Transcript - Podcast 21 - John 11 (Wake-Up Call)
inBible Community Podcast | Episode 21 | John 11:1-54 | Hosts: Chris Small and Jessica Stout | Runtime about 60 minutes
Original-language words are given in simple transliteration.
A MESSAGE FROM BETHANY (0:00)
Jessica: Welcome back to the inBible Community podcast. This week we are continuing our discussion on the Book of John, and we're gonna be looking at chapter 11, which is in some ways the culminating climax, at least of this section of text, and arguably maybe the whole book. It's this high point of action, because in this chapter Jesus is going to raise Lazarus.
Chris: Yeah. We've talked about how John has signs. He's showing us these signs, of course, with the idea that we may believe, and this is the seventh of the seven signs: kind of a culminating moment, at least for John, the author, and the way he set up the book.
So at the very end of our last chapter, chapter 10, we saw that Jesus was leaving Jerusalem. He had been there for Hanukkah, or the Feast of Dedication, so wintertime. And once again, the Jews seek to seize him, to get rid of him, and so he departs, and he heads back across the Jordan to the same place where John was baptizing, all the way at the beginning of the Book of John. And so he stays there, and we noted when we were talking with the members about this that the name of that place was Bethany, on the other side of the Jordan. And now here in chapter 11, Jesus is going to get a message from the Bethany which is near Jerusalem, not quite two miles outside of Jerusalem. And in the village of Bethany live Eleazar, Mariam, and Martha. Or Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. The three of them live there. They're friends with Jesus. We see them in other Gospels and so forth.
Jessica: We haven't yet seen them in this Gospel, have we?
Chris: Well, I don't think we have. I don't think so. This is where they show up first. So if you're familiar with the other Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, then we've got some backstory. If not, this is the first we're hearing about them. So Lazarus, or Eleazar, and we might just mention right here at the top of things, his name means "God (El) is my help (azar)." And so that's just a little name to keep in mind as we go through this chapter, because God is certainly going to help him and his family.
His sisters: Martha is a name we don't see too often in Scripture, but Mary, of course, is a very familiar name...
Jessica: Very common, yeah.
Chris: ...for everybody here. It's really Mariam. Whichever Mary it is, they're named after Moses' sister. And we will see this Mary show up again in chapter 12, doing certain things with Jesus.
So Eleazar, or Lazarus, gets sick, and the sisters send word to Jesus: "Lord, your friend is sick." "Master, your friend is sick." And what does Jesus do at that moment?
Jessica: Well, he doesn't go right away. The text says that he basically makes a statement, I guess, to his disciples, that this sickness isn't going to end in death. And then John notes in the book that although Jesus loves Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, he stays right where he is for two more days. So he seems to intentionally delay, or at least John is really intentional about "he stayed, and this is how long."
Chris: Yeah, he's showing that he...
Jessica: So even though he loves them, he doesn't go right away. And obviously it seems to be a serious sickness, because they've sent word to Jesus. They haven't requested anything from him explicitly that we know of, but he makes the decision to stay for a couple days. And then he says to them, "Let's go back to Judea," after two days. So on the third day he says, "Let's go back to Judea."
Chris: And the thing he says to them back in verse 4, that you mentioned: the sickness, I think you said, will not end in death. You could translate it "is not for the purposes of death." And he's explicit. He says, "Out of this is going to come something that gives honor to God and to the Son of God." And so he seems to see some sort of purpose in here.
Jessica: Which is some good foreshadowing.
Chris: Yeah, that's exactly right. We've got foreshadowing here.
Jessica: Which is interesting just to note, because that all happens in verse 4. And then when Jesus does decide in verse 7 that he'd like to go back to Judea, his disciples object right away. They are not interested.
Chris: And rightly so, because at the end of the last chapter, the Jews in Jerusalem are trying to kill Jesus. We've talked about how he's been there for several feasts now, over the course of more than a year, and every time it just ratchets up the tension and something happens. He makes these very bold claims, and every time they're like, "He's blaspheming. This is not right. Let's kill him." They've tried to stone him. They want to arrest him. And so, yeah, the disciples are just like, "Jesus, why would we go back to that area?"
Jessica: Yeah. It just doesn't make...
Chris: We're dead men.
Jessica: ...rational sense. And whether it comes from a desire to protect him or to preserve their own well-being, they are not interested in going back. They don't understand why he wants to go back. They understand Lazarus is ill, but they don't seem to care enough to want to go back.
Chris: He's just sick. Let him alone. Let's see what happens.
Jessica: And maybe they're thinking...
Chris: And we'll be safe.
Jessica: ..."You did say this is not going to end in death. So why are we going back?"
Chris: "It's not for the purpose of death," so yeah. They say specifically, "The Jews want to stone you." I remember as a kid going into the post office and seeing the different wanted posters up on the wall. I don't go into the post office that much anymore. Usually I just put things in the mailbox if I need to, but once in a while. That's what's going on here. Jesus and the disciples would've had wanted posters up for them, if they'd had post offices.
Jessica: If they had a post office and a printer.
Chris: Yeah. So Jesus gives this little riddle now in verse 9 about light and dark, and walking in the day and walking in the night, and we've seen this kind of language in John before. So Jesus says, "Aren't there 12 hours in a day? If you walk around in the daylight, you're not gonna stumble." But then he gives it this little theological twist: "because he sees the light of this world." Right? The sun is the light of the world, but he's also claimed to be the light of the world at that feast of Sukkot in Jerusalem. Surely the disciples are picking up on a few of these phrases. "But if anyone's walking around in the night, that person is stumbling around, because they don't have light in them." And then he just says, "Well, Lazarus has gone to sleep. Let's go wake him up."
"Oh, that's good. He's gotten sick." I always feel like if one of my boys gets sick: go to sleep. Go try to sleep it off for a while. When you wake up, we'll bring you good soup or something, or fluids. Just try to go to sleep, and you'll probably be better in a day or two. And that's what the disciples think about Lazarus here. "Oh, this is good." But Jesus says, "No, I'm talking about death." And so in verse 14 he tells them boldly, or plainly (the Greek here can be read different ways), "Lazarus has died." And so they get the sense of what's really happened to him.
Why do you think Jesus is using metaphors like these?
Jessica: Well, Jesus is always using metaphors. If you line up all the things he's ever talking about, he almost always is talking in a metaphor.
Chris: Particularly in John.
Jessica: Yeah, particularly in John, but so often in all the Gospels. And then people don't understand, and he can sometimes appear to get a little impatient or frustrated, or certainly the reader gets frustrated, 'cause we feel like it's so obvious. But he's pulling on images that go all the way through the Hebrew Scriptures, like this idea of light and darkness. That's at the very beginning. John certainly sets it up at the beginning of the way he chooses to tell his story here. But also their whole faith tradition: light and darkness goes all the way back to Genesis, and it gets pulled throughout the whole text. You can think of verses like, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." So it's not like they have no idea what he's saying when he's talking about this. They understand he's not talking literally about there being light, and of course you can walk safely during the day. I think they understand that he's saying, "Hey, I've declared myself the light of the world. If you are with me, you're walking in safety." I don't know that they understand what that means fully, or how they should interpret it, because they still don't seem to wanna go. It's not like they're saying, "Okay, you're right. Let's go back to where everyone wants to kill us." And rightly so, that they would feel a little uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable thing that he's asking them to do.
Chris: Yeah, that's right. Dangerous.
Jessica: Yeah, it's dangerous. So I think that he's pulling on that image because it's so dominant throughout Scripture. They know exactly what he's talking about. He's using that literal language, but with the spiritual meaning.
Chris: Yeah. Well, and it connects to this idea about sleeping and death as well. In the Hebrew Scriptures, you've got these ideas of sleeping with your fathers. You're being put in the tomb. In this case, Lazarus is going to be put in a tomb. And typically they'll let the body sit there for a year or two, or however long it takes to decompose, and then they'll move the bones underneath or to a different spot. And so your bones literally are being put with the bones of other ancestors as well, all together there. And then that, of course, gives you space for new burials, if that's needed. So they're trying to maximize space, which you need if you keep burying people in the same places over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Most of the cemeteries that I'm familiar with don't have that kind of problem. Although I did live in a town where we had a national cemetery, and a year or two before I moved, it ran out of space. And they said, "Okay, we're stopping the burials here." And so now anybody who lived in that area who was a veteran has to be buried elsewhere, unless they were a relative of someone there. They might have had a few spaces: okay, this is for so-and-so's husband or wife or what have you. But in general, "We're not burying anybody else here, because we're just out of ground space." So imagine living in a spot for the course of a thousand years, or 2,000 years, and this cemetery has been here for that long. Yeah, you gotta have some space for that.
Anyway, I digress. But I think that's intriguing. So you would sleep with your fathers. That's a biblical metaphor. Or you would go down into darkness. Right? Which is this idea of sleep as well. When we sleep, we close our eyes, and we drift off. We have our own metaphors for it as well. And so Jesus is just using this idea: he's fallen asleep. For Jesus, that seems to be a peaceful thing, because he knows he can wake somebody up from sleep. And that seems to be the main point of this metaphor.
Jessica: Yeah. In Jesus' mind, it's a very clear way to start redefining death for the disciples. Because they're going to see this as very permanent, something that cannot be overcome. And Jesus is about to demonstrate that it is impermanent as far as he is concerned.
Chris: And remember, the disciples are living in a world where the chief priests don't believe there's a resurrection. So this is going to shake their world quite a bit as well, when everybody hears about this.
Okay, so he tells them boldly, or plainly, in verse 14 that Lazarus has died, and then he says something really intriguing: "I'm glad for your sake." Or, "I am rejoicing," or "giving thanks." Now, he doesn't say, "I'm rejoicing that Lazarus died." He's saying, "This has happened, in this bad situation. I'm glad for you," his disciples, that is. And what's the reason John has Jesus give? "So you may believe." Which is John's reason for writing the book. So he's sort of saying, "Well, I got this from Jesus. Jesus wanted us to believe. Now I want you to believe, too." So let's go; he's going to do something. The disciples don't know what it is, but he knows what it is. So they're going to believe. "So let's go to him." And then this really interesting comment happens in verse 16.
THOMAS, BETHANY, AND MARTHA (12:48)
Jessica: Yeah. So Thomas becomes one of the more significant disciples in this Gospel, but this is really the first time that we've heard him speak so far in this book. In verse 16, the state of the conversation is: Jesus is saying, "Let's go to Judea," and they're saying, "No, they want to stone us. We do not think you should go to Judea." And then he's like, "Well, Lazarus has gone to sleep." And then the disciples are like, "Well, then he'll be fine."
Chris: That's good.
Jessica: And then Jesus says, "No, he's dead, and I'm glad for your sake that I wasn't there." And then Thomas speaks up. So you have this moment where it seems like the disciples are saying, "Mm-mm. Nope, I don't want to go," and Jesus is kind of pulling them. And Thomas, nicknamed "the Twin," it says in verse 16, says to his fellow disciples, "Let's go, too, and die with Jesus." And then the next thing we know, in the next verse, they're arriving in Bethany. They get there.
Chris: So they obviously go.
Jessica: Yeah, we don't really know what happens in between the two, but we do know that Thomas is one of the first ones to speak up and say, "No, we should go." To me he doesn't seem to fully understand what the outcome is going to be, 'cause he seems to be like, "Well, we're probably gonna die, but we might as well go." It seems similar to when Jesus finishes the teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and the disciples are like, "Okay, we don't understand this, but..."
Chris: "...I'll follow you." So many people have left: "Are you gonna leave me as well?"
Jessica: Yeah. "Where else would we go?"
Chris: "We know you have the truth."
Jessica: It almost seems like that kind of thing, where Thomas is like, "Okay, well, we're probably marching toward our own demise, but if we're gonna die, we're gonna die with Jesus." That seems to be his attitude.
Chris: It's definitely, in my mind, a statement of loyalty. I'm not sure I'd go quite so far as faith, because he does seem like he thinks they may die. But certainly this intense loyalty to Jesus, and better at this moment than we actually get from the disciples later on, after the Last Supper, when they all run away when Jesus actually does get arrested. So there may be a little bit of bravado here as well. But you have to say, okay, at least he's speaking up, and he's on Jesus' side.
Jessica: He's willing to follow. 'Cause the other disciples are like, "Mm," arguing: "We don't even want to go. No, we don't think... Let's argue the merits of you returning." And it seems like Thomas at least is like, "All right. Well, we might as well go with him." I think he still seems to be in agreement that they may die, and you can debate whether or not he should have thought that. But he does think it. He thinks it's possible. And eventually Jesus does die, as do the disciples.
Chris: Right. They are martyrs for their faith. And Thomas is one.
Jessica: So it's sort of like this tension that we all kind of carry as followers of God, where you know intellectually that if you're with God, you're safe, but that doesn't always mean you're safe...
Chris: In the moment.
Jessica: ...on this earth, in this moment. And so you can have a little compassion, I think, with Thomas. Even though he seems a little skeptical, he's still willing to follow.
Chris: That's right.
Jessica: So that's good at this point in the story.
Chris: Yeah, I like this picture of Thomas' loyalty, and it's helpful to remember this when we see Thomas later on, after Jesus' death and the story of the resurrection. Don't forget, this is the same guy who showed so much loyalty back here in chapter 11.
Jessica: And in the Gospel of John, Thomas is a really important disciple in how he lays out the story. So it's worth noting where his faith is right now, and then we'll kind of follow that through the rest of the book.
Chris: Yeah. His loyalty and faith journey is quite important in this book. And of course, according to church tradition, ultimately Thomas does give up his life, and does go to what would then have been the ends of the earth. So, a pretty amazing fellow.
Jessica: We're a little judgy of Thomas, so we'll maybe try to examine him with fresh eyes as we go through John.
Chris: That's right. At this point, good for Thomas. Way to speak up and be loyal to Jesus.
And the next thing we know, as you said, in verse 17, Jesus and his disciples get there. Nothing about the journey. It's just sort of this truncated narrative, and we jump forward to the arrival. And Bethany is near Jerusalem. My version says "about 15 stadia," so helpful, which is just under two miles. So it's actually a really nice spot for when people come to stay here at one of the feasts, because they can easily get from Bethany to Jerusalem within the day to go to a feast. So it sounds like Jesus and his disciples do that with Mary and Martha and Lazarus' family fairly often.
And also, many of the Jews have come out. So people who know the family from the city of Jerusalem have come out to Bethany, according to verse 19, just to share and console and say, "Oh, we're so sorry, and we're here to weep with you."
Jessica: Just to mourn with them.
Chris: As one would do.
Jessica: That's a good reflection of their culture, which is very communal. And we've talked about how they exercise their faith communally. There is this strong tradition, and not just in Hebrew culture, but in most of Middle Eastern culture. It's very communal, and it's sometimes a very different way of thinking about things than the way we might in the West. But that idea of joining someone in their suffering, maybe not trying to solve their problem or answer their questions, but just being with them, is a really big value culturally. And so you see that in these verses, where they're surrounded with people.
Chris: Well, it's the same as the wedding at Cana, which was near the beginning of the Book of John. As two people join together and begin their life as a married couple, the whole community surrounds them.
Jessica: For days.
Chris: For days, yes. For seven days, if not longer. And here we see that it's the fourth day, and people are coming around. It's the same idea. It's communal: let's share this, and get through this together, and lend each other support. Which I think is, in many ways, a very nice situation here.
Jessica: So he's approaching. He's not really there yet, it doesn't look like. He's in Bethany, but he doesn't appear to actually be at Lazarus' home, or Martha's home.
Chris: He's somewhere close to Bethany, or near the home, but not there yet.
Jessica: So it says that Martha got word Jesus was coming, and she runs out to meet him. And then it notes that Mary stays in the house. Which is a contrast in action. You get this image of Martha kind of running down the road to meet Jesus, and Mary remains. Mary stays.
Chris: We don't know if Mary knows yet. But she doesn't come out at this moment. So Martha does. She goes out to meet him wherever he is. And she says to him in verse 21, "Kyrie": Lord, Master, Sir. It can be any of those. It can be anything from what you might say to a superior to whom you truly owed allegiance, or it might just be a greeting that you would give to a man that you knew. In this case, Martha's going to say a few things that lead me to believe it's a term she uses where she is giving Jesus authority, because she sees him as coming from God. So, "Lord, Kyrie, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know whatever you ask of God, God will give to you."
Jessica: She says a lot, and then not very much, because we're just reading words on a page, and you can't necessarily infer the correct tone. But there's nothing in what she's saying that seems angry. And yet I'm sure she has to be feeling maybe a little sad, with regret in her voice. Like, "If you had been here, this wouldn't have happened." It's a statement of faith in his ability to have prevented death. And also, it seems to be a statement of sadness that he wasn't there to prevent it.
Chris: When I was younger, in fact for most of my life, I read this in an accusatory tone, where she was saying, "If you had been... You know, you should have been here."
Jessica: "How dare you not come?"
Chris: Yeah. "Why weren't you here?" And a couple of years ago, I looked at it and said, "Well, it doesn't actually say that in the text." So what if I...
Jessica: It's a big inference.
Chris: It is. Right? And so that reflected something about me more than it did about Martha. And I said, "Well, what if I read this just as the words are here, as a statement of fact? 'If you had been here, my brother would not have died.'" Well, that's probably true, because where Jesus goes, healing seems to be there. And then, "Even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give to you."
Jessica: That's the part that seems to detract a little bit from the case that she's being accusatory, or angry.
Chris: I agree that this sounds like a statement of faith, and maybe a little bit of reassurance to Jesus. I've even come to look at it that way a little bit, as if she's coming to him and saying, "You know, this hasn't damaged our friendship. We're still okay. Even though I know things would've been all right, I still believe in you."
Jessica: Which is such an incredible statement of faith at this point. I mean, at any point. This is someone who she clearly seems to believe is from God. The extent of what she understands about his role as Messiah is cloudy, but she seems to believe that he's from God. But it's also someone that she knows really well. It's a friend. It would be a very human thing, when you're in that much pain and grief, to look at the person who could have prevented it and chose not to, and be bitter. And I think that's why we are really quick to interpret her words that way, because I think so many of us realize, well, that's how I would feel. I mean, that is what we do with God all the time.
Chris: I was gonna say, not to put too fine a point on it, but we often feel bitter with God when something bad happens in our lives: "Lord, why did you let this happen?"
Jessica: So she's holding that tension where she's like, "I understand that if you had been here, he wouldn't be dead. And yet I still know you're from God, and I'm not going to accuse you." 'Cause she doesn't. There's not a lot of evidence on the page that she is angry or accusing him, so we have to be careful if we're inferring that. So yeah, I agree with you. That would have been, I think, a very comforting thing for Jesus, because so often in the Gospel of John, we've seen people believe in him only because of the signs, only because of what they can gain from him.
Chris: "He gave us food. Therefore, we wanna be with him."
Jessica: Yeah. So what a testament of their love and their friendship and their faith that even in their grief, Martha in this case still has a fondness for Jesus and a belief in who he is.
Chris: "I'm not your friend just because of what I get out of it."
Jessica: Yeah. We could stop the story right here, and I feel like there's a lot of value...
Chris: There is so much there.
Jessica: ...in that little lesson.
Chris: Yeah, I agree. I think that's something to really take to heart, and I appreciate that possible reading of what Martha says here, because it's helpful to me.
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE (24:30)
Chris: And Jesus responds to her, "Your brother will rise again." Now, you just gotta pretend for a minute that you don't know the story. Because if somebody has read this and knows the story, we already have the foregone conclusions. But if we put ourselves in Martha's place, and we don't know what's going to happen, we don't even have an inkling. We believe that Jesus is a healer and that he is from God, that he's the Messiah, that God has sent him. But nobody has been raised from the dead since the time of Elijah and Elisha. That's hundreds of years ago.
Jessica: Right. And your leaders are debating theologically whether it's even possible.
Chris: Yeah, the Sadducees don't even believe that there's a resurrection. So I don't know that Martha is thinking in terms of, "Well, Jesus could wake Lazarus up this afternoon." I don't think that's on her mind here. And she says, "Yeah, I know he's going to rise again in the resurrection at the last day." So she's aligning herself theologically here with the Pharisees, who do believe that there's a resurrection. And Jesus does too. There's a resurrection coming, and there are other places where he argues with the Sadducees about this a little bit.
She says, "Yeah, I believe there is the eschaton": the last days, the last thing. Sometimes in the Old Testament it's "the day of judgment" or "the day of the Lord," when all the hidden things are brought to light, and those who have died come to a resurrection. And so she believes in that. And she says, "I believe that, too. He's going to be raised at the last day." So someday, whenever that is in the future. So she does have a hope of resurrection, which I think is a wonderful thing to start with.
Jessica: Yes, I agree. This conversation with Jesus is so interesting, because she says things like, "I know even now, God will give you whatever you ask." But she doesn't ask him to do anything about Lazarus, whether she doesn't believe he can, or that God would. I don't know what's happening, but it's just interesting that someone seems to have so much faith, but they're not necessarily asking him to solve their immediate problem.
Chris: Yeah. Well, my argument here is that I don't think, at this time and at this cultural moment, it would necessarily have even crossed her mind to ask him to raise Lazarus. We think of it because we know the story. But if we don't know anything about somebody being raised from the dead, if nobody's been raised from the dead for hundreds of years... Okay, now, does she know about the widow of Nain's son? Does she know about Jairus's daughter? Those are the two times where Jesus has done something.
Jessica: I was gonna say... He has done it, but it's worth noting they're different situations, in that they're easy to explain away if you wanted to doubt. It doesn't seem to me like Martha is someone looking for reasons to doubt Jesus. But certainly those who were could rationalize what happened in those two cases.
Chris: And just to draw the difference: the widow of Nain's son, probably they would have been trying to bury fairly quickly. And Jairus's daughter had only been dead an hour or two at most by the time they got to the...
Jessica: So was she really dead?
Chris: Right. People could argue that. I'm sure people in Jesus' day did: "Oh, she wasn't really..." Anyway. But Lazarus has been dead now for four days. She knows he's already starting to decompose. The man is dead. And so my argument would be, for what it's worth (we don't know, 'cause the text doesn't say), she's expressing, "I still believe you're the Messiah. I know that if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And I think you're going to ask God for other things, and other people are going to be healed, and great things are gonna happen under your ministry, and I'm still with you."
Jessica: Which is really a beautiful statement. And I think sometimes we're hard on Martha. As a modern audience, from other stories in the Gospels, we tend to kinda criticize her a little bit. But that's a really difficult thing to say, even for us today, when we're going through something really difficult and we feel like God could have prevented it. It's so easy to take that position of frustration and anger toward God. And we see that happen sometimes, and God is fine with it. He's able to absorb it and take it.
Chris: Absolutely.
Jessica: It happens with Job.
Chris: Very much so. And others.
Jessica: And others, yeah. But it's a beautiful exercise of faith on Martha's part.
Chris: Yeah. I just wanna work that through, because there are different ways to interpret this text. And I think sometimes we get set on one way. At least in the traditions I've grown up in, Martha gets a bad rap.
Jessica: Well, we tend to really like to... Thomas is a doubter, and Martha was distracted, and Mary was faithful and connected. And we kinda paint people with a one-dimensional brush, and people are very complicated. And they evolve. Sometimes they do things that are amazing, and sometimes they do things that are not so amazing...
Chris: As we'll see with all of these in the story.
Jessica: ...so holding a really dynamic view of these characters is important.
Chris: I think that's good. So Jesus answers her again when she says, "Yes, he'll be raised at the last day." Jesus says, "I'm the resurrection. I'm the life. And whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. And anyone who lives and believes in me will..." Sorry, I gotta go to the Greek here for a minute. "...will not die into the age." Some versions say, "will never die forever," or I think maybe yours said, "never, ever die," or something. It was a very strong...
Jessica: So mine says, in verse 25, "Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying." And then in 26 it says, "Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die."
Chris: Okay. Oh, that's interesting. Wow, yeah. That's very strong there. So again, here the Greek has that phrase about "into the age," or the aionion. So again, you can interpret that. This is where translation is interpretation. Right? So it could be interpreted "never die forever," but does Jesus mean that, or does he mean he won't die in the age to come? That's more than we're gonna get into here.
Jessica: Right, right, right.
Chris: But again, there's more than one way to look at this verse, and it's not quite as straightforward and cut-and-dried, maybe, as we would like to read it. However, what we can say about it, no matter what Jesus means by that phrase, is he certainly is claiming to have power over death. And there is this promise of life and not death that he's giving to Martha. And he asks her plainly in verse 26, "Do you believe this?" And remember, the whole point of this is "so that you may believe": John's little theme running underneath everything. And she says to him, "Yes, Lord, I have believed." Right? "I already have been believing. You don't have to ask me about my faith. I already believe. You are the Messiah, the Christos, the Son of God, who's come into the world." So she doesn't answer his question directly, "Do you believe that I have power over death?" She's like, "Yeah, I believe that you're the Christ. So whatever you ask of God..."
Jessica: Whatever you say goes.
Chris: Essentially, yes. Whatever you say goes. Again, an amazing statement of faith.
Jessica: There's a lot of that in John. There are a lot of women who make really strong statements of faith in the Gospel of John.
Chris: Oh, yeah.
Jessica: Well, in all the Gospels, but particularly in the Gospel of John. So she runs to get Mary after making this declaration. She goes and gets her sister and says, "The teacher's here and wants to see you." So we can assume Jesus and Martha say other things that aren't recorded in this book.
Chris: Presumably, yeah.
Jessica: She goes and gets Mary, and it says Mary immediately went to him. When the people notice that Mary's leaving, they kind of assume, "Oh, she must be going to the tomb. We're gonna go with her."
Chris: "We'll accompany her." All these friends and family and mourners go along.
Jessica: Yeah. But she's not going to the tomb. She's going to see Jesus.
MARY, AND JESUS DEEPLY MOVED (33:03)
Chris: Right. That brings us to verse 32. When she gets to Jesus, she, and I just wanna notice this, falls at his feet. So that's just something to keep in our minds for chapter 12, when we see Mary again. She falls at his feet. She always wants to be close to him, and the feet are particularly important. And she says the same thing Martha said. Exactly the wording: "Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died." Cut and paste.
Jessica: Except she doesn't say the "Even now I know that God will give you whatever you..."
Chris: Right. It's just this one phrase. And John, the author, sort of leaves us hanging. Is this shorthand for "she gives the whole statement of faith in the same way that Martha did"? Or does she just truncate it here, and maybe she's not willing to go as far as Martha? We don't know. And maybe she can't get through any more, because according to the next verse, she's weeping. So maybe she just gets through this one little phrase. In fact, you even wonder if they've talked ahead of time. I'm thinking about the prodigal son, who has this whole speech planned when he goes to his father. And I'm wondering if the two sisters have said, "Well, when Jesus does show up, here's what we're gonna tell him." And maybe she gets into this, but whatever it is, she starts to weep.
And surely it's because Jesus is there. Surely it's because she's sad for her brother. I'm sure there are all kinds of complicated emotions caught up in this moment. And she just weeps, which is...
Jessica: Fine and normal.
Chris: ...at this kind of a moment. So Jesus saw her weeping, and even some of the friends and family there around, they're weeping. And verse 33 says, "He was deeply moved and troubled," or "his spirit was troubled," or some versions say "in spirit" or "within himself." There are two idioms here. One is this "deeply moved": he snorted. To be more precise, he snorted like a horse, which is an idiom of the time for anger. And your Bible actually translates it as "he was angry."
Jessica: Yeah, it says, "A deep anger welled within him, and he was deeply troubled."
Chris: And I think that version is translating the idiom rather than the word itself. So I think that's done well. Then his spirit, or his breath, what would be pneuma in Greek and ruach in Hebrew, it's also "troubled." The word "troubled" means "stirred up," in the same way that when there's a storm coming across (I don't know, we'll say the Sea of Galilee, for example), the water gets troubled as well. And so he's angry, and his breath is troubled. So he's snorting, and his breath is coming heavily.
Jessica: Yeah. I feel like throughout the Bible, when you see God's Spirit start moving, or doing, it is really a sign: "Oh, something important is about to happen." There's always an action.
Chris: That's right.
Jessica: There's always an action.
Chris: And again, with the membership we'll go into this much farther, but it ties us back to the first chapters of Genesis. It ties us to the Exodus, when the sea is being troubled and moved so that it stands up on either side and the people can go through on dry land. It ties us, of course, to the waters of the Jordan being raised up so they can go into the Promised Land, or the story of Elijah and Elisha, who go across the Jordan as well, and the water is moved by the Spirit of God. So all of these things are connected here.
But if we think about anger, the question then becomes, well, what is Jesus angry at? I don't think he's angry with Mary for weeping. And I don't think he's angry with the friends and family standing around and weeping. My answer to this is, he is angry that pain and death and sorrow are part of the human experience. He himself is moved, and he's moved because here are his friends in front of him, and they're crying because their brother has died. And their pain moves him. And even though he knows what he's going to do, there surely must be some pain associated with that as well. And if you think about Jesus looking over the whole course of human history, what have death and pain done to this world? I get a little angry thinking about it, too.
And so I think it reminds us it's okay to have the whole range of emotion when we're grieving, and anger is part of that. Anger reminds us that there's something there that is troubling to us, that something's not right. And death and pain are not right in God's good plan. That's not what he really wants for people. And so I think as we go through the stages of grieving, first we don't wanna admit that something's happened, or at some points we get angry about it, or sometimes, as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross says, we come to acceptance, or whatever. But it's not like a linear path. Sometimes they happen at different points...
Jessica: Of course.
Chris: ...or what have you. I think it's okay. Jesus shows that it's okay to be angry and troubled, and we're not showing at that moment that we don't have faith. We're showing that we're being human, and that we understand that there's something wrong in the world, and that pain and death are not what God wants for us. And it's okay to show anger or frustration or sorrow for those things.
Jessica: Yeah. And this scene does such a wonderful job of giving us a glimpse into the heart of God. Because it is so easy for us to worry... As Christians, we believe that God has ultimate authority over the earth. And yet really terrible things happen every minute of every day.
Chris: Absolutely.
Jessica: And so one of the biggest things that we have to grapple with is this idea: if we believe in a God who has ultimate authority, and yet there is so much pain and suffering, how can that God be a loving God? And there's a lot of theological depth to that question that's not answered in this story. But what is answered in this story is that God finds the results of sin, this death and destruction and grief and pain, just as painful as we do, or more.
And like you're saying, when we experience those emotions, he's affirming that. Like, "You should feel this way. This isn't right. This isn't how I designed it." And I think there's also in this story this promise that he's not going to allow it forever. And seeing the heart of God moved by the pain of the people he loves is really comforting, as someone choosing whether or not to follow this God. Like, what kind of God do you wanna follow? And Jesus is clearly revealing the heart of God to us in this story.
Chris: If we've seen him, we've seen the Father.
Jessica: Yeah, that's exactly right. And that is a God that you want to follow. It's a God where you're like, "Okay, I don't understand why everything happens, but I do understand that you're not okay with it. You're not gonna permit it forever." And stories like this are like little down payments on the idea that he's not gonna tolerate this forever.
JESUS WEPT, AND "LAZARUS, COME OUT" (40:57)
Chris: Yeah. And of course, as he's feeling this anger, and as he's seen Mary weeping, he asks, "Where have you put him?" "Well, Lord, come and see." And then verse 35: "Jesus wept." The shortest verse in the Bible, but so full of meaning. And I think it goes with what you're saying, this idea that when we mourn, Jesus, our Father, also mourns and weeps as well. So when we have human emotion, there's not this disconnect with God. No, God shares that emotion with us. And when something truly awful happens in this world, God mourns, too. Even though restoration is coming, that doesn't mean we don't hurt right now. And when we hurt, God hurts. And that, to me, is the loveliness of verse 35, "Jesus wept."
Jessica: We're at the climax of this little story. Jesus is weeping. The people are confused. They're grieving. The disciples are probably on high alert that they're gonna die at any moment.
Chris: That's right.
Jessica: They're like, "Where are the Jews?" They're confused about why they had to come. Mary and Martha are confused, and the other people there, a little bit: "Why didn't he come earlier?"
Chris: Yeah, yeah. Some say, "Oh, look how Jesus loved him."
Jessica: No one really understands what's happening. It's like the feeling among the crowd. It's the atmosphere. Everyone is tense and sad and confused, including Jesus. I mean, he's not confused, but he is tense and sad.
Chris: He is tense and sad.
Jessica: And angry, and all of those things.
Chris: That's fair. So verse 38 says he's here again. He's angry again, or he's deeply moved, or however your version puts it. It's the same idea: he's snorting like the horse, with anger. So he comes to the tomb, and he's still got this anger at pain and death in him. And he sees this cave. There's a stone lying there, and of course the stone is blocking the entrance to the cave where Lazarus has been put. He says, "Take the stone away." And here's Martha, still there. So she's either come back out, or she came with Mary, or whatever. They've all come out to the tomb. And she says, "Kyrie..." Hmm. "Don't do that"? She doesn't say that. She just says, "He's stinking already. It's been four days." The implied...
Jessica: "Are you sure you wanna...?"
Chris: ...is "Don't do that." So this is another reason that I don't think earlier she was actually asking for a resurrection. Because here there's no implication that she...
Jessica: She's not excited, like, "Yay, he's gonna do it!"
Chris: Yeah. "Oh, yeah, there's something amazing." She's like, "No, no. My brother is decomposing." It's all over for him. In fact, it's gonna smell bad. It's that word: there's gonna be this terrible stench, this odor. Well, don't.
So Jesus said, "Martha, didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see God being honored here?" And they, whoever it is, the disciples or the people around, listen to him, and they take the stone away. And so Jesus lifts up his eyes above, and this little prayer: "Father, I give thanks to you that you hear me. I know that you always hear me. For the sake of the people, the crowd standing around, I'm saying this so they may believe" (there it is again) "that you sent me." And with the membership, we'll talk about how this ties back to the story of Elijah and his prayer on Mount Carmel and so forth.
So when Jesus says these things, he calls out with a loud voice. In the Greek, that's a "megaphone" (phone megale). A loud voice, megaphone: "Elazar," the one whom God helps, "come out." And he does. That's what happens next. Again, if you put yourself in the place of the people standing there: what is Jesus saying? He's just talked to his Father, and he says that he can do anything because of God's power, and then he calls this dead man to come out. And you hear this moving in the tomb, and here comes this guy who's been wrapped in these sheets of cloth. He's still wrapped up, and Jesus says, "Untie him. Let him go." And apparently they do.
Jessica: Yeah. From a story perspective... Each week we're taking a chapter or whatever. But if you were just sitting down and reading the Book of John, and you get to this scene (let's just imagine we don't know this story), you've gotta be thinking, oh, just a few chapters ago he was declaring in chapter 5, "My sheep know my voice. And when I call them, they will rise from the dead." He talks about all of these things very explicitly. He declared it back in chapter 5, and then he fulfilled it in chapter 11, partially. He's talking about two different future events. But I just have to think he has Lazarus on his mind in chapter 5. John certainly does when he's writing chapter 5.
Chris: John certainly does. Because this is a parallel part of a chiasm, isn't it?
Jessica: Yes.
Chris: Like a parallel literary structure.
Jessica: Absolutely.
Chris: And so when he talks there about raising the dead, and bringing judgment, and revealing his Father, now we're seeing that happen on the other side of the parallel, in real life. His voice is raising the dead. John's doing just amazing under-the-hood sort of work here...
Jessica: ...in the book. Laying groundwork for the reader, and then just executing it so well.
Chris: Yeah. And if we look at the two sides of the parallel, or the chiasm, then we see all these little things start to come out. So again, as people see Lazarus being raised, this is the sign, right? So this is one of the major signs that John wants to leave us with as readers.
THE COUNCIL'S PLOT (46:46)
Chris: And they see it too, and they believe, but not everybody. In fact, in verse 46, some of them go to the Pharisees and tell them what had happened, what Jesus had done there in Bethany. We don't know if they're spying and reporting, or whether they just go back into Jerusalem and say, "Wow, look what we saw..."
Jessica: "What do you think about this?"
Chris: Yeah. But some of these Pharisees find out. Surely Mary and Martha are rejoicing, and so happy, and...
Jessica: Yeah, we don't really get any of that. It skips right...
Chris: We don't get any story of the joy here. There's nothing like, what does Lazarus say afterward? Well, sorry, John's not gonna record that for us. But what we do know, in verse 47, is that the chief priests (so read that as Sadducees; the chief priests are Sadducees) and the Pharisees are now working together. They call together the Sanhedrin. That's the council, supposedly of 70, the ruling council of the Jews, subject to the Romans, of course, but doing as much as they can on their own without permission. And so they call the council together: "What are we doing? This man is performing many signs. If we let him keep on going in this way, everybody's gonna believe in him."
Well, that's what Jesus wants, right? For everyone to believe. That's what John wants, for everyone to believe. And they agree: these signs are going to make everybody believe. "And if everybody believes, then the Romans are gonna come, because everybody's gonna be going after this Messiah." And we've seen this story before. When these messiahs rise up, the Romans come down, and they crush what they see as a threat to Rome. They'll crucify thousands of people along the roadside. They'll destroy towns. It's just going to be a massacre. "They're gonna take away our place." Now, that may specifically be the Sanhedrin: "We're not gonna be able to rule anymore." Or it may mean they're gonna take away our land, and they're going to take away our nation. "We're gonna be cast out again."
Jessica: Yeah. Which is a real concern. I think it's a valid concern for them to have, because they're exactly right. That is what would happen.
Chris: That is where things might go.
Jessica: And I think of when Jesus asks Martha in verse 26 (he's giving her a little glimpse of theology), "Do you really believe this?" And she says yes. But I think that same question could be posed to this group of people: do you really believe the foundation that you've built your faith on? They're saying here that they want to preserve this tradition that they have, this nation that God set apart. Do they really believe what they claim to believe? Because if they really believed everything that the Scripture said about the Messiah, it seems they would have a different response to him.
Chris: And why are they so worried about the Romans, if this is really the Messiah?
Jessica: Yeah. You believe that the Messiah is coming, and that he's doing these signs, and people are going to believe. If they really believed that, would they have been scared of the Romans? I mean, it reveals their unbelief in their own system.
Chris: It's really an interesting question, because later on we're going to see them coming back to Pilate after Jesus is dead. Now, this is jumping ahead in the story, but they're gonna come back and say, "Oh, this man," Jesus, "claimed that he would rise from the dead, and we want you to put a guard on the tomb." So they're really an interesting character study, these leaders. Because in some ways they seem to have a belief, but in other places they don't want to believe either. So it's really intriguing.
Jessica: We talked about how the Bible often refers to them as the council, or the Sanhedrin, or the Pharisees, or the Sadducees, and I think there's probably a variety of belief within that group of people. Some are much more convicted than others in opposition to Jesus. And there are all kinds of probably good people who maybe do have some measure of belief, who aren't willing or brave enough to stand up and say something, and some who will say things. It's just kind of a mixed bag in there. But there is a group that not only doesn't believe in Jesus, but, like you said, believes enough that he could have the power of resurrection that would come from God, and yet they still oppose it.
Chris: That's right.
Jessica: So they are in opposition to God. There is a group.
Chris: Yes.
Jessica: They're probably a smaller group, 'cause just generally, a lot of good people stay quiet and say nothing. But there is a group.
Chris: That's right. And verse 49 says, "A certain one of them," Caiaphas, who happened to be high priest that year. And he's part of a family that has hung onto the high priesthood, and will hang onto the high priesthood, for quite a long time. There'll be a few other high priests in there who are not part of the family, but in general, Annas, who shows up in the story later as well, is kind of the father of this. And so Caiaphas, who's a son-in-law, stands up and says, "You don't know anything. You have to understand that it's better, or profitable, for everyone that one man should die for the people and keep the whole nation from dying."
And then John the writer takes it, and he says, "He said this, but he didn't realize it." He didn't know what he was saying. He was really prophesying. This is what the Hebrew Scriptures are telling us, right? This is what Jesus explains later: that, yes, exactly, one man did have to come and die for the nation. And not the nation only, but all the children of God who are scattered through the diaspora. Not only the diaspora of the Jews, but the diaspora of all the nations. Jesus has to die for them. So John takes what Caiaphas says and really amps it up. He said a whole lot more than he knew he was saying, or than he really meant.
Jessica: He's inserting his commentary here, and that post-resurrection theological understanding. All of that John is inserting here for the readers.
Chris: That's right.
Jessica: He plants a lot of stuff throughout, where he's doing that.
Chris: That seems to be the case.
Jessica: But yeah, he's basically saying Caiaphas said it, but he didn't understand what he was saying, and how true it was.
Chris: Well, and the result of that is in verse 53. From that day, they resolved that they would kill him, right? So they tried to kill him before. They've talked about arresting him, but now they've...
Jessica: Always in, like, a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment way.
Chris: Exactly.
Jessica: Jesus comes out at a public feast and starts saying things, and then they end up in conflict, and then they try to arrest him. But this seems to be an organized, unified effort.
Chris: This word implies planning, plotting, a policy. It's not just, "Okay, we're gonna do it in the moment," but, "This is our purpose now." So Jesus was not able to walk openly among the Jews, and he has to leave again for a little while to stay with his disciples, up until the Passover, that next feast, where we're gonna see really, truly everything come to the finale of the Gospel, which is going to take now, what, half the book or so.
A PICTURE OF THE WHOLE BIBLE STORY (54:11)
Jessica: Yeah. Well, this little chapter is such a good microcosm of God's relationship with humanity, for what seems like all of time, where God is working in and through and among the people and on their behalf. And then there's a group that believes, but the group that rejects, rejects to the point where God has to withdraw. And so that's what you see here.
Chris: That's right.
Jessica: Jesus, by giving Lazarus life, has put himself in the crosshairs. So he gave Lazarus life, but that is going to directly lead to his death. And so as a result of that, he has to retreat. And just knowing the character of God, and how he interacts with his people throughout all of history, and how Jesus has through the Gospel, it doesn't seem to be God's desire to withdraw from his people. He's always trying not to do that. But there comes a point where people have made their choice and he isn't wanted, and he will withdraw. And so you see Jesus, the incarnate Word, personifying that whole experience in the Gospel of John.
Chris: Yeah. In the prologue, right? The light has come into the world, and the darkness cannot grasp it, or receive it. It's what's happening here. And as you say, this is a microcosm. It's such a lovely story, and I think it's a story of the world. You have people who are living as a family. Sin and death and pain come into that. Death comes into the picture. It makes everybody sorrowful, and Jesus shows up to make things right. Well, that's the entire story of the whole Bible, encompassed here in just a few verses.
And so I think when we look at this, we can take away, as we've said, that God cares when we are sorrowing. He wants to bring restoration to us. And when he does (and again, the text doesn't say it), it's got to be joy for Martha, and Miriam, Mary. And that's what it's going to be for us, too. And so even when we may have a moment where we say, "Well, why didn't Jesus do it for us now, at this moment?" Or we might say, "Lord, if you had only been here." Or we might say, like they said, "Why didn't he heal him like he healed the blind man?" We still do have that hope that there is a day coming when the dead will hear his voice, right? Or the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised. And I think that's a wonderful hope that we can hang onto in those moments of sorrow and depression, remembering that Jesus is weeping with us until that moment when restoration and joy can come.
Jessica: Yeah. And there's that idea that not only is there going to be that eventual fulfillment, that eventual promise of perfect re-creation and life and all of those things, but that in the meantime, the picture that John gives us in chapter 11 is of a God who will act on behalf of his people at his own expense...
Chris: Right.
Jessica: ...because he loves them so much. And we're gonna see that on the cross. But you see it in all these small ways throughout the Gospel of John, because every person that he acts on behalf of, he brings more hatred onto himself. And when he raises Lazarus, it's this act of love. And not just love for those people, but love for all the people who will see it and believe, and have that life into the ages. And for us to read it now, it's this glimpse of the character of God, who will act and has acted on behalf of his people, even at his own expense. That's a God who draws you to him, that you want to follow. And that is a great comfort throughout life here, and then of course we get that ultimate fulfillment.
Chris: Isaiah 53: "Surely he has borne our sorrows." Or Psalm 23: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," you're with me. Or as the Book of Hebrews puts it, we don't have a high priest who can't understand what we're going through. He's been tempted like us. He's felt our sorrows. He's not separated from that. Whatever we're going through... Obviously he doesn't live in our century, and he doesn't go through exactly the same thing, but he's gone through the human experience, and he knows what it's like. And he feels our feelings, and, as you say, takes it on himself even more than we realize. What a beautiful picture of God.
Jessica: Yeah. Well, that is gonna conclude that section of text that started in chapter 5 and goes through chapter 11, where in all of those chapters it was very public. Jesus was saying exciting things, healing people, very publicly engaging with the crowds, engaging with the Pharisees, the leaders. And we saw at the end of chapter 11 that kind of start to wind down. Jesus retreats. And then the next block of text is gonna be much more personal and private, as he continues his ministry in this next little section of John.
Chris: Yeah. Okay, I'm looking forward to it. We get done with one part, but then the next part is so good, too. So that's what we'll be working on next time. Until then...
Jessica: All right. See you next time.
Chris: Yeah, sounds great.
