There was a man named Lazarus who lived in Bethany, a village less than three kilometers from Jerusalem. He and his sisters, Martha and Mary, were close friends of Jesus. When Lazarus fell ill, the sisters sent a short message full of confidence: \"Lord, the one you love is sick\" (John 11:3, NIV). They knew where to find help.
What Jesus did next seems strange. He did not rush. He stayed two more days where he was, and only then went to Bethany. By the time he arrived, Lazarus had already been buried for four days. Martha met him on the road with a sentence that mixes faith and grief. Mary repeated the same complaint at his feet. And there, before the stone tomb, the shortest and one of the most striking scenes in the Bible unfolded: Jesus wept.
This is the seventh and greatest sign in the Gospel of John. It carries a promise that spans two thousand years and reaches you: death is not the final period it appears to be.
The delay no one understood
The message arrived clear: your friend is sick, come. Jesus heard it, and still he stayed two more days in the place where he was. To anyone waiting for immediate help, it sounded like abandonment. Martha would say as much to his face: 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died' (John 11:21, NIV).
The delay was not carelessness. Jesus explained to the disciples that this sickness was happening 'for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it' (John 11:4, NIV). He knew exactly what he was going to do, and he knew the effect would be greater if Lazarus were dead, buried, and beyond any human hope.
In the Club you live out small versions of this wait. The campout delayed by rain. The Honor you attempt three times before you earn it. The answer to prayer that does not come on the day you set. The story of Lazarus does not promise that waiting is comfortable. It shows that God's delay keeps its own time, and that this time tends to reveal something that haste would hide.
Why Jesus called death 'sleep'
Before setting out for Bethany, Jesus told the disciples something curious: 'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up' (John 11:11, NIV). The disciples took it literally and answered that if he is sleeping, then he will get better. The text then explains the misunderstanding: 'Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep' (John 11:13, NIV).
Then Jesus was plain, no roundabout way: 'Lazarus is dead' (John 11:14, NIV). The word 'sleep' was not a polite euphemism. It was a way of describing what death is in God's eyes: a state of rest, without consciousness and without pain, that lasts until the moment he calls again. Just as you wake from a deep sleep with no sense of how much time has passed, the one who sleeps in death does not feel the passing of time.
This image of 'sleep' appears several times in the Bible. Daniel speaks of those who 'sleep in the dust of the earth' and will awake (Daniel 12:2, NIV). Paul comforts grieving Christians by speaking of 'those who sleep' and who will rise when Jesus returns (1 Thessalonians 4:13-16, NIV). Lazarus is the living demonstration of this language: he slept, and Jesus woke him.
The hope of rest until the resurrection
The Adventist reading of this story is simple and, for many people, a relief. When someone dies, that person rests. They are not suffering, not wandering, not conscious of anything. They are waiting, like someone asleep, for the great awakening that Jesus promised for the day of his return. If you want to know more about the whole set of these beliefs, the Club has material on the 28 beliefs in youth-friendly language.
This changes the way we face loss. The longing stays real and heavy, no one pretends it does not hurt. What hope adds is a horizon. The separation has a deadline. The reunion is set. Jesus did not come only to comfort Martha with fine words about 'someday.' He brought that 'someday' right there, in front of her, by pulling her brother out of the tomb.
A word of care fits here: Adventist faith presents this hope and does not force anyone to accept it. If you are a Pathfinder from another tradition, or from none, the invitation here is to learn what the Bible says about death as sleep and to decide for yourself. The story of Lazarus speaks to any heart that has already lost someone.
Read alsoThe woman at the well: the water that quenches thirst forever'I am the resurrection and the life'
In the middle of the painful conversation with Martha, Jesus made the declaration that gives this article its name. Martha believed in a distant resurrection, 'at the last day.' Jesus then brought the promise into the present and into himself: 'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die' (John 11:25-26, NIV).
Notice the verb. Jesus said 'I am' the resurrection, not 'I bring,' as someone delivering a package. Overcoming death runs through trusting a person, more than mastering a formula. Where Jesus is, death loses the last word.
Right after, he asked Martha the question that keeps echoing: 'Do you believe this?' (John 11:26, NIV). Martha answered yes, that she believed he was the Christ. It is the same question the story leaves for you. You do not need a ready answer today. It needs to be taken seriously.
The shortest verse: 'Jesus wept'
Coming near the tomb, surrounded by people who were weeping, 'Jesus wept' (John 11:35, NIV). Two words in English, the shortest verse in the Bible. As simple as that, and among the most profound.
Think about what is happening there. Jesus knows that, in a few minutes, he will call Lazarus back to life. He does not weep out of despair, because he knows the happy ending. He weeps because the pain around him is real, because losing someone truly hurts, and because he is not a distant, indifferent God. God made human felt the lump in the throat you have already felt at a funeral.
This matters for daily life in the Club. When a friend loses a grandfather, a Counselor faces an illness in the family, or a Pathfinder shows up quiet because something heavy happened at home, the Christian response is not 'don't cry, it will pass.' Jesus wept first. To weep with those who weep is to imitate the Master. Being present is worth more than having the perfect line.
'Lazarus, come out!'
Jesus ordered the stone taken away. Martha, practical as ever, warned that the body already smelled, four days on. He insisted. Then he prayed aloud, so that everyone would hear, and 'called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out!' (John 11:43, NIV).
What came next is one of the most striking scenes in the Gospels: 'The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face' (John 11:44, NIV). A buried man, wound in the linen strips of the grave, walking out of his own tomb. Jesus finished: 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'
Ancient commentators note that Jesus called Lazarus by name. Had he only said 'come out,' perhaps every dead person in the area would have risen, such was the power of that voice. He wanted one, and he called by name. That is how God treats people: by the name he knows, one by one.
The miracle that decided Jesus's death
The raising of Lazarus should have ended in celebration. It ended in conspiracy. Many who saw it believed in Jesus, but others ran to tell the religious leaders. The Sanhedrin gathered, alarmed at the scale of the miracle and the crowd that followed Jesus.
Caiaphas, the high priest that year, settled the debate with cold political calculation: it was better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to be put at risk. The text records the result: 'So from that day on they plotted to take his life' (John 11:53, NIV). The next chapter tells that they planned to kill Lazarus too, because his very existence was proof that was too alive.
Here is the most serious turn of the story. By giving life back to his friend, Jesus hastened his own death. He knew it and went ahead anyway. The gesture that pulled Lazarus from the tomb is the same one that would put Jesus on the cross weeks later. He gave life knowing he would pay for it with his own.