We have arrived at our 6th sign in the Gospel of John. If you’re into Jewish numerology (the study of numbers) you’ll quickly be looking for a 7th sign. Six is the number of incompletion and seven is the number of completion. John wouldn’t dare only have six signs! There aren’t any more signs for nine more chapters! This has led some scholars to believe the story of Jesus walking on water is one of the signs, but others dismiss it as a sign. I won’t bore you with the details of the debate, but I choose to dismiss it for two reasons: First, it happens in the middle of another narrative connected to the sign of bread in abundance. Second, I believe it makes more sense for the signs to be pointing to something more specific within John’s narrative rather than simply that Jesus is God in the flesh. This is the glory of reading the Gospels over and over again. We’re invited into the narrative to make sense of it, enter into discussion within the greater faith community, and allow these stories to shape our lives together. We’re all reading the same Bible, so I’d love to know what you think is going on as well!
I believe the signs are pointing to something specific within John’s narrative. He has laid the signs out in a way that will help us examine ourselves, what we believe about Jesus, and how that belief will determine how we will walk towards and with Jesus. All of these signs build the tension of the text. Each are surrounded by debate of Jesus’ identity. We’ll go back and look at the “I AM” statements of Jesus after Easter Sunday. These debates and tensions boil to the point where Jesus enters Jerusalem on the back of a donkey as though he was king. Right before he goes to Jerusalem as king, he raises Lazarus from the dead. Read this story in John 11 with the shadow of the cross looming overhead. We’ve followed Jesus throughout his ministry at this point. Will we keep following him when he walks into the furnace of political tension to stake his claim on humanity with a kingdom that is “not of this world” (John 18:36)? Or, will we succumb to the tensions of this world and fail to follow Jesus beyond the lines the world draws in the sand (to borrow a line from Tim’s reflections this last week)?
There is a lot to be said about the story of Jesus raising Lazarus, so I don’t want to get too bogged down in everything running through my mind to talk about. If you have some questions that you would like to talk about, shoot me an email (ryan@nodachurch.com). Instead, I’m going to offer a few things to look out for and then provide some questions to prayerfully reflect on.
One major distinction that needs to be made in this passage is that what Jesus did for Lazarus is a miraculous resuscitation, not resurrection. This may feel like semantics a bit, but words matter and definitions matter. Lazarus would die again. Jesus, in the Resurrection, comes through death and out the other side. Christianity in the West has lost touch with the hope of the resurrection, which is the foundational hope of our faith. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the undoing and conquering of sin which brought brokenness to the world. The Christian hope isn’t about our souls leaving our bodies for a spiritual dwelling in the sky. The Christian hope is about the restoration of God’s good creation through the resurrection. What Lazarus receives in John 11 points to the greater thing he will receive later.
Pay attention to the humanity of Jesus in this story. Be in awe. What does it tell you about the God of the universe that he’d choose to be vulnerable?
Jesus chooses to wait for two days before going to see about Lazarus. What is he doing for those two days? John doesn’t tell us. Spend some time reflecting on this story as a whole and come up with your suggestions. I’d love to hear them! I have my theory. What is yours?
Don’t just read this passage to gain insight into the life of Jesus, allow it to move you from your head to your heart and bring you into deeper places of prayer and transformation.
From the head to the heart:
“If [only]…” – John 11:21 and 32, Martha and Mary both reflect on how they wish things would have turned out differently. Jesus intentionally delayed his response so that God’s glory might be revealed through his actions. Where are areas in life that you wish would have turned out differently? There are a lot of things in our world that I wish looked different. Spend some time in prayer asking God to help you relinquish your “if only…” so that you might see more clearly how Jesus will work in those spaces.
“Come and see,” they reply to Jesus in 11:34 when he asks them where they had laid Lazarus. This phrase rests at the heart of the Christian faith. It is where we invite Jesus, through our tears, into the messes of our life. “Come and see,” is the reply he gives to us all throughout John’s Gospel as we walk with him to the resurrection where all of our messes are turned to triumph in the hands of the redeeming God. Before Jesus invites us to “come and see,” he first meets us fully where we are and weeps with us. What areas of your life do you need to invite Jesus into to “come and see”?
If the Word who is God can meet us where we are in our mess and cry for those who are hurting, who do you need to be moved to cry for where you have not often shown compassion?
Which characters do you connect with most? Which ones do you struggle to connect with? Ask God what needs to be revealed in your life about why you’ve answered these questions the way you have.