Spirituality Column #749

March 23, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Light Beyond

By Bob Walters

“So from that day on they planned together to kill him.” John 11:53

It didn’t take long for the Jewish leaders to get their wish.

As the Jerusalem Passover celebration loomed a couple of weeks ahead and as Mary, Martha, and other mourners looked on in nearby Bethany, Jesus summoned four-day-dead Lazarus out of his grave. Word of the miraculous reversal of death spread quickly throughout Jerusalem and the inner chambers of the cursing Jewish leaders.

It was in this miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus that the die was cast, the Rubicon was crossed, and the concluding events of the Messiah’s mission to save the world by revealing the true light of God’s love, compassion, and righteousness were put into motion.  The furious and threatened Pharisees, Sadducees, and all the Sanhedrin – the entirety of the Jewish ruling council – cemented its intention to have Jesus killed.

Ironically, the high priest Caiaphas sealed the decision by stating a prophetic truth even he did not understand at the time (John 11:50), “…it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”  He knew not what he said.

The Jewish leaders had two problems (John 11:48): Jesus overshadowing their religious authority with the Jews, and Jesus eclipsing their civic position with the Romans.  If Jesus was this supposed “new king,” their leadership and status would end.

In the big picture, they had no idea how absolutely correct, but wrong, they were.

Their opportunity to kill Jesus materialized when He came near: His “Palm Sunday” entrance into Jerusalem for the Passover and Festival beginning later that week.  The scheme they hatched was to arrest Jesus for the Jewish heresy of claiming to be God and have the Romans execute him for claiming to be a king. 

Even at the Cross, it was still “so far, so good.”  Then Easter happened.

Caiaphas thought having this one man die would save the Jewish nation.  Wrong; having “this one man” die, God’s plan all along, would save all nations.  It was they, because of their unbelief in the Messiah who lived, who would be condemned.

That was what God had promised all along: Israel was God’s chosen nation through which He would deliver a savior Messiah for the rest of the world.  The point was neither to save nor abolish Israel or the Law, but to complete (“fulfill” in Matthew 5:17) them both in the establishment of God’s kingdom over all the earth.

The Old Covenant of the Law would be fulfilled with the New Covenant of faith in Christ, where it matters less who you are than whose you are: less about behavior and bloodlines and all about love and belief that Jesus is the Lord and Saving Son of God.

When Jesus famously told Martha outside Lazarus’ grave, “I am the resurrection and life” (John 11:25) before Mary and the mourning witnesses arrived (John 11:33), Jesus wasn’t just comforting her about Lazarus not being dead.  Jesus was declaring true the widely held Jewish belief of an unknown light beyond this world.

And that true, eternal light for all humanity was, is, and always will be, Jesus.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks Lazarus should have “his own Sunday” before Easter.  The miracle’s exact timing isn’t recorded in scripture but it appears to have been about a week before Palm Sunday.  It’s most definitely the trip-wire event that shattered the patience, nerve, and little remaining courage of the Pharisees.