Thursday, March 10, 2016
John Chapter 11 The Raising of Lazarus
John 11 NLT
1 A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived
in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha.
2 This is the Mary who later poured the
expensive perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother,
Lazarus, was sick.
3 So the two sisters sent a message to
Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”
4 But when Jesus heard about it he said,
“Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God
so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.”
5 So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary,
and Lazarus,
6 he stayed where he was for the next two
days.
7Finally, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go
back to Judea.”
8 But his disciples objected. “Rabbi,”
they said, “only a few days ago the people in Judea were trying to stone you.
Are you going there again?”
9 Jesus replied, “There are twelve hours
of daylight every day. During the day people can walk safely. They can see
because they have the light of this world.
10 But at night there is danger of
stumbling because they have no light.”
11 Then he said, “Our friend Lazarus has
fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up.”
12 The disciples said, “Lord, if he is
sleeping, he will soon get better!”
13 They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was
simply sleeping, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
14 So he told them plainly, “Lazarus is
dead.
15 And for your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t
there, for now you will really believe. Come, let’s go see him.”
16 Thomas, nicknamed the Twin, said to his
fellow disciples, “Let’s go, too—and die with Jesus.”
17 When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was
told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days.
18 Bethany was only a few miles down the
road from Jerusalem,
19 and many of the people had come to
console Martha and Mary in their loss.
20 When Martha got word that Jesus was
coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house.
21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you
had been here, my brother would not have died.
22 But even now I know that God will give
you whatever you ask.”
23 Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise
again.”
24 “Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when
everyone else rises, at the last day.”
25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection
and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.
26 Everyone who lives in me and believes in
me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have
always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into
the world from God.”
28 Then she returned to Mary. She called
Mary aside from the mourners and told her, “The Teacher is here and wants to
see you.”
29 So Mary immediately went to him.
30 Jesus had stayed outside the village, at
the place where Martha met him.
31 When the people who were at the house
consoling Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to
Lazarus’s grave to weep. So they followed her there.
32 When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell
at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not
have died.”
33 When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the
other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was
deeply troubled.
34 “Where have you put him?” he asked them.
They told him, “Lord, come and see.”
35 Then Jesus wept.
36The people who were standing nearby said, “See
how much he loved him!”
37 But some said, “This man healed a blind
man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
38 Jesus was still angry as he arrived at
the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance.
39 “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.
But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four
days. The smell will be terrible.”
40 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that
you would see God’s glory if you believe?”
41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then
Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me.
42 You always hear me, but I said it out
loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe
you sent me.”
43 Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come
out!”
44 And the dead man came out, his hands and
feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them,
“Unwrap him and let him go!”
45 Many of the people who were with Mary
believed in Jesus when they saw this happen.
46 But some went to the Pharisees and told
them what Jesus had done.
47 Then the leading priests and Pharisees
called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each
other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs.
48 If we allow him to go on like this, soon
everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both
our Temple and our nation.”
49 Caiaphas, who was high priest at that
time, said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!
50 You don’t realize that it’s better for
you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be
destroyed.”
51He did not say this on his own; as high priest
at that time he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire
nation.
52 And not only for that nation, but to
bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the
world.
53 So from that time on, the Jewish leaders
began to plot Jesus’ death.
54 As a result, Jesus stopped his public
ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the
wilderness, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there with his
disciples.
55 It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover
celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem
several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before
Passover began.
56 They kept looking for Jesus, but as they
stood around in the Temple, they said to each other, “What do you think? He
won’t come for Passover, will he?”
57 Meanwhile, the leading priests and
Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report it
immediately so they could arrest him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)