The Problem is Lazarus

A cartoon character doesn’t fall until he looks down. Evidently, cartoon physics requires knowing something is wrong before things go wrong. Reality is tougher.

If you have never worked at a place where bad news is the problem and not the bad ideas that caused the bad news, count yourself blessed. I have seen leaders look for data that confirmed their beliefs and become irritable over data that contradicted what the plan demanded.

Jesus was the sort of person nobody ignored: many people loved him, but most of the leadership class hated him. Jesus did not just teach, He taught with authority. The leaders could ignore words, but men born blind, who can see after meeting Jesus, are harder to explain away, though the leaders tried.

When dead men started living again at Jesus’ word, that was too much. After all, if Jesus starts making the dead live, He will deceive a lot of people into thinking He is the Son of God. The raising of Lazarus was the worst from the anti-Jesus point of view: public, powerful, and popular. Lazarus was alive, a good many people knew Lazarus had been dead, and a good many people saw and heard Jesus call Lazarus from the tomb.

The leaders had a solution:

9Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead. 10But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; 11Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.

Did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Kill Lazarus. That will teach Jesus and stop people from believing in Him based on these miracles. Lazarus was walking around after being dead and they wanted to shoot the messenger. Obviously, these leaders of God’s people had missed a possibility: Jesus was right and they were wrong about Him.

Of course, if they came to that conclusion, most of what they had been doing was wrong. Still, it is better to be wrong than to be wrong and kill Lazarus. If you are not willing to be right, at least do not become more wrong! When you end up siding with death over life, you have chosen badly. The problem is never Lazarus: he is the good news. The bad news is being on the other side.

If I don’t look down, I can still fall. If something that should be dead is alive, then the right reaction is “Hurrah!” Otherwise, I may be motivated by envy, as the leaders were when it came to Jesus. On Wednesday in Holy Week, Jesus was doing well:

¹⁷ The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness.¹⁸ The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

The world was not going after them. They were losing the crowds, so Lazarus had to die due to envy and jealousy. Rarely do any of us wish to kill Lazarus just to avoid being wrong. We want to kill the Lazarus our opponent has, because Lazarus is helping Him win and we want to win.

When we end up trying to kill Lazarus, we have already lost. Time to give in to reality: Jesus.