiet life is not what Jesus has in mind for those who follow him.
It is dangerous to follow Jesus. He takes us places we would rather not go. Think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Surely, the fiery furnace was not their choice, but they knew that even in that dangerous place, they would rather serve the living God than an idol of gold. When Jesus leads us into dangerous territory he does so for our good and for the good of others. Sometimes we are led to dangerous places that are on the other side of the world or even on the other side of our island. At other times those dangerous places are within our hearts where a hardness and coldness have been cultivated and allowed to grow. Jesus wants people to believe, so he takes us to places we would rather not go. It is dangerous to follow Jesus.
Following Jesus means dying with him. Thomas says it so well in verse 16: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” I think that Thomas was probably thinking that this would be Jesus and the disciples’ last trip to Judea, that they wouldn’t make it out alive. Thomas is to be commended for being willing to die with Jesus in this way, but he didn’t know the whole story. He didn’t know that some months later Jesus would return to Judea and face the cross or that Jesus would command his disciples to make new disciples from every nation. Thomas didn’t know that he would doubt Jesus’ resurrection. Even though Thomas didn’t know all this, he, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, was willing to die as he followed the Lord.
The simple fact that he was willing to die speaks to us of the truth that we must die to ourselves when we follow Christ. Thomas and the other disciples, had they put it to a vote, probably would have wanted to go somewhere other than Judea, but they submit their own will and follow Christ. Those who believe in Christ are a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come (2 Cor 5:17).
Singer/songwriter Sara Groves states this truth when she sings, “What a relief it is to know/ I’m a slave for Christ/ Of all the masters I have known/ I’m compelled to live this life/ free for him/ I’m on the other side of something/ I have a new hope that blows away the small hope I knew before.”[4]
Do you know this new hope? Having abandoned all that you thought was important and having acknowledged him as the center of your life, are you free for him? The only way to follow Jesus into those dangerous places where he will lead you is to die, for when we die; we are made alive in Christ.
This truth turns the world on its head doesn’t it? It makes no sense to give something up in order to gain something more. That is not the way we work in our world; but that is the way the Kingdom of God works. Frederick Buechner captures this so well when he writes, “If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter. The world says, follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, follow me and be crucified. The world says, drive carefully – the life you save might be your own – and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy, and anybody who thinks they can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under the cross than under a delusion.”[5] So it is dear friends that following Jesus means dying with him.
Following Jesus brings new life.
As Jesus sets out for Judea with the disciples, he tells them that he is going to awaken Lazarus. The disciples think that Lazarus is asleep and hope that this means he’ll be feeling better soon. There’s nothing like a cup of chicken soup and a little sleep to chase sickness away. Jesus then speaks plainly with the disciples. He tells them that Lazarus is dead and that for the sake of his disciples, his followers, he is glad that he was not there because he wants them to believe. What is it that Jesus wants them to believe? Clearly, he wants them to believe both that he can raise someone from the dead and that God the Father has sent him. The disciples need to see that a dead man can rise, for they are going to see such a thing again when Jesus comes to them in that upper room. The disciples need to see Lazarus’ resurrection so that they can hold on to their hope in the resurrection that is promised to them: Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (John 11:25).
Our hope in the resurrection is central to our lives of faith. Some see the promise of the resurrection and new life as an excuse to disregard the pain and suffering they and others face in this life. This is not a faithful understanding of the resurrection. To believe that there is a new heaven and new earth and that those claimed by Christ will inhabit new bodies free from the tarnish of sin is not to indulge in pie in the sky fantasy. It is to acknowledge our hope and live in the present as much as we are able in a way that mirrors the future. Billy Graham’s father-in-law Dr. L. Nelson Bell wrote, “Only those who are prepared to die are really prepared to live.”[6] (Graham 19)
When you and I have grasped hold of the hope of the resurrection and the promise that what lies beyond death is eternal delight in our Lord and not emptiness or despair, or nothingness, we can live as those who have come to terms with death our great enemy. This doesn’t mean that we don’t fear how we might die, the circumstances of our death, although this is in Jesus’ hands too, but it does mean that we know we follow the one who brings new life into the agony of our bones (Psalm 6:2).
We follow one who brings new life. I wonder if anyone outside of the Church knows this about us? Friends, our sanctuary is full on Christmas and Easter because people are dying to hear Good News. They are dying to know that there is more to this life than the sanity of this world and on Christmas and Easter we speak boldly of the light that has come into the world and of our hope in the resurrection. These people who are dying to hear Good News are all around us. God is actively putting them right next to you and right next to me because he wants them to believe that in Jesus Christ they have found the Good News that they are seeking. So it is that our lives need to reflect our hope in the resurrection, for we follow one who brings new life.
Perhaps there are some here who do not know Christ, yet feel drawn to him today and want to become one of his followers. I invite you to give your life to him. Please talk with me or some Christian you know about what it means to follow Christ, for he desires you to be a part of his story.
For those here who do know Christ continue on in faith having been reminded that following Jesus is dangerous and that it means dying with him. Even so, those who face danger and die with Christ do so holding on to the hope of new life in the here and now and in the fullness of time.
O Lord, help all of us to follow you, for you are the center of our story, the center of every story. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Helen Keller in Rumors of Another World: What On Earth Are We Missing by Philip Yancey. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003. p.50.
[2] Brent Curtis. Sacred Romance. P.50.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Sara Groves, “I Am Compelled,” on The Other Side of Something. 2004.
[5] Frederick Buechner in Rumors of Another World: What On Earth Are We Missing by Philip Yancey. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003. p. 206.
[6] Billy Graham. Facing Death And The Life After. Minneapolis: Grason. 1987. p. 19.