What does First B Jackson teach about lazarus?

At First B Jackson, the teaching on Lazarus begins not as a standalone miracle but as the event that set Holy Week in motion. In both the 2019 Palm Sunday messages, Pastor Carl and Pastor Mark spent real time on why John places the raising of Lazarus immediately before the triumphal entry. Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick and deliberately waited, arriving in Bethany after four days in the tomb, past the point where anyone held hope of recovery. He wept with the people around him before he acted, because he was genuinely moved by their grief, and then he called Lazarus out publicly, with witnesses, removing all reasonable doubt about what had happened.

The miracle did not land quietly. Bethany sat less than two miles from the temple, and what Jesus did there forced a decision on everyone who saw it. Many believed. Others went directly to the chief priests and Pharisees, who agreed on almost nothing but found sudden common ground: if Jesus continued, the people would follow him and Rome would move against whatever authority the leadership still held. Caiaphas declared it expedient for one man to die for the nation, and John marks that as unwitting prophecy. From that day they planned to kill Jesus, and the road to the cross ran directly through the tomb of Lazarus.

By the time the crowd lined the road into Jerusalem waving palm branches and shouting save us now, they had the raising of Lazarus fresh in their minds and were hoping this miracle-worker might be the one to break Roman occupation. The teaching here holds those two realities together: Jesus felt the weight of human grief deeply enough to weep, and he held power over death itself. That combination is exactly what made him impossible for the authorities to ignore, and it is what the Palm Sunday crowd, whatever their mixed motives, had glimpsed.

Taught from John 11:1-46 · John 12:1 · John 12:12-16 · Luke 19:41 · Psalm 118:25