Main news for 26 April 2026

King James Version (en)

John, Chapter 12, verses 17-18

¹⁷The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record.

¹⁸For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle.

NOTES

Today's reading once again returns us to Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Although he remains in the background, he nevertheless takes part in such events as...

Today's reading once again returns us to Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Although he remains in the background, he nevertheless takes part in such events as the anointing of Jesus (vv. 1-11) and the Lord's entry into Jerusalem (vv. 12-19). At the beginning of the account we meet Lazarus in the house where the events unfold (vv. 1-2), and his presence draws many people's attention to what is happening when they might otherwise have noticed nothing (v. 9). According to the evangelist, even Jesus' triumphant reception in the streets of Jerusalem was connected to a significant degree with the rumors spreading through the city about the man who had died and whom He had raised (vv. 17-18).

Such attention to Lazarus and to everything connected with the miracle of Jesus raising him is, of course, no accident. For most believing Jews, the resurrection of the dead was a sign that the day of Judgment and the messianic Kingdom had arrived. Someone capable of performing such miracles was naturally regarded as the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus Himself, who had previously concealed His messiahship and revealed the mystery of His ministry to only a few, now bears direct witness to His mission: He accepts the greetings of the people gathered in the city streets, who welcome Him as the Messiah (vv. 12-15). Indeed, after so evident a manifestation of the Kingdom's power before everyone, it would have been utterly impossible to continue concealing His messiahship. On the other hand, Jesus now had very little time left before completing His earthly ministry, so He no longer needed to fear being drawn into religious and political games by being made the leader of yet another messianic uprising.

But even such plain evidence apparently did not convince everyone. Neither the Temple leadership (vv. 10-11) nor most of the leaders of the Pharisaic movement (v. 19) changed their opinion of Jesus. Yet this position can hardly have been determined by any evidence or arguments. Had arguments been at issue, one could scarcely find one weightier than the living Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised before a multitude of witnesses. But judging by the evangelist's account, the priestly circles' only response to this argument was a plan to kill Lazarus and thus rid themselves of him as living evidence that Jesus was right.

This is plainly no longer about evidence or theological discussion but about a political game whose outcome is known in advance. Those who play it have no need of the Kingdom. They need religious and political stability in society, which in their view justifies any sacrifice. If at first the issue concerned only One (John 11:49-50), it now concerns at least two. Such is the logic of earthly power when it opposes the Kingdom: unwilling to acknowledge the obvious, it merely multiplies its victims as it tries to eliminate everyone who might become a witness to the Kingdom. It is the logic of the powers of darkness that leads the Savior to the cross.

Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem is perhaps His only clear and public testimony to His messiahship. Now, when only a little remained before the completion of His earthly path, there was no longer any danger that He would be placed at the head of some messianic uprising, though His own disciples were hoping for precisely such an uprising, right to the very end. Meanwhile the evangelist emphasizes that the people greet Jesus as the Messiah above all because rumors had spread widely through the city about the miraculous raising of Lazarus. This was understandable: if even one person had truly risen from the dead, then surely the very day of Judgment and the general resurrection spoken of by the prophets had come. And the one who raised him was obviously the Messiah. This logic was simple and clear, and it fit well within popular messianic ideas.

In reality, however, everything was far from so simple. Popular ideas about the Messiah went no further than the image of the Messiah as a great earthly King. Of course, this King was not imagined as an ordinary human being. He could, for example, perform miracles and even raise the dead. But His Kingdom was imagined as a fully earthly kingdom. And the life of this earthly kingdom was also, in general, fully earthly. Of course, it fully corresponded to the Torah. Of course, it had that measure of the nearness of God's presence without which the coming of the Messiah was unthinkable. And, of course, it did not have that triumph of death characteristic of the present age. But people remained the same. They only became righteous and pious. In the best sense of those words, but still in an earthly way.

Jesus' raising of Lazarus fit entirely within these ideas about the Kingdom. No one thought that such a resurrection was only a foretaste. A preparation for the main thing. Lazarus was not raised into that new life which Jesus brought with Him. He was raised because of that new life. But he did not contain it within himself. His nature remained the same. He returned to the life lived by people of the untransformed world.

But the Savior came to give the human person more. To unite him with the fullness of life, not with a small part of it. This is what those who greeted Him in the streets of Jerusalem could not understand. They thought the main thing had already happened, but it was still ahead. Even Jesus' closest disciples did not yet know this. He alone knew.

Why does an enthusiastic crowd meet Jesus on the streets of Jerusalem? The Evangelist answers this question quite plainly: because the news that He had raised Lazarus had already spread through the city, since Bethany is very close to Jerusalem. And, of course, many people then thought that the long-awaited Messiah had finally come: it was His coming that would mark the beginning of that universal resurrection before the Last Judgment, in which most believing Jews of that time believed and for which they waited. It would seem that this faith and these expectations fully matched the main goal of the Savior's earthly ministry, whose fulfillment was already very near. Victory over death was close; it seemed that nothing now prevented Him from declaring it openly.

And yet there was something that substantially distinguished the people's expectations from the new reality coming into the world. The report of Lazarus's resurrection, or more precisely the reaction of the Jerusalem crowd to it, marked this difference as clearly as nothing else could. The people truly were waiting for and wanted a universal resurrection. But they saw this resurrection as a return to the understandable and familiar life of the untransfigured world, which, if only it were freed from illnesses and the threat of an unavoidable end, seemed to them an ideal. Of course, a solution to all social problems was also expected: in the messianic Kingdom there would be not only no sick people, but no poor people either; everyone would be fed and, if not rich, at least well-off. And many of those who greeted Jesus thought that now, when "the process had begun," He would finally proclaim Himself openly as the Messiah and take up what had long been expected of Him: drive the Romans and other Gentiles out of Judea, stand at the head of the newly created state, solve all social problems, issue just laws based on the Torah, and solve every problem miraculously, just as He had acted until now, healing, raising the dead, and feeding the crowds.

And perhaps only Jesus Himself knew that nothing of the sort would happen. The resurrection would begin only at the moment of His death on the cross, when the tombs would be opened and the first righteous people would come out of them, raised not to their former life but to a new life, to the life of that Kingdom which He brought into the world.

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