Lazarus part 6 - John 11:45-48

Lazarus is raised from the dead, and “many of the Jews which came to mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.” In the book series “The Kingdom and the Crown” there is a character who is a Pharisee and incredibly critical of Christ during his whole ministry, but when he sees Lazarus come out of the tomb, he says that he can’t deny any long that Jesus is the Messiah. I felt like that “conversion” was a little forced because he had given no indication at all beforehand that he was open to the idea of Jesus being the Messiah. We know that miracles don’t convert and it felt like this character’s conversion was based on the miracle. But apparently there were many on the fence about what to believe, and this miracle was the catalyst for them to commit.

For all those who believed on Jesus because they saw Him raise Lazarus from the dead, there were also many who “went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.” These people knew that reporting Jesus’ miracle would be inflammatory to the Jewish leadership, and that was their intent when going to recount the story. One of the places that I read said that the raising of Lazarus was accepted as a fact among the people because there were so many people who witnessed it who were antagonistic to Jesus that they would find any way to discredit the event if they could. The fact that they were not able to discredit Jesus’ actions means that even his adversaries knew that Lazarus had indeed been brought back to life by Jesus power, and anything that they did to hurt Jesus was done in the light of this knowledge.

These instigators go to the chief priests and Pharisees and ask what should be done “for this man doeth many miracles.” This is the point where we stop and ask ourselves, are we to the point of ridiculousness yet? They are asking each other what action should be taken against a man who has performed miracles never even considered in human existence. It would occur to me that if this person is really doing all these thing, then we should probably be doing whatever he says, and listening to him, especially when we consider that Jesus only teaches a doctrine of peace. If he were to preach war and violence, it probably would have been a lot easier for them to accept Jesus as the Messiah, but because it’s peaceful, they want no part of it. It’s an interesting perspective.

There are two main reasons that these reporters give for why Jesus must be dealt with: 
The first reason: “if we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him.” Clearly they are concerned with losing their place of power and influence among the people. The social situation these people have weaseled themselves into is quite comfortable and they are not about to give it up with out a fight. I also think it’s a powerful commentary on what Jesus has been saying about them all along, they are more concerned with wealth and power than anything religious. They acknowledge that Jesus’ message is profound enough to have “all men” convinced of the truth. I imagine this like the climate change debate. If a group of oil tycoons are saying “we have to do something about all this information going out proving climate change or else they will make more fuel efficient equipment and we’ll lose money,” to me, that says “climate change is real, but I care more about money then changing our impact on the environment.” If they were to say “Jesus is the Christ, but I want to keep my money more than I want to follow the Messiah” then hey, it’s a crappy position, but at least it’s the truth. The problem with both of these scenarios is that the group that doesn’t want anything to change is using a respectful and reasonable platform to display their hypocrisy.

The second reason that Jesus must be dealt with is because “the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” To understand this point, we have to think backwards for a second. The Messiah that they were waiting for was a war lord, as far as they knew he was coming to over throw the bondage of the Jews, which the Jews at the time understood to be the Romans. Therefore, the Messiah that they expected was going to make war with the Romans, and a lot of Jews felt that way, that’s what they were expecting and waiting for. If Jesus was the Messiah they were waiting for, then they would have to accept that Jesus was the man that was going to lead them into this fight for freedom, even if he hadn’t yet demonstrated his aggressive side yet.

The chief priests knew that if they recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the people would probably ready themselves for war, which would irritate the Romans who would come down and crush the threat of a Hebrew rebellion. It’s not just that they didn’t believe that Jesus was the Christ because they didn’t want to lose their place and station, that was a big factor for sure, but they also weren’t confident in Jesus’ ability as a military commander to overthrown the Romans. Any loss on the part of the Jews, led by Jesus or not, would absolutely mean a complete destruction of the Jewish state. The irony here is that they didn’t accept Jesus because they didn’t want to be destroyed by the Romans, but about 40 years after they killed Jesus, the Romans did destroy them when they rebelled, and this because they rejected and killed their Messiah.

We can find another irony here when we consider one of the parables that Jesus just taught, that of Lazarus and the rich man. As the one parable that had someone’s proper name as one of the characters, we have to think that Jesus did that so that the connection between parable and real life would be painfully obvious when the time came. JTC comments, “In the parable we have recently studied, the spirit of the rich man pleaded from his place of anguish that Lazarus, the once pitiable beggar, be sent from paradise to earth, to warn others of the fate awaiting the wicked, to which appeal Abraham replied: ‘if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.’ Now a Lazarus had been in reality raised from the dead, and many of the Jews rejected the testimony of his return and refused to believe in Christ through whom alone death is overcome. The Jews tried to get Lazarus into their power that they might kill him and, as they hoped, silence forever his testimony of the Lord’s power over death.”

Again, we get to the point of “wait, what?” If I had been around at the time Lazarus was raised from the dead, I don’t think that I would ever even get close to him because, I don’t know, that’s just weird. But here people want to kill him? I find that so ironic, that the Jewish leadership would see the only way to maintain their control is to kill the person who was miraculously brought back from the dead.