Gospel for 30 March, 2007

There was a man named Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha, and he was ill. It was the same Mary, the sister of the sick man Lazarus, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent this message to Jesus, ‘Lord, the man you love is ill.' On receiving the message, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not end in death, but it is for God's glory so that through it the Son of God may be glorified.' Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he heard that he was ill he stayed where he was for two more days before saying to the disciples, ‘Let us go back to Judaea.' The disciples said, ‘Rabbi, it is not long since the Jews were trying to stone you; are you going back there again?' Jesus replied: Are there not twelve hours in the day? No one who walks in the daytime stumbles, having the light of this world to see by; anyone who walks around at night stumbles, having no light as a guide. He said that and then added, ‘Our friend Lazarus is at rest; I am going to wake him.' The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he is at rest he will be saved.' Jesus was speaking of the death of Lazarus, but they thought that by ‘rest' he meant ‘sleep'; so Jesus put it plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad I was not there because now you will believe. But let us go to him.' Then Thomas—known as the Twin—said to the other disciples, ‘Let us also go to die with him.' On arriving, Jesus found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days already. Bethany is only about two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went to meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him.' Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.' Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus said: I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? ‘Yes, Lord,' she said, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.' (John 11:1-27 NJB)

By the time that today's vignette occurred, the Twelve knew what was coming. They knew that Jesus had antagonized the powers that be once too often. They could read the writing on the wall. Jesus was marked for death and those who were identified with Him were also going to be marked for death. As Jesus had told them before, "the servant is not greater than the master". What was going to happen to Him would also catch up with them. They all knew it and Thomas was brash enough to say it out loud. "Let us also go, to die with Him".

Those of us who live in North America really do not understand what this means. We may cry and pout that we are persecuted because we are Christians, but in truth we have no idea what it really means to be persecuted and hated for the sake of Jesus. We whine because sales clerks say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and loudly proclaim this is evidence that we are a suffering minority. All this really proves is that we are are so spoiled that we have no sense of proportion. We ignore the brothers and sisters we have who are daily living with starvation or bombs exploding around their ears, and focus on "Happy Holidays" as if that really makes a hill of beans worth of difference in the grand eternal scheme of things.

It is well past the time when we should look at what really transpired during Holy Week and then throughout the first Centuries of Church History and realize how marvelously wonderful we have it. And also realize just how poorly we have performed in our task of proclaiming the Gospel to all men and making disciples of all nations. As Holy Week approaches let us truly fall on our knees with our face to the rising sun and cry out, "O Lord, have mercy."