Thursday, January 15, 2009

Luke 11:1-16

The Death of Lazarus

1Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

4When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." 5Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

7Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."

8"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"

9Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. 10It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."

11After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."

12His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

14So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

16Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."



Dig Deeper

I knew it was coming. I could see that it was going to happen, but I also knew that I could use the situation for a greater good. I was coaching a basketball team of extremely talented young men during a very important summer tournament. Doing well in this tournament could mean a lot of attention and even more access to college scholarships for all of them. Yet, the problem was that they were far too cocky. They were going into this region of the tournament as though they had already won and should just be moved on to the next round and location. For those who don’t know, there can be a perception in America that black basketball players are better than white players. Sometimes black players buy into that stereotype as much as anyone else, especially the guys that were on my team that year. My players knew that they were going to be the only team that was completely or even primarily black in this whole region and they were convinced they were "going to tear through those white boys." I knew that these teams were better than they thought and that they were just not prepared mentally for this kind of challenge. I might have tried to convince them otherwise, although I’m not sure that would have worked. Instead, however, I used it as an opportunity to teach them a valuable lesson. They took the first game lightly and quickly got ran off the floor by a "bunch of hick white boys," as they lost by ten points. Now they were ready to listen and learn. They had lived something that they would never forget.

Opportunities to learn lessons through life like that don’t come across very often. They learned to always be prepared, to not take anyone lightly, and to not make judgments about people based on silly stereotypes. There is simply a reality that humans learn things better when they experience them through the realities of life. Jesus knew this as well and he often took advantage of those opportunities to teach about the reality of the kingdom of God and the new creation that was breaking into the present age. In chapter 9, John told us of an incident in which Jesus healed a blind man . Jesus taught his disciples that it wasn’t that God had caused this man to be born blind because of his sin or so that he could be healed. No, it was as a result of being born into a fallen world. But Jesus would take advantage of that opportunity to heal this man and teach this man and those around him, the truth of the new creation. In this chapter, Jesus will again take advantage of a tragic situation (not unlike equally tragic situations that happen in this fallen world all of the time) to demonstrate something about his ministry and the breaking into the world of the kingdom of God.

We aren’t given a great deal of detail about Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha (in fact John is the only of the four Gospels that even mentions Lazarus), but John does make sure that one thing we know as his readers is that Jesus loved this entire family. We don’t know the specifics but we do know that Jesus was particularly close to this family. In fact, in verse 5 John tells us that Jesus loved each of the three as he lists them individually, as if he wants to stress the special bond between Jesus and each person in the family. It makes sense, then that when Lazarus (a Hebrew name that was the short version of Eleazar) is taken severely ill, his sisters send word to Jesus. They don’t specifically request that he would come to see them but they clearly have a great deal of faith in him. Like his mother Mary at the wedding in Cana, these sisters don’t know exactly what Jesus will do but they do expect him to act somehow.

When Jesus receives word, he already knows that this will be an opportunity to demonstrate the power of God in the new creation. He declares that this sickness will not end in death but will be a moment when the power of the kingdom of God breaks through and brings glory to God and His Son. We simply don’t know if Lazarus was already dead when Jesus received word of his illness or if he died during the two days that he tarried, but we do know that Jesus knew all along knew that Lazarus was going to die, but that would not be the end of things. Through Lazarus’ death Jesus will unveil his greatest sign yet. This seventh and final step will show that the Son of Man has the power even over death.

It is only after two days of waiting that Jesus informs his disciples that they will be taking the trip back to Judea. It seems that John wants us to be clear that when Jesus did act, even though he might have been urged by a human to action, it is because it is God’s will. Jesus was urged by his mother to act at the wedding, he was urged by his brothers to go up the Festival of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, and he is urged to action here by Mary and Martha. Even though in each of these cases, Jesus does act in the way that he was being asked to, John is clear to point out that it is never the human instigation that leads to action on Jesus’ part. Jesus always waits and acts according to the will and timing of the Father. That is true even of actions that will lead to his death. Jesus will only take actions that fit into the economy and timing of the Father’s will.

Jesus’ disciples don’t have the same connection to the Father’s will that Jesus does, though, and they see no good reason to head back to Judea. Judea is the place from where they had come, where the adversarial events of chapter 9 and 10 had taken place. It wasn’t a good time to go back and face another potential stoning. Jesus replies with his cryptic words of verses 9 and 10 which mean basically that the time of work is limited to the daylight hours. His time may be limited, but it is not yet dark. He will not die yet because his hour had not yet come. If they follow him into the light, even though they might be puzzled as to what he’s doing, they’ll be okay. But if they try to follow their own understanding, they’ll trip in the darkness of their own worldly perspective. He will go to Judea, Lazarus will not die, and nothing will happen to him or them, at least not now.

The disciples are relieved when Jesus tells them that Lazarus has fallen asleep. They make the mistake of taking his words literally, although "sleep" was a common figure of speech for death in the Jewish world. If he is just sleeping, then that’s good news. It will help him heal and they won’t have to go to Judea. To clear up their confusion, Jesus speaks plainly, Lazarus is dead. He’s not just sleeping, he’s dead. Death was rightly feared in the ancient world as much as it can be today. Death was the constant stalker from which no one could escape. There wasn’t access to hospitals, flight for life, and medicine the way we have today so death could always be around the corner. Although that’s true in our world, it simply was more of a reality in their time. Death was a mighty scorpion that packed quite a sting and would gain victory over everyone. The only hope for Jews was the promise of the final resurrection, but even that carried little to no hope in the present age. The defeat of death would have to wait until the great day of resurrection.

Lazarus is dead and although many likely thought that the only hope for him was if Jesus had been there, it will actually be the benefit of all that he was not. Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples yet how it is to their benefit that he was not there, but they will find out soon enough. What he is going to do is so that they may believe. Yet, these are men that have already left everything to follow Jesus and shown faith in him. How is it he can speak of doing something so that they may believe? The answer seems to be in the fact that they have a certain amount of faith in Jesus, but to truly believe in Jesus as the Messiah they will need to have even a small amount of faith in his power over death. This miracles will serve as the vehicle for that faith.

It is unique that Thomas steps up as the spokesman for the twelve in verse 16, as that is usually Peter’s role. This might indicate that Peter was not present during this event. If he was not present it might also serve as at least part of the reason why the other three Gospels make no mention of this miracle. If Peter didn’t see Lazarus raised then he wouldn’t have included it his recollections which, according to early church history, became the book of Mark. It seems that Matthew and Luke used Mark to some degree as a source and so did not include this incident. Whatever the case, Thomas utters words which are difficult to understand and we are left with two possibilities. He has either stepped into a brave understanding of what Jesus’ mission is and shows his dedication to him by declaring that if Jesus is going to die that they will follow him into that death and die with him. It is also possible that the "die with him" refers to Lazarus and that Thomas was speaking sarcastically saying in essence, "if we go to Judea we’re all going to wind up dead like Lazarus. Most commentators prefer the former option rather than the latter. Either way, it is of note that, despite the danger, the disciples were ready and willing to follow Jesus. He was marching ahead into dangerous territory and they would be right behind him.



Devotional Thought

Despite the obvious dangerous situations that could arise from going back to Judea, Jesus was going to go because it was the will of the Father. The disciples knew the dangers well but they were determined to follow Jesus anyway. Are you willing to do the same? Are you willing to follow Jesus regardless of the dangerous, challenging, or uncomfortable situations and places that he might call you to? Where is Jesus calling you to go right now?

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