The Resurrection of Lazarus

Eschatology of John Part 21: John 11

Today we will be looking at two major texts in John 11. One deals with a conversation between Jesus and Martha/ Mary in the first half of John 11.¹ The second is the response some of the religious leaders had to Lazarus’s resurrection.

Well, I Know He Will Eventually Be Raised

Jesus is Glorified

When Jesus learned that his friend would die, he told his disciples that the sickness would not lead to death; instead, it would lead to the glory of God. This is a common theme in John that goes back to chapter 1.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

It also shows up in chapter 2.

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. John 2:11

And it culminates in Jesus’s own death and resurrection.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, John 17:1

It is appropriate, then, that this seventh of the seven miracles leading up to the cross should also glorify God. This seventh miracle is one of death, tears, and resurrection.

When Jesus finally decides to leave to go and raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus’s disciples protest because if Jesus shows up in Judea again, he might be the one who dies. But Jesus said it is time to work. Then he explained.

“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” John 11:11

The disciples didn’t get it.

“Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” John 11:12

They thought Jesus meant he had simply fallen asleep, which may be what a sick person needs, but there is something else going on here.

Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” John 11:13–15

It turns out that “sleep” is a metaphor. Jesus was speaking figuratively, and the disciples didn’t catch it. But this is actually a big deal because Jesus is reworking how we view physical death.

Physical death isn’t the end; it’s the beginning.

It’s just like falling asleep.

Martha’s Confusion and Confession

As Jesus approached Mary and Martha’s house, Martha ran out to meet him. Standing in the tradition of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, Martha has something she wants to say—by the way, it’s something she feels comfortable enough to say.

Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” John 11:21

That’s gotta hurt.

Notice that Martha doesn’t know the difference between sleep and death here. Did you catch that?

She continues,

“But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” John 11:22

Is this an exhibition of faith that Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead, or is she simply saying that she still trusts in Jesus despite what has happened?

I think it could go either way, and the two may not be mutually exclusive. The reason why I lean towards the latter interpretation is because of what happens next.

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” John 11:23–24

Had she expected Jesus to march into Bethany and raise Lazarus right then and there, why does she seem to postpone his resurrection until “the last day”?

Now, where does Martha get this “last day” resurrection from? We’ve seen this phrase pop up in John 6. We also saw that it possibly comes from Daniel 12. Regardless of how we interpret this expression, Martha seems to think it would be way off in her future, but Jesus brings the future into the present:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25–26

Just as Jesus had to correct Nicodemus’s understanding of the new birth, the Samaritan woman’s understanding of the water of life, and the crowd’s understanding of manna from heaven, now Jesus tells Martha (and us) what the resurrection actually is.

It’s Jesus.

He is the resurrection and the life. He redefines death. He takes the fear out of death. He shows us that physical death is just like falling asleep because while our physical flesh might die, we live on and on and on.

Jesus is the culmination of Israel’s history and the walking resurrection.

Another way to put this is that Jesus is the telos, the end, the goal of the Law. Everything thing leads up to him, and when we are united with him through the Spirit of God, we are united in his death and resurrection. We will “never die.”

Do you believe this?

Martha did.

She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” John 11:27

The Political Death of Jesus

Scapegoating

Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. John 11:45–46

Pay close attention to what these chief leaders say in response to this amazing miracle:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” John 11:47–48

First, they don’t deny the signs of Jesus. In John 3, Nicodemus spoke on behalf of the religious leaders when he said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person” (John 3:2).

Second, they are worried about their holy place and their nation. This is an important point and shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s okay to be proud of your family, church, or city. You can say, “I love my church.” But there’s a way to say this which subverts the authority of Jesus as the head of the church: “I’ll never see XYZ happen in my church!” Do you see the difference? Part of being a good shepherd (John 10) is recognizing that you are there to serve, not be served. As Peter said, leaders aren’t to lord it over the flock (1 Peter 5).

Third, they are seeing Jesus as a political threat. Their idea is that Rome will perceive Jesus as a rival king or emperor, and, if enough people follow him, Rome will march on all of Israel.

Of course, this does eventually happen but not because of the Christians; instead, it was another movement of zealots that brought about Jerusalem’s destruction. As we saw in John 6, Jesus insists that his kingdom is not of this world.

At this point, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, rebuked the other leaders and said,

“You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” John 11:49-50

“Die for the people” can be understood in two ways. On one hand, we can understand this from the Christian perspective: Jesus died on our behalf so that we could see the Love of God in action. On the other hand, we can understand this from the political perspective: Jesus was a sacrifice made by the chief priests and rulers to Rome to show political loyalty. This latter point is best exemplified in the chant “we have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15).

John offers some commentary on Caiaphas’s words:

He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to put him to death. John 11:51–53

You can see both interpretations of this in action here. Jesus died to gather all of God’s children together. But they also planned on putting him to death because they saw it as a political sacrifice with Jesus serving as the scapegoat.

But there’s a catch with this kind of sacrifice: a remembrance of sins is made every year. There will need to be more blood.

The Cycle of Violence

Roughly four years after Jesus’s death, the small community of disciples had grown into the thousands. The church had grown so much that the disciples had to appoint deacons to assist in the distribution of food (Acts 6). One of these deacon’s name was Stephen.

When Stephen began allegedly speaking “against this holy place and the law,” the wheels of violence began to spin. After a response from Stephen, which critiqued the idea that God was contained within a temple, the people had enough and Stephen was murdered.

If we understand the motivation behind Jesus’s death to be two-pronged (religious envy and preemptive political protection), then it makes sense to think of Stephen and subsequent martyrs’ death through the same lens. This explains why the early persecutors of Paul appealed to magistrates and governors to try to have Paul imprisoned or killed.

This kind of sacrifice can produce a typical kind of peace, but eventually it loses its effectiveness.

When Jesus was approaching the cross, Luke describes the moment he stopped to weep over Jerusalem:

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” Luke 19:41–44

To say this another way, Jesus talked about how the people were “filling up a cup” of the martyrs blood. As long as they continued in the cycle of violence, they were “storing up wrath” for themselves. In other words, their continued pattern of violence would end up falling back on themselves. This wasn’t something Jesus was happy about. It wasn’t something he wanted. But it happened, and Jesus wept over it when he saw the writing on the wall.

How can we break this cycle of violence in our own day? Habakkuk lamented,

“Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed and found a city on iniquity!” Habakkuk 2:12

The nations of our world were built upon bloodshed. If they do not repent, what will happen to them? Will the cycle of violence catch up with them?

But there’s a way to stop it.

Love. Resurrection. Peace.

To sum it up in a word: gospel.

If we live out the good news of Jesus in our lives, we are making this world a better place. Things do not have to get worse before they get better. War does not have to be the answer. Violence is a product of the “fake” world built upon the lie of the serpent; it is not a product of the much more real world of the Spirit that Paul calls a new creation.

But we have to trust in this good news, live it, and spread it far and wide. It’s the only way to a better tomorrow for us, our families, our neighbors, and our enemies.

1. I say “Martha/ Mary” because there is apparently new textual evidence that the one who meets Jesus on the road is Mary Magdalene. Click this link for more.