Lazarus Lives Again!

This is the display I used for this lesson. It is the same set for the Resurrection of Jesus. I wrapped up one of the guys with gauze to be Lazarus, used Jesus and the two women. You can see it here.

This lesson is about Lazarus and is found in John 11:1-45 and John 12:17-18. He had two sisters named Mary and Martha. They lived in Bethany. Mary and Martha sent for Jesus because Lazarus was sick. The message stated, “the one you love is sick.” Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus. But when Jesus heard about Lazarus being sick, He stayed two more days where He was. Lazarus died during that time, and he was buried before Jesus could visit him.

Jesus told His Disciples that they were going to Judea. They asked Him “Are you sure? The Jews have been wanting to stone you.” Jesus told them it would be all right, He needed to go see their friend Lazarus. Lazarus is sleeping, and I will wake him up. They told Jesus that if Lazarus is sleeping, then he would get better. But Jesus told them that Lazarus was dead. Jesus told them that He was glad they weren’t there so they would believe what they see. And then He told the Disciples "Now, let’s go to him."

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was two miles away from Jerusalem. And many of those people had come to be with Martha and Mary to comfort them.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him. Mary stayed at the house.

Martha told Jesus that if He would have been there, Lazarus wouldn’t have died. But she said, I know that whatever you ask God, He will give You. Jesus told her that her brother would live again. Jesus asked her if she believed that whoever believed in Him would live even though they died. Martha replied that she believed in Him. “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world.”

After she answered Jesus, Martha secretly went to find her sister Mary and told her that Jesus had come and was looking for her. Immediately, Mary went to Jesus. Jesus wasn’t in town yet; He was waiting for her where He had met Martha. The people who were with her, comforting her, thought she was going to the grave to cry about Lazarus. 

When Mary came to Jesus, she fell at His feet and told Him that Lazarus wouldn’t have died if He’d been there. When Jesus saw her crying, he felt sorry for her, and He was upset that she was so sad.

Jesus asked her where Lazarus was laid at and the people said “Lord, come and see.” vs. Jesus wept. (The shortest verse of the Bible, but very important.)  Jesus was upset, even though He knew He would raise him from the dead. It still upset Him. The people said, “See how much He loved Lazarus!”

Some of them said if Jesus healed the blind, couldn’t He have kept Lazarus from dying? When they came to the tomb, it was a cave cut into the rock with a stone in front of it. This tells us that Mary, Martha and Lazarus had more money than the average family. This is the family burial place and only the rich could pay to have it cut out of the rock.

Jesus was so upset when He came to the tomb. He said, “Take away the stone.” Martha said there is going to be a bad smell since Lazarus has been dead for four days! Jesus told her that she would believe after this.

They took the stone away from the tomb and Jesus lifted up His eyes and said “I am thankful that You have heard Me. I know that You always hear Me. Because of these people standing here, I am saying this so that they may believe that You sent Me.”

After that, Jesus said really loud “Lazarus, come forth.” Lazarus, who had been dead, came out with the wrappings around his hands and feet and face. Jesus said to unwrap him and the people that were there with Mary and Martha saw what Jesus had done and they believed in Him.

The project is a cut and glue of Lazarus coming out of the tomb. I cut the rock, used my craft knife to make the slit for the rock tab and glued the rock cover before class. The students can lift the rock flap and will cut & glue Lazarus. It is available in color and black & white. You can download it here. For this lesson, I purchased gauze and let them wrap it around cheap plastic people I have found. Or, I have used pretzels and string cheese and let them wrap the string cheese around the pretzel.

Click here to print the worksheet.

We continue the Miracles lapbook today. The students will leave them in class until we finish the miracles lessons, then they take them home. Click on the lapbook to see it. I decided to limit this lapbook to the miracles that Jesus did to prove Himself. We will study Malchus, Resurrection of Jesus and Jesus Returns to Heaven, etc., but I did not include these. If you'd like to add other miracles, you can see more Jesus lapbook printables here.

 

Bible Verse: John 11:43

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.   Used by permission.

Click here to download the lesson.

Click here to download the visuals.

Not all visuals are shown.

Click here to download the pictures to color.

(These are the same as the visuals but are black & white.)