Power over death

This is the outline of the lesson from 2013-10-24. We got to almost none of it.

Lazarus dies

• READ 11:1–4
• READ 11:5–8
• READ 11:9–12
• READ 11:13–16
• SAY In verses 5–6, different translations have 2 different flows to what Jesus did:
  • Jesus loved them, but he waited.
  • Jesus loved them, so he waited.
  • ASK Which way do you think it is? (So, because he knew it would lead to greater glory for God.)
• ASK In verse 8, what were the disciples concerned about? (Jesus being killed.)
• ASK In verses 9–10, what’s all that about daytime, light, darkness, stumbling etc? (Jesus is the light, so going with him is the way not to stumble.)
• ASK In verse 16, what do you think about Thomas’s attitude?

Jesus arrives

• READ 11:17–19
• READ 11:20–22
• ASK Does Martha’s statement in verse 22 sound like anything else we’ve read in John’s gospel? (Sounds just like Mary in chapter 2)

Who is Jesus?

• READ 11:23–24
• READ 11:25–27
• SAY The teaching of resurrection at the end of time was not something Jesus introduced that they had never heard before. After all, the Pharisees believed in it. Where did they get it? From places in the O.T. like Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
• Jesus goes through this Q&A with Martha, and finds her belief is correct about the final resurrection and about himself. But something more spectacular is coming …
• READ 11:28–32
• READ 11:33–37
• ASK In verse 33, how do your Bibles say “deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled”? SAY In the original language (and some English translations) it says Jesus was angry. ASK Why was he angry?
• ASK Have you ever felt like Martha and Mary? Have you felt like Jesus let you down? Have you wondered why sickness, death, loss? SAY It is okay to feel that way.

The sign: Lazarus is raised

• READ 11:38–40
• READ 11:41–44
• ASK If Jesus didn’t need to pray out loud, but it was for the benefit of the crowd, did he really need to “cry out with a loud voice” for Lazarus to come out of the grave?
• It’s really tempting to find some kind of moral to the story. But the point is this: Jesus has authority over the grave.
• That’s why he said in 10:17–18: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”
• This is the Jesus we believe in. This is the reason we have hope.