Summary
The Conjunctions of Faith: "But Jesus"
The story of Lazarus in John 11 turns on small words. Tiny conjunctions—so, if, but—carry the whole weight of the account, marking the difference between human reasoning, deficient faith, and the power of Christ to break in upon death itself.
The narrative begins with a logical so. Lazarus, whom Jesus loved with a deep and particular friendship, lay ill in Bethany. So the sisters Mary and Martha sent word: "Lord, he whom you love is ill" John 11:3. Their reasoning was sound: Jesus is close, Jesus can help, so we will lay the problem at His feet. This is the prayer of faith in its simplest and most beautiful form. Yet the response confounds them—Jesus stayed two days longer where He was. The expected so of immediate rescue did not come.
When Jesus finally arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb four days, and Martha met Him with another conjunction: if. "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" John 11:21. This was no faithless complaint—Martha trusted that Jesus could have done something. But her if exposed a deficiency: she conceived of Jesus as an influencer, a holy man whose prayers God would answer, rather than the Son of God in the flesh with all power in Himself. Even her hope of resurrection "on the last day" carried a tinge of the works-righteousness common to her contemporaries—the assumption that the pious would rise on account of their piety.
Into this scene of death, deficient faith, and limited understanding bursts the decisive conjunction. Verse 4 places it at the head of the sentence: "But when Jesus heard it, he said, 'This illness does not lead to death. Rather it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it'" John 11:4. But Jesus. He delayed four days deliberately—a rabbinic teaching held that the spirit hovered near the body for three days, after which all hope was gone. Christ would leave no room for anyone to credit resuscitation or superstition. On the fourth day, when every human possibility had expired, He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out" John 11:43.
To Martha's if, Jesus answered with the great I AM: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die" John 11:25-26. Here is Christ as Victor over physical death, raising Lazarus from the tomb. Here also is Christ as Victor over eternal death—the One who would go to the cross to bear our sin, pay our debt, and open the gates of heaven, claiming us as His own in the waters of Baptism. Martha's confession follows: "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world" John 11:27.
Everyone is dealing with something. We all carry our own sos and ifs—the perplexing problem, the looming uncertainty, the impenetrable wall, the dashed hope, the pressing disappointment, the certainty of death, even the dread of standing before God on the last day knowing that our righteous deeds are as filthy rags. To every one of these, the gospel answers with the same two words. But Jesus. When Satan presses his accusations and the ifs rise on the deepest level, the Christian has a name to speak—the name above every name—and with Martha confess that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, the One coming into the world Resurrection and Life: "But Jesus" 10-12-25.
Video citations
- Resurrection and Life: "But Jesus" 10-12-25 — Would you open your Bibles, please, with me, to the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John? If you're using a few edition of Holy Scripture, you're going to find that on page 91 in the New Testament,…