John 11:1–46, Part 1

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead

Mary and Martha asked Jesus to come and help their sick brother Lazarus. Jesus delayed His journey and arrived four days after Lazarus had died. Jesus showed His compassion and wept with the sisters. Then He raised Lazarus from the dead. This lesson can help you identify truths about Jesus Christ and principles that can guide you through life’s challenges.

Allowing students to identify a variety of doctrinal truths and principles. Learning to identify doctrine and principles found in the scriptures takes thoughtful practice. Teachers should diligently help students acquire the ability to identify and verbalize doctrine and principles on their own.

Student preparation: Invite students to study John 11 and look for principles that could help them receive the Savior’s help in their trials. They could do this on their own or with their families. Invite them to come prepared to share what they found.

Possible Learning Activities

Note that this is the first of two lessons on John 11. This lesson helps students identify principles in the chapter. The second lesson allows students to teach about one of these principles. Be sensitive to students who might be facing difficult challenges. If necessary, adjust the following scenario or create another scenario that might benefit students more.

Think of someone in your immediate family. Imagine they became so ill that their life was in danger.

What feelings might you experience?
What might you do?
What questions might you have?

In John 11, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus faced this circumstance. Although their experience related to illness and death, we can apply the principles we learn from their experience to any challenge we might face.

Near the top of your paper, write “What you need to know when facing challenges.” Throughout the lesson, think about the challenges you are facing or might face. Seek to identify truths about Jesus Christ and His gospel that you feel might guide you and give you hope during those challenges. Record your thoughts on your paper. Think carefully about how each of the truths you identify can help you feel love for and from the Savior.

Finding truths

Determine which of the following activities would be most beneficial to students. If students are already able to easily identify principles on their own, consider allowing students to study and identify the principles on their own without identifying any for them. Remind them of the student preparation activity, and invite them to use their insights from that activity in the remainder of the lesson.

One scripture study skill that can be helpful in identifying principles is pausing when you notice important details to ask simple questions, such as these:

What might Heavenly Father want me to learn from these verses?
What does this account teach me about Jesus Christ?

Read John 11:1–7, and ask yourself the previous questions.

Invite students to share what they learned. Write the principles they share on the board. If students struggle to identify principles or if it would add useful insight, consider writing the following principles on the board and asking the questions that follow.

There are various principles you could have identified from these verses. The following are a few examples. For each example principle, consider marking phrases or details from the verses you read that support the principle.

Even though we are loved by Jesus Christ, we will experience trials.
Even when we are faithfully following Jesus Christ, we will still experience trials.
When we face challenges, we can seek the Lord’s help, and He will respond in His own time and in His own way.

Consider writing these principles on your sheet of paper.

How does knowing these truths help you?

Two days after the Savior heard about Lazarus’s illness, the Savior traveled to Lazarus’s home. When He arrived, Lazarus had been in the grave for four days (see John 11:17, footnote a).

Elder Bruce R. McConkie (1915–85) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained the significance of four days.

Decomposition was well under way; death had long since been established as an absolute certainty. … To the Jews the term of four days had special significance; it was the popular belief among them that by the fourth day the spirit had finally and irrevocably departed from the vicinity of the corpse.

(Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. [1965–73], 1:533)

Continue to practice identifying principles as you read John 11:18–46. Alternatively, you could watch “Lazarus Is Raised from the Dead” from time code 2:04 to 7:43 and follow along in your scriptures. Pause occasionally, and ask yourself questions when you come across important details, such as what Mary and Martha do to show their faith in Jesus Christ or how the Savior responds in each situation. Add to your document principles you find, and consider marking important details and making other notes in your scriptures.

What might Heavenly Father want you to learn from this story?

What does this account teach you about Jesus Christ?

Invite students to come to the board and write a principle they identified. They may identify truths such as these:

We can choose to exercise faith in Jesus Christ during our trials (see John 11:20–27).
The Savior can perform miracles in our lives as we act with faith in Him (see John 11:20–27, 38–44).
Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life (see John 11:25).
God’s miracles in our lives come according to His will and timing (see John 11:1–7, 11–17, 39–45).
We can follow the example of Jesus Christ by showing compassion to others (see John 11:32–36).
Jesus Christ has power over life and death (see John 11:20–27, 39–45).
We can see God’s love and power manifested in our struggles (see John 11:11–15, 40–42).

Consider asking students some of the following questions if they need help identifying additional truths.

What did Mary and Martha do to exercise faith in Jesus Christ during their trial?
What does the Savior’s response to them teach you about Him?
What elements of this account teach you to trust more in the Savior?
How did pausing when you found important details and asking questions help you in your study?

Consider placing students in pairs to role-play the following scenario.

Imagine you had the opportunity to speak with someone going through a difficult trial. Select one of the principles you identified from John 11:1–46, and share how that principle could help them. Include your thoughts on what this principle can help this person understand about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and Their desires for us.

Read through the principles you wrote on your “What you need to know when facing challenges” paper. At the bottom of the paper, add your responses to the following questions.

Which principle do you need to focus on the most in your own life right now? Why?
What did you learn about Heavenly Father and the Savior that helps you feel love for Them and from Them?

Consider inviting several students to answer the previous questions. As students share, look for ways to help students feel the Savior’s love for them. Consider sharing your own thoughts and testimony of the Savior.
What do you feel inspired to do based on what you learned and felt today? How will you do it?

Encourage students to use the scripture study skill of identifying principles in their own personal scripture study and to follow through on impressions they receive. Consider testifying of the importance of this study skill. One way to do this is by sharing a personal experience of finding guidance for a challenge during personal scripture study.

Commentary and Background Information

Why do I suffer when I am trying to be righteous?

Elder Matthew S. Holland of the Seventy taught:

There is One who understands perfectly what you are experiencing, who is “mightier than all the earth” [1 Nephi 4:1], and who is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that [you] ask or think” [Ephesians 3:20]. The process will unfold in His way and on His schedule, but Christ stands ready always to heal every ounce and aspect of your agony.

As you allow Him to do so, you will discover that your suffering was not in vain. … You see, the very nature of God and aim of our earthly existence is happiness, but we cannot become perfect beings of divine joy without experiences that test us, sometimes to our very core. Paul says even the Savior Himself was made eternally “perfect [or complete] through sufferings” [Hebrews 2:10]. So guard against the satanic whispering that if you were a better person, you would avoid such trials.

You must also resist the related lie that your sufferings somehow suggest you stand outside the circle of God’s chosen ones, who seem to glide from one blessed state to another. …

Brothers and sisters, suffering in righteousness helps qualify you for, rather than distinguishes you from, God’s elect.

(Matthew S. Holland, “The Exquisite Gift of the Son,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2020, 46–47)