Powerpoint Pictures: Alarm Clock; Megaphone; Open Curtains; Bucket of Water; Bacon; Pillow fight

What are some of the different ways of waking people up? [Alarm Clock; Shouting “Wake Up”; Opening the curtains to let light in; Throwing cold water over them; Cooking some bacon and letting the smell fill the house; Hit them with a pillow]

These things work if someone was asleep, but not if the person dead.  Nothing works then.  None of us are able to bring someone who is dead back to life.

When Jesus arrived with his disciples at Mary and Martha’s home, their brother Lazarus had been dead for 4 days and his body had been buried in a tomb.

Mary and Martha were distraught.  If only Jesus had come sooner, he would have been able to heal him.

Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” (John 11:25)

What Jesus was saying was that he was able to raise the dead to life, to give eternal life in heaven to people when they die.

And to prove he could do this, he told some people to roll the stone of Lazarus’ tomb away.  Then “Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus come out!”  The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.” (John 11:43-44)

He had been dead for 4 days, but Jesus is so powerful that raising the dead for Him was as easy as waking up someone who was asleep.

Jesus here is teaching His disciples about why He had to die.  One reason Jesus had to die was to make it possible for people to have eternal life in heaven after they died.  There’s another reason too which we discover when Jesus met a tax collector called Zacchaeus.