You can read John 11: 1-44 as the report of Jesus restoring life to his friend, Lazarus. If you do, you must answer some disturbing questions. What kind of friend delays rushing to heal in order to show off his power? Why do the sisters engage in strange confessions about raising the dead at the Last Days? And perhaps the most telling: So what? So he restored his friend 2000 years ago; why doesn’t he restore life to my dead friends now?
Or you can read the passage as John’s answer to the early Church’s questions about why the Risen Jesus does not return to relieve the sufferings of this world. In the first century, the question would be, “Why is the Second Coming delayed when our brothers are being killed?” In the 21st, “Why does God allow all the sin and death in our world?”
Marland and Suzanne observe you can read such passages in the first manner and find them proclaiming a truth about God; but I suggest it is far more relevant to read them in the second and discover that they also provide guidance for us now.
When you do, John makes some important points. First, Jesus’ delay does not mean he is indifferent about our suffering. What seems to be weeping for the only guy labeled his friend in the Gospels becomes his deep compassion for all of us. Remember at the Last Supper, Jesus says we are all his friends: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer (John 15: 12-15).” So Jesus weeps for our sufferings as well.
Second, the delay in his return or his failure to overcome our world’s present suffering is not a sign of his powerlessness. He agrees with the sisters’ confessions that he will raise the dead in the Last Days. Much as Paul does in Romans 8, John suggests we regard the present sufferings as birth pangs. “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you (John 16:20-24).”
Finally, and perhaps most important, John is claiming Jesus not only shares our sufferings, but gives us life in the midst of them. When the central message of the passage proclaims, “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,” it speaks of Jesus’ already raising us from all forms of death to real life. Salvation is “coming and now is.”
During this Holy Week, John reminds us Jesus is a true friend who in love gives his life for us. When we allow him to raise us to genuine life now in the midst of this world, we find ourselves working with him to show the Way in a chaotic world, speak the Truth in the midst of lies, provide Bread in a time of great need, and give of ourselves for our friends.
