The Strange and Wonderful Love of Christ

The first time I recall being asked about a life verse is September 1966. I was a junior in college, in the infirmary with mono. The chaplain said, “John, what’s your life verse?”

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Since then, this verse has been very precious. Why? It says God “loved me.” He says to me as I walk to this pulpit, “I love you.”

My text is not Galatians 2:20, but my theme is this: What is it like to be loved by Jesus? My text is John 11:1–6.

We are going to see the strange and wonderful love of Jesus. We will see it in the context of death and glory — so look for them.

This is our God whom we worship: Jesus Christ, infinite in his divine majesty and as close and caring as a mother’s hand. And we are gathered to worship him in his word — a word about suffering and love and glory and how these three relate to each other: suffering, love, and the glory of Christ.

Mary and Martha, Jesus’s friends who live in Bethany near Jerusalem, send word to Jesus that their brother Lazarus is very sick. That’s the setting for Jesus’s amazing words about death and love and the glory of God. As I read verses 1–6, listen for those three: death, love, glory. And listen for their relationship. This is our king, shaping the way we see the world of death and love, and the way we feel about the horrors and the beauties that happen in the world. Perhaps these words will turn your world upside down. They have for many of us.

Suffering for Glory

John 11:1–2:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.

What’s remarkable about verse 2 is that this anointing hasn’t happened yet. It happens in John 12:3. So, John is reaching for the clearest evidence of the extraordinary relationship that exists between Mary and Jesus, even though that evidence is yet to come. The point is this: She is no stranger. There is an unusual love between her and Jesus.

Verse 3: “So the sisters sent to him, saying, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’” So, now John makes it explicit. He means for us to see and feel the love that Jesus has for this family. This request for help is not coming from a casual acquaintance. It is coming from the closest circle of Jesus’s friends.

Verse 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.’” The first thing Jesus does when he hears the news of Lazarus’s illness is to put it in relationship to the glory of God and his own glory. This illness is about God’s glory. It is about the glory of the Son of God. It is not mainly about death, though he will die (and Jesus knows he will die). It is mainly about God — about the Son of God — and about how glorious God and his Son are. This is what Jesus says (verse 4): “This illness does not lead to death” — that is, the point of this illness is not death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

This is just like chapter 9, where the man was born blind not because he sinned or his parents sinned, but so that the works of God might be manifest (John 9:3–4). Only, here the issue is going to be death, not just blindness or illness. Lazarus is going to die. Jesus knows this. In fact, he chooses for Lazarus to die. We will see that in just a moment.

Disquieting Love

Now, John underlines for the third time the love that Jesus has for this family. John 11:5: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” John really wants us to see this and feel this. Three times he says it. Verse 2: This is the woman who anointed Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. Verse 3: “The one whom you love is ill.” You love him! Verse 5: “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

Surely John is stressing Jesus’s love for this family because he knows that what Jesus is about to do here does not feel like love to most people. Very few human beings think of love this way. I dare say you don’t think of love this way — nobody thinks of love this way — apart from the Spirit of God changing our hearts to see what love really is. This is why I said this text may turn your world upside down.

“What we need most is not healing but a full and endless experience of the glory of God.”

John knows that what he is about to say in verse 6 goes against all ordinary human experience where God is not the supreme treasure. And the key word that unlocks the shock is the word so at the beginning of verse 6. It’s really there in the original, and it means “therefore.” So, verses 5 and 6 read like this: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So [therefore], when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

Jesus knew what this would mean — this delay. It would mean the certainty of Lazarus’s death. We know this because of verse 14. When Jesus finally decides to go to Bethany, he knows Lazarus is dead: “Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died.’”

Real Death, Real Resurrection

Jesus is choosing to let Lazarus die and to make sure that he is dead when he gets there — four days dead, as it turns out. And if you say, “Well, it wasn’t really so bad because he knew he would raise him. It wasn’t as bad as our death” — if that is the way you are thinking, consider two things:

1. Lazarus really died. It is not an easy thing to die. And as far as Lazarus knew, Jesus didn’t come. And his sisters saw him die. And they buried him. And they wondered where in the world Jesus was. This was real death and real loss. And Jesus really didn’t show up to stop it.

2. In the way John presents this story, he means for us to see the resurrection of Lazarus as a picture of our resurrection — the resurrection of all who believe in Jesus. Listen to Jesus in verses 23–26:

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 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.”

In other words, “My raising of your brother is just what will happen to everyone who believes in me.”

This means that the way to think about Lazarus’s death is this: The death of Lazarus was real and terrible, just as terrible as yours. And if you think his was less terrible because Jesus raised him, the truth is your death will not be any more terrible than his, because you too will be raised by Jesus, and it is only a difference of time. And the amount of time between your death and resurrection is as nothing compared to eternity.

Love Through Death

And now, perhaps, we are prepared to see and feel the main point. It was love that moved Jesus to let Lazarus die. It was the love of Jesus for this family and for his disciples — and for you, reading this text — that caused him to let Lazarus die.

Look again at the connection between verses 5 and 6: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [Therefore, because of this love], when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” And let him die. He did not hurry to his side.

And John surely intends — and Jesus intends — for everyone seeing Jesus act this way to ask: How is that love? John has gone out of his way to set this up. Jesus loves them. He loves them. He loves them. Therefore, he does not heal him but lets him die. How is this love?

Jesus has given the answer loud and clear and will give it again in verse 15. He said in verse 4: “This illness does not lead to death. [In other words, the point is not death.] It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” This illness will turn out for the glory of God and the glory of the Son of God. This illness will put the glory of God on display. It will make Jesus look amazing — great, beautiful, valuable.

Therefore (verse 6), love lets him die. Love lets him die because his death will help them see, in more ways than they know, the glory of God.

Glory and Faith

So, what is love? What does it mean to be loved by Jesus?

Love means giving us what we need most. And what we need most is not healing but a full and endless experience of the glory of God.

Love means giving us what will bring us the fullest and longest joy. And what is that? What will give you full and eternal joy? The answer of this text is clear: a revelation to your soul of the glory of God — seeing and admiring and marveling at and savoring the glory of God in Jesus Christ. When someone is willing to die (as Jesus was) — or let your brother die — to give you (and your brother) that everlasting experience of God-centered joy, he loves you.

Love is doing whatever you have to do, at any cost to yourself, to help people see and treasure the glory of God as their supreme joy — to help people see and be satisfied with the glory of God.

Look at the way Jesus says it in verses 14–15: “Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.’” The human counterpart to the revelation of God’s glory is believing. Believing is coming to Jesus to be satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. And we come to him that way only when we see his glory — “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

These are the two great purposes of all things, God’s purposes of all that he does: (1) God’s demonstration — his display — of his glory in Christ, and (2) human beings treasuring that glory above all things, including life itself. And these two great purposes are really one, because our treasuring God’s glory above all things (even life itself) is the way we join God in demonstrating his glory. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

So, Jesus lets Lazarus die to show the glory of God and to intensify the faith of his disciples. And the Gospel of John was written for these two great aims: to reveal the glory of the only Son from the Father and to awaken and deepen our faith in him — our receiving him as the supreme treasure that he is.

This Is Love

And the main point of today’s text is that this is love. The aim of love is to bring people to the fullest knowledge and the fullest enjoyment of the glory of God. That’s the meaning of love in this text. Jesus didn’t just let Lazarus die for this. He died for this. “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus prayed that on the other side of his death his redeemed people would see his glory: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24).

So, what is love?

Love is the longing that labors and suffers to enthrall others with what is infinitely and eternally satisfying: the glory of God.

One last exhortation: Between the death of Lazarus and his resurrection four days later, his family could not see how God would be glorified in it. That would be revealed when he was raised. Therefore, if that is where you stand today — and all of us do, in some sense, not seeing clearly how God is glorified in the death of our beloved — do not judge before the resurrection. God is doing more than you can know. And the resurrection will bring it all to light. In the meantime, trust him, and treasure him above all things. Know that you are loved by him with a strange and wonderful kind of love.