More on the raising of Lazarus (Jn 11:1-44):
In session 1a we've already touched on Jesus as the resurrection and the life (verse 25) and how that ties into the previous step on Who is Jesus? But I think we underestimate all that it means for Jesus to be the life. I perhaps didn't treat this fully in the previous discussion of the Good Shepherd discourse - although how I could be accused of giving it short shrift has more to do with the abundant riches in that chapter than in my having not been thorough - in which Jesus said I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (Jn 10:10).
The life we have without Jesus is no life at all. Jesus alone is life. All the rest of life exists for the sole purpose of leading us (all of us!) to eternal, abundant life in him. It is good for me to think about this when I have a tendency to lament circumstances that are really no tragedy because they have led me or are leading me more deeply in to the life of Jesus Christ.
Martha provides another link to the previous step when she describes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world, (verse 27) and again in the next verse when she tells her sister Mary that the Teacher is calling for her. Jesus shows us the Father; what more is there to be taught? And yet how much life it takes for us to know him!
A brief observation on the end of this passage: Jesus was willing to use a metaphorical stick to beat people over the head with when he thought it might help at least one of them, so he prayed aloud a prayer of thanksgiving that was solely intended for his human listeners. He does what we need to do to at least have the opportunity to respond to the resurrected life he offers us.
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