Funeral Sermon On Lazarus

Jesus Wept, And Then He Acted

We gather today in the middle of grief. There is no way around that. Someone we cared for is gone, and the space that person occupied in our lives is now empty in a way that words struggle to reach. If you came here today carrying a weight in your chest that you cannot quite name, you are not alone, and you are not wrong to feel it. Grief is not a failure of faith. It is the honest cost of love.

I want to bring you to a scene from the Gospel of John, chapter eleven, because I believe it is one of the most honest and most hopeful passages in all of Scripture. It is the story of a man named Lazarus, who died, and what Jesus did about it. Open your Bible or follow along as I read from John 11, beginning at verse seventeen, from the Christian Standard Bible.

John 11:17-44 records the arrival of Jesus at Bethany four days after Lazarus had been placed in the tomb. Martha comes out to meet him. Mary comes out to meet him. Both of them say the same thing: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died." Jesus weeps. He goes to the tomb. He calls out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" And the dead man walks out, still wrapped in his grave clothes.

That is the scene. Let us look at it carefully, because it has something to say to everyone in this room today.

The Tears Of Jesus

The first thing I want you to see is that Jesus wept.

Verse thirty-three tells us that when Jesus saw Mary weeping and the people who had come with her weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. Verse thirty-five is the shortest verse in the English Bible: "Jesus wept."

Stop there for a moment. Jesus already knew what he was going to do. He had told Martha in verse twenty-five, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live." He had the power to reverse this death, and he knew he was going to use it. And yet he still wept.

That tells us something important about who Jesus is. He is not a distant, unmoved God who watches our pain from a safe distance and tells us to pull ourselves together. He is a God who enters into grief. He stands at the graveside and weeps with those who weep. The Scriptures teach us that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, which means the Jesus who wept at the tomb of Lazarus is the same Jesus who is present with you today. He is not embarrassed by your tears. He is not impatient with your sorrow. He meets you in it.

If you came here today feeling like your grief is too much, or like you should be stronger than this, I want you to hear the shortest verse in the Bible as a word of permission. Jesus wept. You may weep too.

The Question Jesus Asks

But notice that Jesus does not only weep. He also asks a question. In verse thirty-four he says, "Where have you put him?" And they say, "Lord, come and see."

That is an invitation worth sitting with. Come and see. They brought Jesus directly to the place of death, to the sealed stone, to the smell of decay, to the full reality of what had happened. They did not try to protect him from it. They brought him to the worst of it.

That is still the right move. Whatever grief you are carrying today, whatever fear or anger or confusion has come along with this loss, you do not have to clean it up before you bring it to Jesus. You bring him to the tomb. You say, "Lord, come and see." He can handle what is inside.

The Claim That Changes Everything

Now go back to the conversation between Jesus and Martha, because it is the theological center of this entire passage.

Martha says in verse twenty-one, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died." She believes in Jesus. She believes he could have prevented this. But she is not sure what he can do now that the worst has already happened. Jesus says to her in verse twenty-five and twenty-six, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

That question lands in this room today just as it landed with Martha two thousand years ago. Do you believe this?

Jesus does not say, "I will show you a resurrection someday." He says, "I am the resurrection." He is not pointing to a future event as though it were separate from himself. He is saying that resurrection life is bound up in his own person. Where he is, death does not have the final word.

Then he proves it. He goes to the tomb. He commands that the stone be rolled away. Martha objects, because Lazarus has been dead four days and the smell will be terrible. Jesus reminds her that if she believes, she will see the glory of God. He prays. He calls out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" And the man who was dead walks out of the tomb.

This is not a parable. This is not a metaphor. John presents this as a real event with real people, a real tomb, and a real dead man who walked out alive. Jesus did this to demonstrate who he is and what he came to do. He came to defeat death. And he did not defeat it only for Lazarus. He defeated it finally and completely when he himself walked out of his own tomb on the third day.

The Hope That Holds

The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of everything we believe about death and what comes after it. The apostle Paul writes in First Corinthians fifteen that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is empty and we are still in our sins. But Christ has been raised. And because he has been raised, death is not the end of the story for those who belong to him.

For those who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ, death is a doorway, not a wall. The grave clothes come off. The stone is rolled away. The voice that called Lazarus out is the same voice that will one day call every believer home.

If the person we are remembering today trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, then we grieve, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope. That is the language the apostle Paul uses in First Thessalonians four, and it is exactly right. We grieve. The grief is real. But it is not hopeless grief, because the one who said "I am the resurrection and the life" has proven that he meant it.

And if you are here today and you are not sure where you stand with Jesus, I want to speak plainly to you. The same question Jesus asked Martha is a question for you. Do you believe this? Not believe it as a distant historical fact, but trust him personally, as the one who has power over death and who offers life to all who come to him. That trust is available to you today. It does not require a perfect life or a long religious history. It requires honest faith in a real Savior.

A Final Word

Jesus stood at a tomb and wept. Then he stood at a tomb and called the dead to life. He is the same Lord today. He weeps with those who weep. And he holds in his hands the power of resurrection.

Bring him your grief. Bring him your questions. Bring him your fear. Come and see what he does with a sealed tomb when the Son of God speaks into it.

He is the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?

Sources Consulted

Carson, D. A. The Gospel According to John. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 1991.

Kostenberger, Andreas J. John. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 2004.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to John. Revised edition. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1995.

Spurgeon, C. H. The Treasury of the New Testament. Zondervan, 1950.

Wiersbe, Warren W. Be Alive: John 1-12. David C Cook, 1986.