The Gospel According to
John 11
57 verses≈ 8 min4 peopleBSB
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In this chapter
The Death of Lazarus
At this time a man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was to anoint the Lord with perfume and wipe His feet with her hair.)
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So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.”
When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
it is for the glory of God
John 11:4
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So on hearing that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was for two days,
Jesus
and then He said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
The disciples
“Rabbi,” they replied, “the Jews just tried to stone You, and You are going back there?”
Jesus
Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks in the daytime, he will not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world. But if anyone walks at night, he will stumble, because he has no light.”
Jesus
After He had said this, He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”
The disciples
His disciples replied, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will get better.”
They thought that Jesus was talking about actual sleep, but He was speaking about the death of Lazarus.
Jesus
So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Thomas
Then Thomas called Didymus said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”
Pray
Going with Him
Thomas did not understand everything, but he said, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.” Ask Jesus for that kind of loyalty: to follow Him toward hard places, trusting that He knows the way and walks in the light.
Jesus Comforts Martha and Mary
Stylised map · locations approximate
Where it happened
Back toward Jerusalem
Jesus had been across the Jordan, where John first baptized. Bethany sat on the far slope of the Mount of Olives, “a little less than two miles away” from Jerusalem. To reach it He climbed more than 3,000 feet out of the Jordan valley, back toward the men who had tried to stone Him.
When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already spent four days in the tomb. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, a little less than two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.
So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home.
Martha
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
“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.
Martha
Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
You are the Christ, the Son of God
John 11:27
Jesus wept.
The mourners
Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”
The mourners
But some of them asked, “Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus Raises Lazarus
Jesus, once again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
Jesus
“Take away the stone,” Jesus said.
Martha
“Lord, by now he stinks,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man. “It has already been four days.”
Jesus
Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted His eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that You sent Me.”
0:17
Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain
After Jesus had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth.
Unwrap him and let him go
John 11:44
Reflect
Let him go
Lazarus came out alive, but still bound. Jesus told the people around him, “Unwrap him and let him go.” Jesus gives life, and then He invites His people to help each other out of what still binds. What is still wrapped around you? Who could help you take it off?
The Plot to Kill Jesus
Therefore many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
The council
Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
The high priest
But one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
one man die for the people
John 11:50
Caiaphas did not say this on his own. Instead, as high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to gather them together into one.
One man
Whiteboard
Caiaphas meant a cold calculation: let one man die so the nation is safe from Rome. John hears God speaking through his words. Jesus would die for Israel and for God’s children everywhere, to make them one family.
So from that day on they plotted to kill Him. As a result, Jesus no longer went about publicly among the Jews, but He withdrew to a town called Ephraim in an area near the wilderness. And He stayed there with the disciples.
Stylised map · locations approximate
Where it happened
Withdrawn to Ephraim
With the council plotting His death, Jesus left the crowds near Jerusalem for “a town called Ephraim in an area near the wilderness,” a hill town a dozen or so miles to the north. There He stayed with His disciples.
Question
Quick question
When Jesus finally reached Bethany, the mourning was well underway.
How long had Lazarus been in the tomb when Jesus arrived?
You’ve experienced
John 11
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A verse to carry with you
I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.
John 11:25
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