Today's reading gives us another testimony to the triumph of the Kingdom that Jesus brought into the world. In every age and among all peoples without exception, death's triumph over life has been perceived as something...
Today's reading gives us another testimony to the triumph of the Kingdom that Jesus brought into the world. In every age and among all peoples without exception, death's triumph over life has been perceived as something unjust and contrary to what ought to be. Attempts to regard death like a Stoic or a natural philosopher, viewing it with philosophical calm and accepting it as something regular and inevitable, and therefore normal, have generally failed. At the moment of coming face to face with death, it still inspires only horror and revulsion. Other feelings connected with the causes and circumstances of a death are often mixed with these, of course, but those feelings have nothing to do with death itself: their source is precisely those causes and circumstances, not the fact of dying.
The Bible explains this attitude toward death: death entered the world as a consequence of the Fall. It is part of the world's evil, which must inevitably disappear once the world, transformed by God's power, becomes part of the Kingdom. By weeping when He sees those who mourn (vv. 32-36), Jesus confirms that death is not an imagined tragedy of human life but a real one.
This, of course, is not the end: resurrection, Judgment, and the Kingdom lie ahead. In Gospel times every believing Jew knew about the resurrection (vv. 23-24), yet death still remained a state contrary to human nature; it contradicted God's design for human beings and their destiny. The Kingdom therefore proves incompatible with death.
It is no accident that Jesus says He Himself is the resurrection (vv. 25-26): He bears the fullness of the Kingdom within Himself, and death retreats before the Kingdom. Of course, a return to one's former life, not yet transformed by God's power, in the former world, which has not yet become part of the Kingdom, can hardly be considered the end of the journey. This is not yet the resurrection that believing Jews awaited. But death and the Kingdom are incompatible, and so even someone not yet fully transformed finds in the Kingdom the fullness of life available to him.
No one can contain more life than he is able to contain, but in touching the fullness of God's life, each person receives the measure of life available to him. Lazarus had not yet reached complete transformation, but he was entirely capable of living the life that every healthy person lives in our still not fully transformed world. He receives the fullness possible for him as he comes out into God's light from the tomb in which he was buried (vv. 38-44). Then everyone could see plainly that the Kingdom had truly entered the world and, with it, so had the resurrection that until then was thought to lie only in the future.
One might think that so vivid a demonstration would have melted and converted every heart, but apparently nothing of the kind happened. Some truly came to believe (vv. 45-46), while others became even more firmly opposed to Christ and the Kingdom. But the evidence was too plain, and those who rejected the Kingdom were left with no choice, in the logic of their persistent rejection, but to conclude that they had to rid themselves of the One who brought the Kingdom into the world (vv. 47-53). Thus rejection of the Kingdom leads the Savior of the world, sent by God, to the cross.
11
11:1 One Lazarus - It is probable, Lazarus was younger than his sisters. Bethany is named, the town of Mary and Martha, and Lazarus is mentioned after them, Joh 11:5.Ecclesiastical history informs us, that Lazarus was now thirty years old, and that he lived thirty years after Christ's ascension.
11:2 It was that Mary who afterward anointed, etc She was more known than her elder sister Martha, and as such is named before her.
11:4 This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God - The event of this sickness will not be death, in the usual sense of the word, a final separation of his soul and body; but a manifestation of the glorious power of God.
11:7 Let us go into Judea - From the country east of Jordan, whither he had retired some time before, when the Jews sought to stone him, Joh 10:39-40.
11:9 Are there not twelve hours in the day? - The Jews always divided the space from sunrise to sunset, were the days longer or shorter, into twelve parts: so that the hours of their day were all the year the same in number, though much shorter in winter than in summer. If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not - As if he had said, So there is such a space, a determined time, which God has allotted me. During that time I stumble not, amidst all the snares that are laid for me. Because he seeth the light of this world - And so I see the light of God surrounding me.
11:10 But if a man walk in the night - If he have not light from God; if his providence does no longer protect him.
11:11 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth - This he spoke, just when he died.Sleepeth - Such is the death of good men in the language of heaven.But the disciples did not yet understand this language. And the slowness of our understanding makes the Scripture often descend to our barbarous manner of speaking.
11:16 Thomas in Hebrew, as Didymus in Greek, signifies a twin.With him - With Jesus, whom he supposed the Jews would kill.It seems to be the language of despair.