John 11:11

John 11:11

There seems to me to be contained in these few words one of the most powerful charms in the world to lull the bitterness of death, and to make us anxious to become such as that we may humbly venture to apply them to ourselves. What would we, each of us, give, when our last hour was come, to feel that Christ would so speak of us? "Our friend sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Yet this is the language in which Christ does speak of every one who has died in His faith and fear in which He will speak of us, if we do not so live as to shut ourselves out from His salvation.

I. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." The disciples could not understand that by this gentle term He could possibly mean a thing so fearful as death. And in this we are all of us very like the disciples. We talk of another life, when we think of it at a distance, but we have really got but a very little way towards overcoming our fear of death. We fear it very nearly, if not quite as much, as the heathen do. And this is so natural that no mere words will ever get the better of it, unless we put ourselves in time into such a state of mind as may help us to see that the words are really nothing else but simply true. Christ does call the death of His friends a sleep; and we may learn to make our own death such as to deserve the name.

II. Christ comes to awake us out of sleep. The time will seem no longer than the four days which passed before He awakened Lazarus: a thousand years are in His sight as but one day; and when we have once done with earthly time, we may, perhaps, be able in some degree to reckon time as He does. But assuredly, whatever be our state in the interval, we shall have no consciousness of His tarrying; the weariness of expectation, the longings of hope deferred, will have ended then for ever. He comes as in a moment, to awake us out of sleep: to a waking which it is our best wisdom to endeavour humbly to dwell upon, however infinitely our highest aspirations may fall short of its reality. We may now make Christ our friend; nay, He entreats and calls upon us to suffer Him to be so. We may yet so fall asleep in Christ, that we shall assuredly share in the promise which He made to Lazarus. He will come and awake us out of sleep, that we may be where He is for ever.

T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 198.

Thoughts of death are suited to do us good. It is well that we should consider now, while yet life may be granted us, our latter end. It is well, when by any cause, either in the outward look of nature, or from what may happen within our homes, we are called off from taking thought only of present things of what we shall eat, what we shall drink, wherewithal we shall be clothed and constrained to face the most distant future; constrained to look into the darkness of the grave, and to question ourselves, each for himself, as to our preparation and as to our readiness to die.

I. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." That is the way in which Jesus spoke of death. He called it by no harsher word than sleep. Christ cannot mislead us, and He calls the death of His friend sleep.Let us not fear to lean upon His words for ourselves, for our companions; let this henceforth be the idea which we attach to death, "Our friend sleepeth." His toil is ended, his sorrows are ended, his pains are ended; he is out of the reach of the miseries of the sinful world. And when we say this, let us carry on our thoughts further. Death is sleep, but sleep implies an awakening. And this awakening, what is it to the Christian but the resurrection the rising again of our body, the going back of the spirit; the fitting of the whole man to be an inheritor of everlasting life?

II. Note here a lesson (1) of warning, and that is, to be preparedfor death and judgment to live now, so that we may be ready at any moment to depart. Be no more putters off, but performers of your Lord's will. Think how any day, any hour, His words may be heard. Think how soon that night cometh in which no work may be done, in which to repent and amend will be no longer possible. (2) A lesson of comfort. At the appointed time Christ will come and awaken His friends, that where He is there also may His true servants be.

R. D. R. Rawnsley, Village Sermons,4th series, p. 81.

References: John 11:11. L. Tyerman, Penny Pulpit,No. 815.John 11:13. G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons,p. 129. John 11:14. Bishop Thorold, The Yoke of Christ,p. 205.John 11:14 Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. x., No. 585.