(Plus, I for one find it difficult to imagine Christ getting angry at a group of mourners to the point of tears because they hadn’t fact checked their views about death and the afterlife!) He made clear already there was a happy ending coming, surely grief and sorrow could not be the source of these tears.īut the obvious reading of the narrative, particularly as Jesus is not only a blubbing, horse-snorting muddle when he sees others weeping, but weeps himself when he goes to the place where Lazarus is laid, and was greatly disturbed again when he came to the tomb (v38), is that, regardless of the happy ending, Christ was moved by his grief as he tasted the absence of his beloved friend. This must explain, they say, why Jesus was moved and wept. In fact, the phrase ‘deeply moved’ (the horse snort!) was typically used to denote anger. They thought death was the end, so ‘when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved’ because they could not see the fullness of the truth. Some have argued that Jesus was moved in a negative way and came to weep at the people’s misunderstanding of death and/or lack of faith. The word used for the phrase that Jesus was deeply moved in spirit is that for the snorting of a horse! At this point Jesus has moved from calm resolve and assurance of Lazarus’ resurrection to being a bit of a blubbing mess. For Jesus to then be ‘deeply moved in spirit and troubled’ (v33) and to weep at the tomb of Lazarus, having already stated that Lazarus would live again, makes no sense at all. He even says to the disciples, ‘Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe’, which can be translated as the astonishing, ‘Lazarus is dead, and I rejoice … ’ (vv14–15). He tells Martha that her brother will rise again (v23). When he heard of Lazarus’ illness, he responds by saying that ‘this illness is not unto death’ (v4) and follows with ‘our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep’ (v11). In the logic of John’s telling of this story, Jesus’ weeping and being overcome by emotion doesn’t really make any sense. We forget that more striking in the narrative than our identification with Martha or Mary or the disciples or even Lazarus, is Christ’s identification with us-Christ’s presence with us as he experiences the absence of his friend. But if we stay there in the absence too long, we forget the heart-stopping, ground-breaking depth of the presence. That place of desolation as we face catastrophic circumstances, and certainly when we face personal and direct loss, is real-maybe necessary. Perhaps we can identify quite closely with Martha and Martha in this passage in John’s Gospel as they say to Jesus: ‘Lord, if only you had been here’ (John 11.21, 32). But the most profound absence we sense as we confront images and headlines of people in Italy not only dying alone but being buried alone, too, is the absence of God. In these times of loss and trial, it is often the absence that is felt most-absence of information, of security, of certainty, and particularly in the current moment, absence of others as we remain mostly isolated. Many of us are struggling to cope psychologically, and some also physically. Images covering the news feed spread from soaring unemployment rates to plunging markets from over-flooded hospitals to solitary funerals. Download 'Reflection on Jesus and Lazarus from John 11.1-45' (PDF format)Īs I write this, there are over 729,000 confirmed cases of a new pandemic sweeping through the world, which has caused at least 34,689 deaths.Contact the undergraduate admissions teamĪ reflection on Jesus and Lazarus from John 11.1-45īy The Revd Dr Jarred Mercer, Associate Chaplain and Career Development Researcher at Merton College.Library & Archives: Opening hours, facilities, services. Socially Isolated - Spiritually Connected.
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