The Sixth Sign (John 11: 1 - 45)

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paradox3

paradox3

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Bible Gateway passage: John 11:1-45 - New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Death of Lazarus - Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is...
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Do you remember those biblical trivia bookmarks from your Sunday school days?

If you do, you will know that the shortest verse in the Bible is John 11: 35

Jesus wept.

I have always been intrigued by Jesus weeping at the death of his friend Lazarus. Jesus has his band of disciples and Thomas has just offered to die with him. (Loyal associate, right?) But we don't hear a lot about the personal friends of Jesus.

But why did he weep? He was about to resurrect Lazarus and bring him back to life after four days of death. It appears to be a complete bodily resurrection. Later in the narrative Jesus will have dinner at the home of Mary & Martha and Lazarus will be present at the table.

"Come out!" shouts Jesus at the tomb. Out comes Lazarus, needing help to unwind his grave clothes. Jesus has just performed his sixth miraculous sign in order to demonstrate he is the divine son of God.

This is a very important story for a few additional reasons. It contains one of the I AM statements and it foreshadows the death and resurrection of Jesus himself.

Jesus says, 'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even if he dies. And the one who lives and believes in me will never die." (John 12: 25 - 26)
 
Here we have the most spectacular of the miraculous signs outlined in John's Gospel. It is no mere healing story. it is about Lazarus who has been brought back to life after being dead for four days.

Jesus has made sure of this by delaying his trip to Bethany by two days.

How do you react to this text?

I am liking the human Jesus who weeps at the loss of his friend. He is also touched by the sadness of the mourners who have come to be with Mary and Martha.
 
It seems that here Jesus is entering 'enemy territory. For at the end of chapter 10, he has crossed the Jordan River; and at the end of ch. 11, heads to Ephraim, near the wilderness. While he is n the area, he doesn't go to the sisters' house, but stays out by the grave. He does seem to want to get in and get out quickly, for the Temple authorities are looking for him there.

And the reaction of the Temple officials is interesting, too. While those at the tomb are oohing and aahing, the Pharisees are gritting their teeth and grumbling. Even though Jesus has just been involved in the impossible, bringing back to life one who has been dead for four days, the authorities still want rid of him.

I realize that this goes beyond the text itself, in both directions, but the surrounding story may shape the way this passage is seen. Jesus is a tad hesitant to go to the tomb, doesn't want to venture too far while he's there, and doesn't let any grass grow under his feet on his way out.
 
PilgrimsProgress said:
I'm preaching on this reading at a mission church on Sunday...... The congregation is one that has many struggles and needs hope.
My theme will be second chances - not so much physical, but spiritual.
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It looks like you have a good sermon shaping up. I will be interested to hear where you go with it and how it turns out.

The tombs and the bindings that hold us back are sometimes of our own making.

But sometimes they are systemic.
 
Why would the author of the gospel write the story this way?

Maybe he wept because his mission required him to make his dear friends suffer an extra two days. Sometimes we need to do things we hate doing. One time I needed to vote to fire a person I considered a friend because he did something that was out of bounds. People in charge of budgets that affect many people need to make hard decisions.
 
Foreshadow much, John? :giggle: Rolling away the stone. The women present. Lazarus' emergence is, of course, different. In the later case, Jesus was already stripped of his tomb clothes.

I think the waiting two days is interesting. Perhaps it had to happen on a certain day or under certain conditions. After all, Jesus is pretty clear about calling on his Father, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” so may not have been in total control of the situation. Which raises the question of whether Father and Son were in cahoots to set this up as a "sign".

Then you have the weeping. Was Jesus weeping just out of his own sorrow? The preceding verses suggest to me it was also out of sympathy with the other mourners. He was genuinely moved, a sign of his humanity even as the actual raising of Lazarus really puts the focus on his divinity.
 
Redbaron said:
And the reaction of the Temple officials is interesting, too. While those at the tomb are oohing and aahing, the Pharisees are gritting their teeth and grumbling. Even though Jesus has just been involved in the impossible, bringing back to life one who has been dead for four days, the authorities still want rid of him.
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In fact, John 12 : 9-11 has them plotting to kill Lazarus, presumably so they can claim the whole raising the dead thing never happened. In the film version of Last Temptation of Christ (not sure about the novel), this plot actually happens on screen.
 
It's a very volatile situation. Does John emphasize this more than the other Gospels, do you think?
 
There is so much sacred hidden material in these scripts that people shy away from ... especially comprehensive spirits and essential essences ... few grasp due t miscibility enigmas! Does relate to surface tensions and stresses up here ... life is like that! Thus the ultimate descent ... at least until it blows! You can almost feel it coming on ... Jesus blew it also ... then he too was gone ... we cannot retain intelligence and wisdom ... it is much despised by those wishing destruction to support types of massive industry.

Ever see the technology that goes into making canon and Baloch? Allows shot to make a hole somewhere ...
 
A couple of commentators say that the raising of Lazarus was responsible for the size of the Palm Sunday gathering.

But the Lazarus story is unique to John and all the gospels describe Palm Sunday crowds.
 
What if Lazarus was just the darker twin that appeared as a Thomas cist ... may explain the conflict between VI, IX and XI as chi in the chimera 'L item! the few abide with such chimera ... as hypo critters ... very subtle! Deep ... at least in the story ...
 
paradox3 said:
But the Lazarus story is unique to John
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And that's something to ponder. Why only in John and not the Synoptics (or, presumably, Q since if it was in Q, you would think either Matthew or Luke would have picked it up)? We know John is big on signs, but there are other signs that do have parallels in the Synoptics, why is this one unique? There is the idea that John had access to a "book of signs" from which he pulled these, but where did that book get it? If it was an historical event, you would think it would be big enough for Mark or Q to pick up on, which would likely then get it into Matthew and/or Luke. Made up story? Maybe a distortion of some event that was not regarded as highly by Christians prior to this Gospel or a story that was only accepted by a certain sect of Christians (remember that this book is considered by at least some scholars to be the product of a "Johannine community" rather than a person named John)? The fact that such a dramatic, seemingly important, story is only in John is an interesting feature. Oh, and the additional bit in 12 about the priests conspiring again Lazarus does seem to add a bit of authenticity. I mean, a good author would think to close that loose end, but in an account like this, it seems quite realistic that those conspiring against Jesus would also target one of the biggest living examples of his miraculous deeds.
 
Luke has a parable about a poor man named Lazarus and a rich man at a gate. The two Lazarus stories have sometimes been conflated throughout Christian history.

A curious thing is that the character in the parable is named. It might even be the only parable of Jesus which actually calls an individual by name.

The stories read completely differently. Yet the parable poses a question about raising someone from the dead.

Is it possible John took the parable and embellished it?
 
paradox3 said:
Luke has a parable about a poor man named Lazarus and a rich man at a gate. The two Lazarus stories have sometimes been conflated throughout Christian history.

A curious thing is that the character in the parable is named. It might even be the only parable of Jesus which actually calls an individual by name.

The stories read completely differently. Yet the parable poses a question about raising someone from the dead.

Is it possible John took the parable and embellished it?
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Imagine a common Christian performing such a colloquy ... just beyond comprehension that is religiously restricted!
 
paradox3 said:
Luke has a parable about a poor man named Lazarus and a rich man at a gate. The two Lazarus stories have sometimes been conflated throughout Christian history.

A curious thing is that the character in the parable is named. It might even be the only parable of Jesus which actually calls an individual by name.

The stories read completely differently. Yet the parable poses a question about raising someone from the dead.

Is it possible John took the parable and embellished it?
Click to expand...
Definitely a different Lazarus, eh. I can't see Mary and Martha's brother as a beggar with dogs licking his sores. And Luke 16 : 19-31 (where the rich man and the beggar is told) is clearly framed as parable, not an actual story about Jesus' life, so its Lazarus is probably fictional.

It is interesting that its vision of the afterlife in the parable seems very Greek, with those in torment able to see and call out to those in paradise. In Greek mythology, "heaven" is not part of the afterlife but where the gods live. The afterlife, both the places of punishment and paradise, is entirely in the underworld and that seems to be what we see here. Perhaps because Luke's audience was mostly Hellenistic Gentiles.

But that last bit about Lazarus returning to warn the rich man's family about the future they faced is intriguing, eh. As is the punchline, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." Which is kind of what happens with the Jewish leaders after the resurrection of the John Lazarus.

Hm. Interesting aside.
 
The name Lazarus has often been used for other characters who return from the dead or, in some cases, cannot die.

David Bowie wrote a musical by that title based on the movie The Man Who Fell To Earth, in which Bowie had starred back in seventies.

Robert Heinlein had a recurring character named Lazarus Long but he was actually more like Methuselah Biblically speaking, being born in 1912 and appearing in Heinlein stories covering two or three hundred years.

Even Dr. Who got into the game with a mad scientist character named Richard Lazarus who builds a rejuvenation machine (that goes horribly awry, this being Dr. Who).

Anyhow, here's a list of real and fictional Lazaruses. Needless to say, the first in the list is the Lazarus of John 11, here referred to as "Lazarus of Bethany".

Lazarus (name) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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