John 11:11-15
I AM Glad for Your Sake I Was Not There When Lazarus Died
11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." 12 His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
John 16:7
It is Good that I Go Away
7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
Jesus said many unique and (to me) odd things, when He walked the earth...Sometimes I think of Jesus as a little odd and very unique...One of His odd sayings was about their friend Lazarus, He told His disciples, when Lazarus died that He was glad for their sake that He was not there...The disciples thought that Jesus meant their friend Lazarus had fallen asleep and they did not realize that He had died...The disciples first thoughts seem to be that now they will not have to go see Lazarus -he will be better after a good night's sleep...He is sleeping, therefore, he is going to be getting better...But he had, in fact, died and Jesus says this strange statement (at least to me it sounds strange and odd) -about I was glad I was not there...But being odd and unique makes perfect sense for the Son of God...I would very much expect Him to be different from me and others...
Later, He told His disciples that it was good that He was going away and would be leaving them...To me that was another odd thing to say...Wouldn't it be best if He was physically with us all the time?...Wouldn't one think that would be better than Him leaving you or leaving earth?...You would have the advantage of seeing Him, always being an eyewitness to Him, and having Him there to talk to...One would always feel safe and secure, and be at peace, when He was right there by your side...
But Jesus did not say and do anything without a reason or purpose...When He speaks of Lazarus He must be glad that He can show His disciples a resurrection...A resurrection of life from the dead...Resurrection though a very, very extraordinary thing was now something they could witness...The miracle of his resurrection would be a more powerful miracle than Jesus just healing their friend...Had He been there, Lazarus' sisters Martha and Mary would have wanted Him to restore their brother's health...And how could have He refused them...The resurrection is more important than one's health...And one thing that often gets overlooked in the verses of Lazarus' death, is that he was in fact ill...And Jesus did not only resurrect Lazarus back to life, but He healed Him when he did come back to life...The power of resurrection is very, very powerful...Something only God and His Son can do...
The power of the resurrection is such a unique event, it seems it is something we as mankind have never gotten used to -even though Jesus does a resurrection to and for someone in all the four gospels...And He Himself, is in fact, resurrected back to life from death...The resurrections that Jesus did, and Him being resurrected Himself, and He then walked the earth another forty days should give us hope, and prepare us for death -but somehow it seems to me, doesn't quite do it...This oddity and uniqueness of that type of event seems abnormal to our thinking...But nonetheless, Jesus resurrected others, including Lazarus...And by doing this miracle others (and the people that saw it and those who would tell others) would believe in Him...And His own personal resurrection does give us great hope and belief that life does not end at our earthly death...Maybe our earth death is like another different form of sleep, and then the followers and believers of Jesus will get to meet Him and His Father -which will be grand...
This statement about being it is good that He goes away, to me is like saying it is good that your best friend or your child is going away...But Jesus was referring to His death, when He said He was going away...We grieve when those closest to us go away in death...Yet, in His case, it was good...He was going back to God, His Father...He was going back to heaven...Jesus would no longer be with them physically, but He would be with them in the invisible Spirit of the Holy Spirit...And in the context of Jesus returning to where He came from, I see that it was good that He would get to go back home with His Father and to paradise and heaven....
And though Jesus has left earth and us...We are not alone...He teaches His disciples and us about the resurrection...He not only resurrected Lazarus and others, He was resurrected by His Father...He rose from death...Lived on earth another forty days, and then ascended to heaven in front of His disciples...Followers and believers in Him should not only have hope in the resurrection and believe in the resurrection, because this is one of the many things He teaches us...He made it very clear that He was going back to His Father, and that He to could resurrect others...And He Himself would be resurrected...
The historical fact of Jesus' resurrection is the most important fact in the history of mankind...It gives us eternal life, when we believe in the Father and Son...We find that fact difficult, because we do not see resurrections often enough, and they are odd and unique to us...Jesus lives so that we may live...And maybe if Jesus was with Lazarus, Lazarus could not have died...Maybe one cannot die in the presence of our LORD...He gives us eternal life...He is eternal life...