John 11:17–27
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
Our modern world has a deep-seated allergy to the finality of death. We want our grief to be tidy, manageable, and, above all, private. The Bible is not embarrassed by the stench of the grave. This is not a detail for the squeamish to skip over. Four days in a hot middle-eastern tomb meant one thing: decay. The situation was, from every human standpoint, utterly and completely hopeless. The stench was the exclamation point at the end of death's sentence. Into this world of hard, physical realities and shattered hopes, Jesus arrives. He does not come with sentimental platitudes or therapeutic reassurances. This passage is a collision between the absolute finality of death and the absolute sovereignty of Christ. It is a confrontation between the grief that paralyzes and the God-man who is the resurrection in person. She teaches us that a faith that wrestles with God is far more biblical than a piety that is too polite to ask hard questions.