I just finished todays devotional from my favorite author, me. 😊🤷🏼♂️ It is from my book "Who Am I?," a devotional narrative of the last six weeks of Jesus life as seen through John's eyes. The text and my narrative were centered on Lazurus rising. Enter with me into the narrative just after Jesus raises Lazarus, as John sees it.
"What happened next was sheer pandemonium. Glancing around, I noticed some on their knees, hands raised to the heavens. Gasps and murmuring enveloped all around. Most of the twelve stood motionless, astonished that the impossible had become possible. Judas Iscariot’s response troubled me. His arms were folded. A wry smile appeared on his face. You could read his thoughts. ‘Now, no one will stand in our way!’ I turned to Jeshua, who was being pressed upon by the now hundred or more gathered. The news was already bringing others from the village. In all the adulation I noticed that Jesus simply wept, gently. From compassion for the family or over the irony he knew he had released, I could not tell. ‘This will be his last miracle,’ I thought. ‘Either the elders will receive him or be determined, now, to…’ I cut off the implications.
Then, almost as one, the twelve began to do what we were good at. We began to gently create order from the chaos, placing ourselves, almost unnoticed, between the Master and his adoring crowd. Very soon, Martha and Mary brought Lazarus to Jeshua and so we made room. Lazarus stunk. But no one seemed to care about the fading odor. Jeshua was the first to speak, addressing Martha, reminding her of her own words minutes before and now with a gentle smile. “Your brother will rise again.” Jesus wiped a tear away as he spoke. Martha laughed in response. “Yes, at the last day.” Jeshua stopped and looking directly at her announced. “Behold, Martha, it is here! I am the resurrection and the life.” And now turning to all present he repeated what he had first spoken to Martha, only in private. “And whoever lives and believes in me will never die!” Judas Iscariot broke in on the conversation, abruptly. “Yes, Master. Now all Jerusalem will follow.” Jeshua, looking straight into Judas’s eyes and heart countered. “Will they, Judas? Will they?” With that, he turned to leave." 1
Reflections
Q: Where do you see yourself in this story?
❖ The professional mourners
❖ The family-friends of Mary and Martha
❖ Mary
❖ Judas Iscariot
❖ Martha
❖ John the beloved
Q: Where do you see yourself in this story?
For the third time in as many weeks my immediate and disconcerting response was Judas. Up till my absolute betrayal of all that is righteous I might have said Peter or John the beloved or Martha perhaps. Increasingly, in these months of an achingly slow repentance—like the melting of a glacier close to the cold upper tundra, only the sun's clear light creates the conditions for my heart to continue softening into the warmth of God's heart for those I have sinned against. On this occasion it is the descriptive of Judas's political awareness and vision that comes to mind; specifically his anxiety about "outcomes".
This story is all about outcomes and the expectations that surround. ”So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick”“ (John 11:3 NIV). Any pastor can read the underlying message. It's not, "Come quickly, for your dear friend is gravely ill." No, it's really, "If you care for __________ (write in the name) as you say you do, then you should please come and live with us at the hospital." Anxiety.
The disciples themselves echoed the same expectation, interpreting Jesus love for Lazarus and staying in, say Jericho for two more days as assurance that Lazarus would get well. He didn't. In fact, when finally arriving at Bethany ”Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days" (John 11:17 NIV). Hence Martha and Mary's compelling questions: ”“Lord,” ..if you had been here, my brother would not have died“ (John 11:21 NIV).
The disciples were already cowered, fear driven. Thinking Lazarus would be fine they objected to the very idea of going up to within three miles of Jerusalem. ”“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”“ (John 11:8 NIV). Of the twelve, apparently only Thomas and Judas seemed anxious to get on with it. Judas, because if Jesus is the Son of God, everyone knows that it will have to be the Sanhedrin who will need to be convinced. Judas political, power based expectation framed his willingness to act, even boldly, if needed. And Thomas whose mind ever calculated risk and reward did not have to be told twice. Better playing offense than waiting, worrying defensively. "Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him”“ (John 11:16 NIV). Of these two underlying fears I am well acquainted. Even my anxieties have anxiety.
As I've written recently a very young fear filled little boy is coming face to face with a world collapsing into chaos, increasingly. If God is as good as Jesus of Nazareth then it remains significant that John the Revelator pictures Jesus:
Returning with robes reflecting his power as rooted in "a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, (having) ..seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God (The Spirit) sent out into all the earth" (Revelation 5:6 NIV), and;
Whose sacrificial love was given for all the inhabitants of the earth and saves all who look to the "Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world" (Revelation 13:8 NIV), and;
Who alone can open the seals of our human wickedness being poured out into the earth in such a way that, as "one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth" (Revelation 5:5-6 NIV).
I have spent my whole adult life in joyful discovery of just how magical is the Jesus Story! Shortly after college it first dawned upon me that the Biblical narrative is about restoration, not legal reconciliation. It's about creative glory, not a medieval dungeon deep in the belly of the earth.
The creation liturgy and Story of Genesis 1 and 2 properly frame The Book, with Revelation 20 and 21 completing the other book end with "“a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband" (Revelation 21:1-2 NIV). Chapter 3 of Genesis is the anomaly first engaged before the first light burst from deep within the Trinity of God's vision in the Lamb already slain. Only in the brokenness of The Eternal Son becoming fully human in Jesus of Nazareth could all that went wrong in the garden, now a memory, be reset; "Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!“ (Romans 5:16-17 NIV).
Like Judas, I am increasingly and despairingly intrigued by a prophetic vision of power overcoming evil, not love. Gratuitous murders, looting, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, Russia, China, all must give way to... what? The Lamb or The Lion? If The Lion, whose?
Unlike Judas my heart knows that such a vision is rooted in a view of God's Wrath and Sovereign Presence as all consuming! Either humanity despairs of even the possibility of love being the first and lasting instinct of humanity and runs to the cross as protection or we are damned; not merely lost. We are beyond the reach of mercy, having chosen the anti-Christ or at least the spirit of antichrist in our pre-end times generation.
Yet such a vision runs counter to Jesus, and importantly, The Revelation of The Book. Judgment is real. It is true God's moral narrative will not give way to human chaos and the destruction in its wake. Yet in The Word, judgment acts within and for redemptive purpose. God is not at war with us. God, The Father-Eternal Son-Spirit has decided and is for, with and in us. Christ is not some kind of cosmic satisfaction that takes from The Father His wrath, poured out. Jesus doesn't die in our place, but with us and we with him. That is The Lamb slain and now through us, as we, “for your sake..face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered”“ (Romans 8:36 NIV).
John pictures The Lion of Judah as The Lamb (Revelation 5) slain and who conquers with The Sword of his mouth (Revelation 19: 13, 15); the unique ever costly power of love responding to hate.
It is possible, being free, that humanity (including me) cannot look past Hamas's brutality and hold out for the power of restorations promise. But just as my and your Savior is a Jew, so shall he ever look for a people who will walk the length and breadth of Canaan for the day when ”‘he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”“ (Revelation 21:4 NIV) and when
"at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11 NIV).
Such an outcome envisioned by John and Paul cannot be coerced as it defies the whole purpose of God, which is love freely given, freely received.
My Prayer
Jesus, please come and heal me of whatever intrigues that cast a shadow of doubt as I look to outcomes instead of You. I surrender my own expectations of even You. I do so, not as a deflated release of the Sword to One admittedly more powerful than I. For then I would be following a god only, willing to live even in darkness to be at peace with Sovereign will. That would be to turn Philippians and the Revelation on its head. For then it would truly be by Power and Might, instead of by Your Soirit alone (Zechariah 4:6). The surrender I ask You to help me come to is the need to control, even You by my expectations.
Mary, mother of my Saviour, please continue to pray for me. Jesus forgive me for when by look and behavior I have failed to see every woman as Your beloved, failed to see Joetta as especially beloved and given to me, if ever trust can be earned once again.
Father I let go of my complete failure in living near Jesus heart and my expectation that others should do what I cannot.
Even so, please know this. If Jesus is not Your Son and You are actually more like Mohammed's god than Jesus, then Father, I do not wish to follow You. It is not right that a world continue imprisoned without redemption as Your ever loving choice.
What I know, is that You cannot be other than Jesus, whom I will still choose to follow even if I am deeply disappointed in outcomes. I still choose The Trinity of God, so Perfect in mutual love as to be One in essential Nature.
Amen. Terry
04/10/23
6:27 PM .. here I stand. I can do no other.
1 From "Who Am I? …From Galilee to Jerusalem," Week 6. "A Pause, before the Storm," Story # 25 "New Life", Kendle Edition, Terry Mattson
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