We watched this episode last week. Here are my thoughts and questions.
The news of Lazarus’s death comes immediately on the heels of Jesus and his disciples being stoned and run out of Jerusalem. They’re still operating on adrenaline. The disciples are confused, not sure what is happening. Whatever is happening, they’re sure that going back across the Jordan into Judea right now is a bad idea. And yet, that’s what Jesus says they’re doing, so along they go.
Hearing the summons to go to dead Lazarus, Thomas says (accurately reflecting what we see in John 11), “Come, let us die with him.” Thomas, like other disciples, is feeling like death awaits them. Unlike the other disciples, he’s wanting to embrace death, still ruled by his broken heart.
Judas Iscariot, perhaps the single disciple at this stage who expresses utter certainty that Jesus is the Messiah, sounds confused too. He says, “Shouldn’t we be winning, and not constantly losing?” This idea is rarely absent from Christians. Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:12, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” This Pauline teaching is in line with what Jesus had taught when he first sent the disciples out (Matthew 10) and in what we call his “Upper Room Discourse” (John 15-16). If Jesus is who we believe he is, we ought to be winning – we ought to be in charge. This line of thought leads naturally to the idea of a Christian Emperor (like Constantine and Theodosius) or some of the Christian Nationalisms of the past couple centuries.
Little James imagines that Jesus might raise Lazarus, but he’s not sure what to make of the possibility.
In the midst of the disciples’ talk of their confusion and the contrast between light and dark, Mary Magdalene talks about her experience of both in her time with Jesus.
Matthew, often one who is willing to say what is on his mind, says to Jesus, “Are we supposed to be understanding what you are saying?” I’ve felt that way sometimes.
Confronted by Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha, Jesus weeps. Having more insight into Jesus’s thoughts (and having read John 11), we know Jesus plans to raise Lazarus. We know he wants to and will succeed in doing so. Why does Jesus weep if he knows Lazarus is, reducing the metaphorical force of what he told the disciples, in a sense, really sleeping, not truly and finally dead?
When Jesus does raise Lazarus, Judas is over the moon with excitement. “This miracle will bring everyone to Jesus. No one can deny him now!” Judas is disastrously wrong. Some of the other disciples do understand what Judas does not: Jesus’s opponents are so dead set against him that even raising the dead will make no difference.
We see Jesus do many miracles in the Gospels. Some people believe as a result of the miracles. Some of that belief lasts, but some is fleeting. Some see and yet that seeing never leads to believing.
Judas himself is one of those who saw and believed. We’ll see how his seeing holds up.
Bandits No More 