Monday, January 19, 2009

John 11:28-37

28And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34"Where have you laid him?" he asked.

"Come and see, Lord," they replied.

35Jesus wept.

36Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

37But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"



Dig Deeper

If I’m being honest I hate it. I hate showing emotion. I always have. I don’t where I developed the mindset that being emotional and showing emotion was something undesirable for me, but I surely have. In fact, I’ve always taken a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact that I am steady and calm during tough times. You won’t see me crying at a funeral or getting particularly emotional when speaking about a topic that might cause the average person to break down. Despite all of that, I find myself at times, when I’m all alone (and believe it pains me to admit all of this) becoming emotional about some of the dumbest things. It might be a movie that’s not particularly moving or an episode of "Little House on the Prairie," and the Lord knows that show gets me almost every time. I can only surmise that something in those shows or movies that don’t seem like something to get emotional over, connect with some grief or desire or emotional aspect that I have repressed and causes me to feel deeply over silly things (I still would like to point out that I do not cry over these things, I just a little something in my eye from time to time). Our society has learned in many respects to mask grief, to push down emotions, and to think of them as a sign of weakness. In short, we have learned to hide our emotions.

That was not the case in the ancient world, and is not the case in many parts of the world today as it is in the western world. Emotions were not something to be hidden but were something to be released openly, often in a public format with others who were also grieving. You can see this in other parts of the world today where funerals become large processionals going down a public street with people wailing, moaning, crying, and grieving together. We would never do that in our world today. Certainly at least, not on any scale like that. We are far too composed, far too in control of our emotions. In this scene, John shows us not only the emotions of the culture in Jesus’ day but also the emotions of the Son of God himself. It is through this very display of emotion that we can learn a great deal about Jesus and about God.

If nothing else, the tears that Jesus sheds in this scene show that this incident really happened. There is simply very little reasonable chance that if a group of early Christians were making up the events of the life of Christ, as some biblical critics claims, that they simply wouldn’t have added a detail like this that makes Jesus look so regular and weak. No, if someone was inventing this story they would have had Jesus coming in calmly and confidently acting regally and knowing that, in just a moment, he was about to do something quite incredible. The mighty Messiah was about to raise a man from the dead, why would he show such unnecessary emotion? The tears are real and they tell us a great deal about Jesus and the Father.

After talking with Jesus for a brief moment, Martha goes back into the village and into their house to tell Mary that the Teacher has arrived. It is probably of note that she refers to him as the teacher which shows that she considers him her teacher as well, something which would have been uncommon from a first-century woman, but it shows how counter-cultural Jesus’ ministry was. We don’t know why exactly Jesus waited outside while Martha got Mary but it may have been so that Mary could have a quiet moment with the teacher as well. Mary wastes no time in going to see him which catches the notice of the people who were visiting her. They think that she was heading to the cemetery to mourn and went after her to offer their support and share in the mourning process.

When she reaches Jesus, her response is strikingly similar to her sister’s response a few minutes previous. She falls at his feet showing both her respect for Jesus and the fact that she is completely overcome with emotion. If only Jesus had been there. Mary knew enough of Jesus and had faith in him enough to know that if he had just been there, her brother would not have died. The great teacher and healer could have healed him. He could have done something. But the perfect hunter, death, has swallowed another victim. Lazarus suffered the one thing which no human being can escape. Martha and Mary both live in a world where death is the ultimate reality and once it has occurred, there seems to be no possibility of going back.

Jesus looks around at the deep emotion of the moment, Mary, and the Jews who had come along with her, were all mourning and crying loudly, giving vent to their deep grief and the intense emotions of the moment. It must have been quite a moment to look up and see the unbridled grief of those who had come too close to death once again. These were God’s children, after all. Death was the ultimate and final enemy of those separated from God by sin. Jesus was deeply moved and troubled by all of this. The word used for "troubled" actually comes from the noise that animals make when they snort, and it usually captured the idea of being angry or deeply stirred. If this is John’s intent here, then it is likely that John wants us to see Jesus’ anger or disturbance at death itself. It was sin and death that brought this all too common scene on over and over again. This whole scene, John tells us, moved Jesus deep in his spirit, this was no shallow feeling or emotion.

Jesus doesn’t stay at a distance, he wants to know where they laid him. They invite him to come and see, and so he does. As Jesus arrives, John tells us that Jesus wept, a word that distinguishes the quiet sobbing of Jesus from the loud, wailing of Mary and the crowd. This is one of the most important Scriptures in all of the Bible when it comes to telling us about God’s character. The Word that has become flesh feels emotion. He is completely human. This is far different from the high and removed God that many of us envision. The Messiah is not some sterile warrior that has come to show little more than God’s raw power in defeating Israel’s enemies. He has "carried our sorrows" (Isa. 53:4). Jesus doesn’t blow in and tell everyone to stop crying because Lazarus is not dead, he’s only sleeping. He’s not triumphant or smug. He is stirred to tears. God loves his children and does not want to see them suffer at the ravages of death. It’s not that Jesus’ grief is specifically about Lazarus, it is the presence of death itself that has caused Jesus to show his emotions. This is how God feels about death. The Jews think that it is about Lazarus, but the emotions that Jesus feel go far deeper than that. These are the emotions of the Messiah that will also mourn and weep for the Jerusalem that has rejected him. God feels deeply the pain that death inflicts on humans. This is the man of sorrow that knows our grief and pain and wants better for us.

Why did John record this miracle, especially when the other Gospels did not? We mentioned yesterday that part of the explanation might possibly have to do with the reality that it seems that Peter was not present during this event (although we certainly don’t know that for sure). John will tell us in the next chapter that Lazarus received a great deal of unwanted attention and enmity because of this act, and it might be that if the other Gospels were written quite a bit earlier than John (which seems to be the case), they did not want to bring any unneeded attention to Lazarus. This, perhaps, was no longer an issue by the time John wrote his Gospel. In addition to that speculation, it is certainly true that in the raising of Lazarus, John undoubtedly saw parallels to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Did Lazarus have to die? Couldn’t Jesus have saved him without the harsh reality of death? Was his death necessary? These are all questions that we will be asked to consider at Jesus’ own impending death. "Where have they laid him," Jesus asks. A question that Mary Magdalene will echo at Jesus’ own death (20:13). Couldn’t the man who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying? Couldn’t he have saved himself? Did he have to die? John, I believe, wants us to see that God’s glory could only be fully displayed through the death and raising of Lazarus and it is only through the death of Jesus, through him sharing in the common reality and fate of humanity, that death can be defeated and the world can be saved.



Devotional Thought

It is striking that the creator of the universe bore our grief and lowered himself to bear our sorrows. He relates to us in every way. What can we learn about God through Jesus’ action in weeping at the tomb of Lazarus? What can we learn about ourselves and our own need to identify with the sorrows and grief of the world around us?

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