The Only Thing You Need for a New Year

What if I told you Lazarus had to die because of me? I mean of course Jesus did, but Lazarus? Not something we usually think about.

As I taught the six grade girls a few weeks ago and listened as my co-teacher read the story in John, Jesus gave me His gentle nudges and enlightened my heart in a new way. I will attempt to share it here today. Because this one thing, it is the only thing you need for a New Year.

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were friends of Jesus, and Lazarus got deathly sick. The sisters sent for Jesus, but He refused to come immediately. He refused even to heal Lazarus from a distance. Instead, he stayed two days longer in the location He was. Why? He did it because He loved you and me, and especially because He loved His followers and disciples.

He knew when Lazarus died. Complete in His Father’s love, His communion with Him was perfect at all times. Father God shared with Jesus all He needed to know when He needed to know it. He didn’t have to wonder where to go or what to do or when to do something or why. The motivation was always love, pure love, and obedience to the Father.

Lazarus died. While this had purpose for the sisters, the disciples, and others. This had purpose for us.

Lazarus death and resurrection exhibited a deep love for Jesus’s followers. He didn’t want them to be afraid when he died in the coming days. He wanted them to know that He was God and that when He died, He would not stay dead. He’d told them and taught them many times, but with Lazarus, He was showing them. With His actions He said, “I am God. I have power over death. In a few days times, I will die, but like Lazarus, I will rise again.” Martha, she said Jesus has the power, but even then she expected Him to raise the dead on the last day at the end of time. She wanted him to raise Lazarus, but only hoped for some future date.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus – the Great I am, proclaiming it over and over again in indirect ways. I am. Fill in the blank of all the good things you wish God was and Jesus. is. already. Him. I am _________ the bread, the living water, the word, the lamb, the way, the life, the resurrection, the good shepherd, the true vine, the Son of God, the One and Almighty God.

Our expectation are too little of Him, and when we expect too much of Him, it’s because we know too little.

And that time when there was the shortest verse in the Bible? Jesus weeping over Mary’s grief and Lazarus’ death? Maybe just then, He wept for you and me. He wept for His death, and the pain He sees us have in so many ways. Tears spilled His eyes because His followers would not understand. Emotion overflowed because He saw in a flash how His followers would die. He wept for all the grief and all the suffering His death would cause. And maybe, just maybe, He wept for all the beauty He saw in that moment. He knew this one thing, this gift He’d given of life and hope to His friends, would be the catalyst that would kill Him.

Mary would come and cover His feet with perfume. How could she not? This creature of depth of emotion, created in such a way she poured out herself. Her Savior had raised her brother from the dead, and Jesus was nothing but her heart laid out for the world to see. So what if the world didn’t understand, thought her a harlot, and said evil words about her actions. She was completely free. She is who we want to be. Though she didn’t know, she anointed Jesus for His death and burial.

Jesus, oh what it would be, to see the beauty of the world as He did, knowing Mary’s actions foreshadowed His coming death.

Then it came to be His time. He entered Jerusalem. His soul became troubled, and the sky thundered with the voice of the Father, not for His sake, but ours. He prepared Himself for death, washed the disciples feet, giving new hope with his last message and final prayer, and then the swiftness of a trial and a crucifixion.

And this is the other part of the story so marvelous. Jesus died. All hope for a Savior was lost. Lazarus resurrection forgotten.

Nobody could raise Lazarus from the dead but Jesus. He made Him come alive and be whole again. Who then would resurrect Jesus?

He didn’t even destroy the temple and raise it again in the three days as He had said. His followers scattered and were afraid.

He died and death was final.

But then He was missing, His graves clothes shed.

He was alive. This definitively proved He was God. Jesus. Is. God.

Sometimes I don’t ponder this side of things enough. He is alive. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is God, carrying the same authority as God, and loving us so.

The only thing you need is a new year is this. This resurrection hope. With it, anything is possible. The power to raise the dead? check.

This week the Lord brought to my mind a children’s song I learned in college. Sing along if you will, “My God is SO big, SO strong, and SO mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do.” Just to prove it to me, God did something for me that day that only He could do.

We think so small of Him and His stories and words. We limit His power, and we get angry when He withholds His power and doesn’t meet our expectations. But He is God, unable to be commanded to our own whims. He is God, who is the only one in charge. He is our only Hope. We best be believing it. It is truly the only way to a fabulous New Year, a mighty, holy, and unexplained, impossible new year.

He is mighty, but He wants us to be unleashed with the same mightiness. The only way we’ll do the same is if we press on over and over again, every single day this year with steadfast faith, whether we want to or not. And when the faith is dry, even then, He said He has it covered, when we press Him for more faith and more belief and more hope. This resurrection, this Jesus, He’s the only thing we need for a good new year.

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