“THE TEACHER IS COME AND CALLS THEE”

D. L. Stewart

John 11: 11, 25–32, 40; 12: 1–3

This chapter has often been referred to and spoken from at an occasion such as this. I wish to refer particularly to these verses I have read. “Lazarus, our friend”, Jesus says, “is fallen asleep, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep”. I think we could apply that to the moment we are in. Margaret, our friend, has fallen asleep but Jesus says that He is going to wake her out of sleep. It actually could happen now while we are here. What we are looking for is the moment when the Lord Himself shall come with archangel’s voice and trump of God. What a moment! It is the hope of every Christian. The name of Christian could scarcely be applied if we did not believe that the Lord is shortly to come into the air, and the dead in Christ, that vast company to which our sister now belongs, will rise first and those who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. The Lord speaks of it in the very section that we have read. He says, “He that believes on me, though he have died, shall live; and everyone who lives and believes on me shall never die”. These are marvellous facts that belong to the faith of Christianity.

Now Martha says here, “Yea Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world”. That was the faith that our sister had. She would have said that, “I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God”—a marvellous Person, God Himself found here in manhood’s form, come into the world. What a

thing it is to have that faith. Our sister had a remarkable faith. An occasion like this would be for the glorification of Christ, the magnifying of Christ, but we are here to bury our sister and we can speak of her faith. There is something to be taken account of in the death-bed of this sister, something that ought to live in the mind and memory of every one who has had a part in it or heard about it, a living faith in a living Person, a Man beyond the grave and a Man who was her Saviour, who supported her as Priest and One who befriended her right up to the moment of death. He was her Friend; He met her too on the other side of death; she is with Christ in conditions of absolute bliss, no suffering, no weakness, nothing but Christ.

Well now, Jesus says, “I go that I may awake him out of sleep”. That is what the Lord is at at the moment. He is on the way to wake our sister, to wake the myriads that belong to Him.

Now while He is on the way I want to refer to this matter of the Teacher. The word comes in here that “The teacher is come and calls thee”. On the way to the resurrection, the way to the translation. He is presented to us as the Teacher. I think we could say He has come into these very circumstances in which we find ourselves today. How important that every one of us should get the gain of the way that He has come in and the lessons He has for us as the Teacher. He has come in in relation to a family. “The teacher has come and calls thee”; maybe calling someone particularly; surely He is calling us all.

Now I want to point out that the Lord takes up a definite position here. It says that He had not yet come into the village, it says too that He was at the place where Martha had gone to meet Him. That is to say that the Lord has taken up a place in which He is available. He has taken up His stand. There are all the problems, all the exercises, all the sorrows that surround this occasion, and in relation to all these the Lord has taken up His stand. He stands there, He waits there, He is available there; He is available for every one of us, available for the family. Mary did not understand; she knew His love and she believed His power, but she really could not understand why death should come in in relation to that family. Someone here might not be able to understand; they may have problems, they may have questions; but the Lord is available for every one of us. Mary goes to where Jesus was. What an experience this is; let it not be missed by any one of us, but in this time of difficulty and pressure and sorrow may we all find ourselves in the place where Jesus is.

Mary prostrates herself at His feet. Will He ever let us down? We might not get the answer right away, but He will fill the heart with His love. Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. He loves every one individually and He is available to all. I just make this point that He comes in in relation to these very circumstances in which we are and He says, as it were, that He is available for every one of us to go to Him, to put our problems and our questions.

He “had not yet come into the village”, that is to say that the Lord had taken up His position first in relation to the family, then also in relation to the village. I have no doubt that the way the Lord has come in is bound to raise enquiry in the village, in the city, and also in the area. I trust that every one of us in this city is found before Him in relation to it. What is the divine answer? What is in His mind? Things do not happen haphazardly but in relation to God’s plan and the Lord is there available, waiting to be enquired of.

Now I want to suggest something else. I believe that the persons in this chapter Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, represent younger persons. I do not think that there is anything to suggest that they were elderly. I think that the Lord consorted in His pathway with younger persons, the apostles were such. Now our sister belonged to that category, a younger woman, forty-eight, and the Lord has taken her. Has He something definitely in view in relation to those here, those in this city and area who are younger? He must have. I trust that the younger persons among us will be found enquiring.

He is available, standing there; He has taken up this position and He is to be enquired of. We have to go; Mary went, Martha went, and they found Him and put their problems; that is what we have to do.

In the next chapter we find that these persons are functioning normally. That would be the result of the experience of being with the Lord and getting His mind and His word. They are acting normally; Lazarus is normal, Martha is serving normally; what things these are to be reached in our localities, beloved brethren—normal conditions where Christ can come, where they made Him a supper, where He is the centre, where He is everything. I think that Mary’s pound of ointment represents maturity. She measured the necessity, she recognised just what was required for the moment, and in intelligence she provides and commits herself to what is required. What a word for every one of us; what a word for our younger brethren; just to see what is required and commit themselves to it.

I read that verse as to the glory, “if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God”. If we see it, if we see it at this moment in the way the Lord has come in, there is bound to be a change with every one of us. I trust that this experience will mean change. I trust that it will mean change with every one, with myself, that “looking on the glory of the Lord” we may be changed. We do not want to miss it, we want to come in in relation to the present moment, in relation to Himself, in relation to the glory, and find our part in these normal conditions where Christ is to be everything now. May the Lord bless His word.