Take Away the Stone
October 22, 2023
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
John 11:1-44
11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.”12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died,15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off,19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
At the end of last week’s sermon I did something I don’t normally do. I gave homework. I even used the word “homework,” although I hoped it would be heard in a joking way. But the request was real. I asked you to look ahead and consider what tone of voice Jesus speaks v. 39 when he says, “Take away the stone.”
You might not have been there last week, or you may have had intentions to read ahead but it just didn’t work out to do so. Perhaps the dog ate your homework. But that’s okay. I’m going to give my answer. When Jesus says, “Take away the stone,” he is angry. Why he’s angry, and why his anger gives us hope, will be the focus of our sermon. Let’s pray as we begin.
“Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
About two years into our marriage, my wife and I started attending a small, older church named Salem church. We loved Salem church. Our youngest son is named Salem after that church. After we had been attending for a few months, they gave us a church picture directory. We thought it would help us learn the names and faces of the people. As we pulled away from church that Sunday my wife flipped through the pages, and I made the occasional glance her way. At a stop light, my wife looked at me and said, “There are a lot of pictures of people who are alone.” Most of them, we presumed, because they had lost a spouse. Her eyes began to water, and she said, “I don’t want to be alone.” I took her hand, squeezed it, and gave a half smile.
A few of the biblical authors refer to death as having a sting (Is. 25:8; 1 Cor. 15:55–56). Another calls death an enemy to be destroyed (Heb. 2:14–15). Many of you know this sting acutely. You feel it when you think about the day you scattered ashes you never wanted to scatter. If you’ve ever been to a funeral when the casket was a child’s too-small casket, then you’ve felt the sting.
Students, you can feel this too—not always from actual death, perhaps just the pain of a best friend moving away. You feel the sting when your parents divorce or when you see friends who have parents who divorce. It hurts. It stings.
For others, we feel the sting when we read the news, especially in the face of evil. This summer there were news reports of a nurse in Pittsburg who worked at a nursing home and took the lives of two patients under her care. Evil. Further away than Pittsburg but more reported on lately, we hear of wars and rumors of wars.
In all these ways—and more—we feel the sting of death. And so did the family in this passage: Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus. And so did Jesus. And feeling this sting of death made him angry. Now, I keep saying that he was angry. But I haven’t shown that to be true. But I want to do that. I want to take the first part of our sermon to explain why I’m saying that and then explain why it matters to you.
1. What tone of voice did Jesus use? An angry tone of voice.
We often find it difficult to tell the tone in written communication. You’ve thought about this before, right? I know you have because, as a pastor, sometimes you sit in my office and show me text messages and emails, asking me for advice. “Pastor,” you say, “what did she mean when she said this?” It’s hard to know. But other times tone is more obvious. There are clear signals. And John 11:39 is more obvious. Jesus is angry. Let me show you the signals. You won’t need to remember them; just listen.
The first signal is the broader context of what I’ll call the cross-pressures around the messiah. In other words, people had different hopes for the messiah, some biblical and some not so biblical. Some people wanted one kind of leader, others another. We talked about this last week with the context of the Hanukkah story. Roughly a hundred and fifty years before Jesus, a leader named Judas Maccabeus led a violent rebellion and threw off a foreign invader. Now, with Rome over Israel, many wanted that kind of leader again, that kind of a messiah. Which is why last week the religious leaders tried to trap Jesus by asking, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ [meaning the Messiah], tell us plainly” (John 10:24). In our passage, a month or two has passed, and Passover is around the corner. The same questions arise. Through Moses, God saved Israel from the Egyptian Pharaoh. Which leader will save Israel from the Roman Ceasar? Again, these led to various cross-pressures that made the situation explosive.
This is why you’ll often see Jesus do a miracle and then tell people not to tell others. For example, in Mark 1:43–45 Jesus heals a man with a skin disease. Then we read, “And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone . . .” Why would Jesus do this? If he heals someone, let’s shout it from the mountaintops, right? Liberal scholars look at this and say it’s because Jesus knew people would think he was the messiah, but Jesus knew he wasn’t. That’s not it at all. I’ll keep reading. “But [the healed man] went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.”
Jesus is intentionally slow playing the announcement of his arrival because, if he doesn’t, the pressure will get out of hand. We see this in John’s gospel in a place like 6:15 where people “come and take him by force to make him king.” In fact, this is why in John’s gospel Jesus repeatedly says things like “my hour has not yet come.” He’s waiting.
You can see this signal in the in the context of John 10 itself. Jesus had claimed to be God himself. The religious leaders took that as blasphemy and picked up stones to stone him. Jesus left Jerusalem on a few days’ journey to where people believed in him.
The disciples were well aware of this pressure and so are his friends. In v. 7 Jesus says, “Let us go back to Judea,” meaning just outside Jerusalem. How do the disciples respond? “Rabbi,” they say, “the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” (v. 8). They know the pressure, the danger. We see this from Thomas in v. 16. Thomas is often called Doubting Thomas because of something he says later. Look what he says here in v. 16: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Thomas knows that to go back is to not risk death but to experience death. And Mary and Martha knew this too. Look at their wording in v. 3. “So the sisters sent to him, saying, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’” Notice they stop short of saying “Come back to Jerusalem.” I think they want to say that, but they know it’s risky.
Again, I’m showing the signals that Jesus was angry. So far I’ve shown the cultural backdrop is charged. But now I’ll make it more real, more visceral. Consider the signal of love. Look at v. 3. “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” Jesus loved Lazarus. We see this repeated in v. 5. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (cf. v. 36).
Jesus chose to let Lazarus die before raising him. This is strange to us. Jesus does it, he says, to display the glory of God. This is strange to us. But that doesn’t mean Jesus is aloof and indifferent to the sting of death. He is not a robot. Jesus is God, but he is the God-man, as theologians call him. He is fully God, fully man. And he grieves. We read this famously in v. 35. “Jesus wept.” So short, so simply, so profound. In love, he’s grieving death, not only Lazarus’s but all death in all its manifestations, the sting of death as the result of the cosmic sin of rebellion against God. He feels it all.
With this in mind, look at the signal in v. 37. “But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?’” That phrase “but some of them” is key. This same group shows up again next week in v. 46. We read that “but some of them” go and tattletale to the religious leaders about the raising of Lazarus. In other words, while snot and tears cover his weeping face, some people openly mock his ability to have done something—anything—about death.
The final signal is the word “deeply moved.” In vv. 33 and 38 we read that Jesus was deeply moved. From the other uses we know this word denotes anger (Matt 9:30; Mark 1:43; 14:5). This is why the footnote in the Bible says another translation is “indignant.”
Are you getting the picture? What signals tell us his tone? The people want a violent messiah-leader. And Jesus is trying to slow-play the announcement of his messiah-ship for that reason. On top of that, he’s just been to the capital city and the religious leaders want to kill him. Everyone around him—his disciples and his friends—worry going back will mean death. Yet he’s compelled by love for his friends. And he’s saddened by his grief. Finally, while he weeps at the tomb of his friend, bystanders mock him.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the danger of a home filled with gas. The smallest spark can set it off. Just last year ago, a home barely more than a mile from here exploded after a construction worker hit a gas line. Thankfully no one was killed. A firefighter I know showed me the video he took. The roof blew into the sky like out of a movie.
In a similar way, Jerusalem was a house filled with gas. And with all this pressure—the pressure over the messiah, the fear of backlash from the religious leaders, the grief over the sting of death, the mocking of unbelief; knowing any action would be the event that puts everything else into motion, the event that puts his death into motion—Jesus stands up from his knees, wipes the tears away with his sleeve, walks to the tomb, where he’s followed by the crowd, and Jesus yells, “Take away the stone!”
They do. Then he calls Lazarus by name; he comes out. What a scene—no going back.
2. Why does his tone matter to you? His anger and actions give us hope.
So that’s his tone; he’s angry. But let me very briefly share with you why his tone is not merely interesting. I will explain why his anger and why his actions give hope.
We find hope in this passage because of the invitation to lament. Jesus may be angry, but he’s not angry with those who believe, even when they complain. So we are invited to lament. Biblical lament is laying before the Lord our confusion and our frustrations. Biblical lament means coming to the Lord to say, “It seems like you promise this, but my experience seems to suggest otherwise.” But that’s more careful than the biblical authors are. We might say, “seems” and “suggest.” The biblical authors just say what they want to say to God. Just like Mary and Martha.
Did you notice their lament to Jesus? They each make an identical lament. Put your finger on v. 21 and v. 32. They are the exact same. First Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Later Mary falls at his feet and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” What does it indicate that they both say the same thing? It tells us that for four days they had been saying that to each other. They now say it to Jesus. Will he crush them or be angry with them? He gets angry, but not with them.
And the sisters don’t only complain. In their lament, they express trust. Martha adds, “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you” (v. 22).
This is what you can do, church. Right now, in your heart you tell God where you feel the sting. “It seems like you promise this, but my experience seems to suggest otherwise.” And you can also resolve with Martha to say, “But even now, I’ll trust you.”
So, that’s one way this passage gives hope, the hope of lament. We also see that the anger of Jesus brings hope because the anger of God is redemptive. We have hope because God’s anger leads to action. His anger produces something constructive.
There’s so much anger in this world. And little of it leads to anything redemptive. This is what the author of James writes about in his letter when he says, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). The implication is that while our anger does not produce anything constructive, God’s does. As it does here. Jesus speaks, and life happens. The anger of God comes from his love, and therefore his anger leads to redemption, the destruction death, our final enemy.
That’s another encouragement to hope, isn’t it? Did you notice that when Jesus speaks, when he calls the name of a dead man, the dead man comes to life? The voice of God creates what it commands. I’ll say it again. The voice of God creates what it commands. Genesis 1:3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” The voice of God creates what it commands. John 11:43, “Lazarus, come out,” he says. And he does.
This means something hopeful for us. When you feel like the commands of God are so hard and so beyond you, you are—on the one hand—looking at them rightly. The commands of God are impossible. But what is impossible with man, is possible with God (Luke 18:27). Feel that hope. If you feel something in your life is dead and lifeless, Jesus can command it to live (cf. Ez. 16:6). This is why we do baptisms in the service, for the reminder that God is in the business of calling people from death to life.
So, we have hope in our invitation to lament, we have hope in the constructive, redemptive anger of God, and finally we have hope because this passage is not just about Lazarus, but about every one of us. Look at Jesus’s words in vv. 25–26.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus said this to Martha. But do you notice the phrase “whoever believes in me” and “everyone who . . . believes in me”? Do you see that? This isn’t just about Lazarus or Martha. Jesus is looking at you asking, “Do you believe this?” If you do, you can have hope.
Conclusion
Earlier this year pastor and author Timothy Keller passed away from cancer. Before he died, a well-written biography by Collin Hansen was published. I recently listened to the audiobook version which has a few sermons from Keller at the end. One of them is his sermon from the Sunday right after 9/11 in 2001. While the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Centers still coated most of the downtown, and while New Yorkers and many others were deep in grief, Keller preached this very passage of John 11 to a packed church in downtown Manhattan.
He did it because he believed, as I believe, seeing Jesus’s anger over death is good for us. But not only his anger, but that his anger leads to hope.
This passage points to the truth that everything sad is coming untrue. That’s a line from the book The Lord of the Rings. Near the end of the story Sam Gamgee asks, “Will everything sad finally come untrue?” In light of John 11, the answer to Sam’s question, the answer to the sting of death that you feel, is Yes. In Jesus, everything sad, every sting from death, will come—and indeed is now already coming untrue. The stone is rolled away.
With Jesus, I ask, “Do you believe this?”
Let’s invite the music team forward so we can have a time of response through singing. Let’s pray.
“Dear Heavenly Father. . .”
Sermon Discussion Questions
What are places in your life where you feel the sting of death?
Do you agree that Jesus was angry in John 11? Why or why not? What are the pointers to this in the passage?
Benjamin tried to explain reasons why the anger of Jesus led to redemptive actions that give us hope. What hope do you draw from this passage?
