![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2018\/01\/thumbnail_20180109_164441.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLAZARUS COME OUT!\u2014- John 11<\/p>\n
A Message Preached Feb. 18th 2018\u2014 Southern Hills UMC, Lexington Ky. <\/p>\n
\tJesus shouted at a tomb containing a dead man\u2014 Lazarus come out. Very few have noted what an odd thing this is. I bet none of you have ever seen someone standing in a graveyard shouting something like this. But it reflects something important about Jesus who said he was the resurrection and the life, but also about how much he cared about Lazarus.
\n\tIt will be good to take a long running jump into this text by considering some contextual issues first. This Gospel is unique, and among other things it has a unique four part structure\u2014 a prologue (\u2018in the beginning was the word\u2026\u2019) an epilogue (John 21\u2014 breakfast by the sea), and two major sections-the Book of Signs, and the Book of Glory, with the two parts connected by references to \u2018the one whom Jesus loved\u2019\u2014 namely Lazarus. While we are clearing things up his actual name is Eliezer, which got anglicized as Lazarus, and he is surely a different person than the only named person in any of Jesus\u2019 Synoptic parables-the rich man and Lazarus. The Lazarus in John 11ff. is not a poor beggar, and he not only dies but rises in the story. And again, Eliezer was a common Jewish name (see both the OT and the Maccabees).
\n\tNotice that there is a crescendo of miraculous signs in John 2-11, climaxing with the raising of Lazarus. It is the seventh such sign, after which there are no more miracle tales, until the similar story occurs about Jesus himself\u2014 he is raised from a rock cut tomb as well, just like Lazarus. In other words, these two portions of the Gospel are very carefully crafted and structured to show the parallels between the climactic story of Lazarus, which is viewed as the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back, and caused the authorities to decide they must do away with Jesus (and Lazarus), and the true climax of the Gospel in the raising of Jesus at the end of the book of glory in John 20. Seven, of course was the Jewish number for perfection, and so the raising of Lazarus not only completes the sign narrative accounts perfectly, it perfectly foreshadows the ultimate miracle\u2014 the raising of a crucified Jesus.
\n\tBut why, especially since the other Gospel writers say nothing at all about Lazarus, even when Luke mentions Jesus visiting Mary and Martha in Lk. 10.38-42), why is a story about Lazarus the ultimately sign narrative that climaxes the first half of this Gospel? I would say it\u2019s so important because Lazarus is indeed the one whom Jesus loved, as John 11.1-6 makes clear, thereafter called the Beloved Disciple, and he actually is the eye witness source of this material in the Fourth Gospel. This Gospel is distinct from the other three precisely because it tells the story of Jesus largely from a Judean perspective, tells the story through the eyes of Lazarus, and let\u2019s be clear\u2014 if Jesus raised you from the dead, it would change your perspective on Jesus and everything else as well, I\u2019d wager. This Gospel tells the story of Jesus seeing it through Easter eyes.
\n\tBefore looking at some of the particulars of this great story a few more contextual things must be dealt with. First, Jews who believed in resurrection believed in a group resurrection of the righteous \u2018on the last day\u2019 as Martha herself says in this story. They were not looking for either a crucified or a raised messiah, an isolated resurrection of an individual in the midst of human history. No one, not even most of Jesus\u2019 disciples looked for or expected that, despite Jesus\u2019 intimations it would happen. Crucified messiah was as much an oxymoron for early Jews as Microsoft Works is for us. Secondly, many early Jews believed that the spirit of the deceased stayed with the body for only 2-3 days. After that it departed. There was no hope of a return. Thus Martha\u2019s reaction to Jesus\u2019 command to roll back the stone is perfectly understandable\u2013 there was no point. The spirit of Lazarus had departed his body, and there was only a stinking corpse in the tomb, or as the ancient KJV has Martha put it\u2014 \u2018Lord he stinketh!\u2019
\n\tThirdly, the word sleep was used by early Jews who did believe in resurrection not to describe the condition of the dead, as though they were snoozing in the afterlife. Jews didn\u2019t believe in that, so when Jesus says \u2018Lazarus is sleeping\u2019 he means his condition is no more permanent than that of a sleeping person. He will awaken from the condition refreshed and renewed. Lastly, notice how Martha with a not so subtle accusation -\u2018if you had been here, my brother would not have died\u2019 believes in Jesus and in resurrection but inadequately. She doesn\u2019t understand that Jesus IS the resurrection. People who come in contact with him can receive everlasting life or be raised from the dead immediately, not merely on judgment day. Just as there is a crescendo of the miraculous in this Gospel, climaxing with John 20, so there is also a climax of confessions in this Gospel, climaxing with Thomas\u2019s \u2018my Lord and my God\u2019 which finally matches up with the confession in John 1 that says the pre-existent Son of God is God the Son.
\n\tSo much for the ground clearing exercise. Let\u2019s focus on who this Beloved Disciple is. There are many clues both in what is absent from this Gospel and what is present. To start with, there are no sons of Zebedee references in this Gospel except in the Epilogue in John 21. There is no calling of the Zebedees by the lake, no story about their presence at the raising of Jairus\u2019 daughter, no story about their presence on the Mount of Transfiguration, no story about them asking Jesus for the box seats in the Kingdom. This is very odd if this Gospel is supposed to be the personal, eyewitness testimony of John son of Zebedee, and let me just say that the first time anyone seems to have claimed he wrote this is between the middle and end of the second century in the persons of Justin Martyr and then Irenaeus. The labels at the beginning of the Gospels are later additions to these documents, not part of the inspired text of the document itself. Nevertheless, I think there is a John who collected these eyewitness accounts and edited them and gave them to us all as a biography of Jesus\u2014 his name is John of Patmos, a member of the church in Ephesus, and the person who was exiled to Patmos and had those remarkable visions recorded in Revelation. He is not John son of Zebedee, who seems to have been martyred early in the first century like his brother, and just as Jesus himself said they would be (\u2018you will be baptized with the same baptism as I will undergo\u2019).
\n\tScholars today have increasingly recognized that the Fourth Gospel is the testimony of a Judean disciple, whether or not it is by Lazarus, for it has none of the famous Galilean miracle tales found in the Synoptics, apart from the feeding of the 5,000\/walking on water tandem. That is the only Galilean miracle found in all four Gospels. Uniquely in this Gospel we hear about the healing of a paralytic, but where\u2014 at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. Uniquely we hear in this Gospel about the healing of a man born blind, but where\u2014 at the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, and of course we have the unique raising of Lazarus in Bethany, a suburb of Jerusalem. We have no exorcisms in this Gospel and no proper parables, two things that absolutely dot the landscape in the three earlier Gospels. Instead we have seven I am sayings, seven discourses (e.g. \u2018I am the bread of life\u2019), and seven sign narratives\u2014 mighty miracle stories ranging from turning water into gallons of Gallo, to raising Lazarus from the dead.
\n\tThe references to the Beloved Disciple only begin in John 11, and continue then all the way to John 21. Lazarus is the bridge figure that links the Book of Signs and the Book of Glory. So, for instance we find Jesus reclining at table in Bethany in John 12. One wonders what they talked about \u2018What was it like on the other side of the afterlife\u2014 did you see a bright light etc.\u2019 One wonders what questions Peter asked Lazarus at that dinner. It is also at that dinner that Mary, as an act of gratitude, anoints Jesus\u2019 feet. This is the same story we find in Mark 14, which is said to take place at the house of Simon the leper.
\n\tHere we may have an aha moment! Let us say Simon is the father of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and that he did indeed die of Hanson\u2019s disease. This would immediately set off alarms in the Jewish community there about contagious diseases, and this may explain not only why Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are still single, living together as adults, and perhaps also Lazarus succumbed at a too early age to the same disease. In any case, John l1 told us that Jesus raised \u2018the one whom he loved\u2019 from the dead (the only person in this whole Gospel about whom that is said-that Jesus loved him in particular), John 12 has the celebratory response in their house, and then in John 13 we hear about the famous footwashing story, and again Jesus reclines with the Beloved Disciple. The normal dining protocol is that the chief guest reclines on the same couch with the host\u2014 in this case the Beloved Disciple. So both those meals are early during Passover week and in the house of Lazarus.
\n\tLet us then move forward to the story of Jesus\u2019 capture, but we must bear in mind that John 11 told us that \u2018the Jews\u2019 that is the Jewish authorities from Jerusalem had attended the mourning of Lazarus, and were present when Jesus arrived four days late. They knew Lazarus quite well. This then explains not only why we get the personal name of the high priest\u2019s slave, Malchus, whose ear Jesus healed at his capture, an ear severed by Peter, but also how the Beloved Disciple was able to waltz right into the high priest\u2019s house, while Peter had to stand out in the courtyard warming his hands. The Beloved Disciple was not an unknown Galilean follower of Jesus like Peter. He was a Judean follower of Jesus, namely Lazarus.
\n\tFast forward again to the crucifixion. There is the Beloved Disciple at the foot of the cross, receiving Jesus last will and testimony. The Synoptics tell us the Twelve were nowhere to be found. Judas had betrayed Jesus and hung himself. Peter had denied Jesus 3 times and like the others had hid or fled. But not the Beloved Disciple. He\u2019s right there to the bitter end with Jesus. He is not a member of the Twelve, he is Lazarus, to whom Jesus bequeathed his mother. This why, according to Acts 1.14 Mary is still in Jerusalem awaiting Pentecost. She is staying in Bethany with Lazarus and family.
\n\tFast forward again to John 20. Mary Magdalene reports Jesus has arisen and she has seen him alive and has commissioned her\u2014 she preaches the first Easter sermon. Peter and the Beloved Disciple race to the tomb, but the Beloved Disciple knows just where it is, and gets there first. Peter is puzzled by the empty tomb, but not the Beloved Disciple. Indeed, John 20 says \u2018he saw the rolled up grave clothes and the empty tomb and believed, even though they did not know yet from the Scriptures Jesus must rise from the dead\u2019. He had seen this movie before, indeed he had experienced it. God had raised Jesus just as God had raised the Beloved Disciple himself. Lazarus knew from experience, not from Scripture, what had happened.
\n\tFinally, fast forward to John 21. Here we learn that the BD had written down his memoirs and that after Jesus told Peter he would be martyred one day, Peter had asked what about the BD, and Jesus replied, \u2018if it is my will he live until I return, what is that to you\u2014 follow me\u2019. But then we have the disclaimer by the editor\u2014 Jesus did not say the BD would live until the second coming, it was a conditional statement. But one can understand why the BD\u2019s community might think he would do so\u2014 after all, Jesus had already raised him from the dead once. They may have thought he would surely not die again. I\u2019m not an archaeologist, nor do I play one on TV, but I would love to find Lazarus\u2019 tombstone\u2014 it would say \u2018died 29 A.,D., and then died, 90 A.D.\u2019. That would confuse some people!
\n\tThe end of John 21 tells us that the Johannine community had gathered the BDs written testimony, edited it, and made it available to us all\u2014 \u2018this is the testimony of the BD and we know his testimony is true\u2019. This is surely the voice of the final editor\u2014 John, returned from exile, and the one who shaped this Gospel into the form we have it now.
\n\tThe Fourth Gospel is an eyewitness testimony of the leader of the Judean disciples of Jesus, just as Peter and his testimony as the leader of the Twelve Galileans is found in the Synoptics. We now can say with a high degree of likelihood we know who this Beloved Disciple actually was\u2014 not John son of Zebedee, or any other John, but rather Lazarus\u2014 \u2018the one whom Jesus loved\u2019. <\/p>\n
Amen <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAZARUS COME OUT!\u2014- John 11 A Message Preached Feb. 18th 2018\u2014 Southern Hills UMC, Lexington Ky. Jesus shouted at a tomb containing a dead man\u2014 Lazarus come out. Very few have noted what an odd thing this is. I bet none of you have ever seen someone standing in a graveyard shouting something like this. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n