Reflection by Frances Flatman on next Sunday's Readings :-.
The theme of resurrection, or of the gaining of a different life after some kind of death/transformation, runs through all of our Readings today as we edge closer and closer to the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, which is the greatest festival of our faith and its very heart. Last week we experienced this as we followed the life of the man born blind and given sight/light by Jesus, and explored all its social and economic consequences. Today we will follow with the raising of Lazarus from death itself. All three synoptic gospels have the account of the raising from death of the daughter of Jairus, but this incident plays a very different part, in Jesus’ story, as one of his many miracles. Here, the raising of Lazarus found only in John, works differently, provoking as it does the meeting of the Sanhedrin to bring about the destruction of Jesus himself. There is condemnation and acceptance here as those ‘believing’ in Jesus move on to a different kind of life as believers, and those who have no faith in him are marked out as lost forever, reflecting the great divide John himself would have experienced between followers of Jesus, both Jew and Gentile, and the Judaism which was to fall foul of the devastating Civil War and the Jewish Revolt, and see the Temple, the living heart of their faith utterly destroyed.
Ezekiel (37:12-14) reflects the effects of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and its first Temple in the 6th century BCE. Significantly it follows immediately after the well-known imagery of the valley of dry bones given a new life by God, and the prophet’s castigation of the evil shepherds who have neglected Israel/the flock, and only used it for selfish motives. Ezekiel writes to the exiles with a great message of hope in what must have been a time of abject despair and speaks of the nation’s ‘resurrection’. God will open their graves (many had died on the journey to Babylon and the sack of the city) and the people will live again, ‘I shall put my spirit in you and you will live, and I shall resettle you on your own soil.’ It was the message that they were not forgotten, not deserted by God and would once more be his loyal people.
Romans 8, (here 9-11) is part of what is undoubtedly Paul’s finest hour in his writing about Christ. He has previously lamented his and our absolute impossibility of responding as we should to God’s great gifts off our own bat, and so he thunders home to the tiny Christian church of Rome, who were feeling very threatened under the tyrant Nero, just what a different perception of reality they are gifted in Christ. At this time Christians were blamed for the fire which destroyed the centre of Rome and enabled Nero to build his obscene Golden House, and killed members of the faith supposedly for the entertainment of the citizens. He assures them that physical death is not the end, ‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.’ Even death itself can no longer end their lives, now they are new creatures, immortal beings through their faith in Christ as are we too.
Our Lazarus story (John 11:1-45) therefore is not a straightforward story about a loved person who died (like Jairus’ daughter), and comes back to live her life again to its fullest. Lazarus pre-figures the resurrection of Jesus himself as both are surrounded by controversy, and Lazarus living so near to Jerusalem, acts as the gauntlet Jesus throws down to his enemies whilst rescuing a beloved friend. Not simply a ‘sign’ of his immense power even over death itself, but as the fulfilment of Judaism so long looked for by the nation. Yet what a threat Jesus was thereby, since he had consistently challenged existing Judaism with its law-righteousness and its exclusion of so many who did not fit into this pattern of legalism.
Our scene is set right from the start. Clearly Lazarus has been ailing for some time, and on receiving the message from the sisters ,Jesus deliberately waits until he is well and truly dead. As is to be expected, the disciples totally misconstrue Jesus’ remarks, assuming by ‘resting’ Jesus means he will get better! When the situation is clarified by Jesus’ ‘Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad I was not there because now you will believe,’ Thomas suggests they all go to this dangerous place and die, seeing Jesus’ raising of Lazarus as a sort of magic trick he thinks Jesus can pull off. Jesus waits until the body has been buried four days, well into putrefaction, before acting so as to make sure everyone understands. He meets the distraught sisters in turn who both insist that if Jesus had ‘arrived earlier’ their brother would have recovered, again reflecting the established understanding of Jesus. Jesus is terribly distressed by their grief, his own pain and their expectations of him. In the Greek we are told he ‘groaned’ and Jesus prays to the Father for this great sign of power ‘For the sake of all these who stand round me, so that they may believe it was you who sent me.’ Jesus is not thinking of himself, or even of his loved friend but of the witnesses, that they will come to belief in the identity of Jesus, and we are told some of them in Bethany did. It’s an intimate scene, mercifully devoid of picky Pharisees who only hear of it all second hand and reject it, but recognise its power and must therefore plot with the Sadducees to destroy both Lazarus and Jesus. The repercussions of this event as we know from John’s Gospel are enormous, provoking the death of the Lord and ultimately leading to the faith of the Church. Incidentally, note how John’s description of the body tallies with that of the finding of Jesus’ own grave clothes. There is a wonderful mix here of factual material, and their implications for us to ponder and explore, as we too are invited alongside all those John wrote for through the generations as they and we need to enter into this great sign, and of course the resurrection of the Lord will be the greatest of them all.
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