Welcome to the word of God online for October 22, 2009
We continue our series and the book of John with John chapter 11
Scripture readings come from the living Bible which is a paraphrase that was developed in the 70s
John chapter 11
Do you remember Mary, pour the costly perfume on Jesus’s feet and wiped them with her hair? Well, her brother Lazarus, who lived in Bethany with Mary and her two sisters Martha, was ill. So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Sir, your good friend is very, very ill.”
When Jesus heard about it he said, “the purpose of his illness is not death, but for the glory of God. I., the son of God, will receive glory from the situation.”
Although Jesus was very fond of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days and made no move to go to them eerie at finally, after the two days, he said to the disciples, “let’s go to Judeo.”
But his disciples objected, “master,” they said, “only a few days ago the Jewish leaders and Judeo were trying to kill you. Are you going there again?”
Jesus replied, “there are 12 hours of daylight every day, and doing every hour of it a man can walk safely and not stumble. Only at night is there danger of a wrong step, because of the dark.” Then he said, “our friend Lazarus has on to sleep, but now I will go and wake him!”
The disciples, thinking Jesus meant Lazarus to was having a good nights rest said, “this means he is getting better.” But Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
Then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And for your sake, I am glad I wasn’t there, for this will give you another opportunity to believe in me. Come, let’s go to him.”
Thomas, nicknamed “the twin,” said to his fellow disciples. “Let’s go to — and die with him.”
When they arrived at Bethany, they were told that Lazarus had already been in his tomb for four days. Bethany was only a couple miles down the road from Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish leaders had come to pay their respects at the console Martha and Mary on their loss. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stay home.
Martha said to Jesus, “Sir, if you had been there, my brother wouldn’t have died. And even now it’s not too late, for I know that God will bring my brother back to life again, if you will only ask them to.”
Jesus told her, “your brother will come back to life again.”
“Yes,” Martha said, “when everyone else does, on resurrection day.”
Jesus told her, “I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life again. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies like anyone else, shall live again. He is given eternal life for believing in me shall never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?”
“Yes, master,” she told him. “I believe you are the Messiah, the son of God, the one we have so long-awaited.”
Then she left them and return to Mary, and calling her aside from the mourners, told her, “he is here and wants to see you.” So Mary went to him at once.
Now Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where mother met him. When the Jewish leaders who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus his tomb to weep; so they follow her.
When Mary arrived were Jesus was, she fell down at his feet, saying, “Sir, if you have been here, my brother would still be alive.”
When Jesus saw her weeping in the Jewish leaders willing with her, he was moved with indignation and deeply troubled. “Where is he buried?” He asked them.
They told him, “come and see.” Tears came to Jesus his eyes.
“They were close friends,” the Jewish leaders said. “See how much she loved him.”
But some said, “this fellow healed the blind man — why couldn’t he keep Lazarus from dying?” And again Jesus was moved with deep indignation. Then they came to the tomb. It was a cave with a heavy stone rolled across its door.
“Rolled the stone aside, “Jesus told them.
But Martha, the dead man’s sister, said, “by now the smell will be terrible, for he has been dead for days.”
“But didn’t I tell you that you would see a wonderful miracle from God if you believe?” Jesus asked her.
So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “father, thank you for hearing me. (You always hear me, of course, but I said that because of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.)”
Then he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!”
And Lazarus came — bound up in the grave cloth, his face muffled in a bandage. Jesus told them, “unwrap him and let him go.”
And so at last many of the Jewish leaders who were with Marian Sard happened, finally believed on him. But someone away the Pharisees and reported it to them.
Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened a council to discuss the situation.
“What are we going to do?” They asked each other, “this man certainly does miracles. If we let him alone the whole nation will follow him — and then the Roman army will come and kill us and take over the Jewish government.”
In one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said, “you stupid idiots — let this one man died for the people — why should the whole nation perish?”
This prophecy that Jesus should die for the entire nation came from Caiaphas in his position at high priest — he didn’t think of it by himself, but was inspired to say it. Whose prediction that Jesus’s death would not be for Israel alone, but for all the children of God scattered around the world. So from that time on the Jewish leaders began plotting Jesus’s death.
Jesus now stopped his public ministry and left Jerusalem; he went to the edge of the desert, to the village of Ephriam, and stayed there with his disciples.
The Passover, a Jewish holy day, was near, and many country people arrived in Jerusalem several days early so that they could go through the cleansing ceremony for the Passover began. They wanted to see Jesus, as they gossiped in the Temple, they asked each other, “what do you think? Will he come for the Passover?” Meanwhile the chief priests and Pharisees had publicly announced that anyone seeing Jesus must report immediately so that they could arrest him.
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