On John 11:45-50

            Last evening, I was reading in the Bible, the Gospel of John, chapter 11, verses 45 through 50.  This tells us important things about how God works.  Immediately previous to this passage, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.  Verse 24 shows that Martha had sat under the teaching of Jesus, in that she indicates that she believed in the resurrection of the dead, but the rabbis of that day would not have allowed a woman to hear teaching of the Law from them directly.  Verse 37 indicates that some who were there did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah and were skeptical, saying that he could have showed up before Lazarus died.  Verse 39 makes it clear that Lazarus’ body would be deteriorating.  After four days in a hot climate, an unburied cadaver (yes, it was in a cave, but that’s not the same as being buried, albeit necessary for what is to follow) would be moving close to its maximum amount of stench.  In verse 44, Lazarus emerges alive.  There is no naturalistic explanation for such a thing, except miraculously.  I point this out in that some miracles have a possible, albeit extremely unlikely to the degree of being miraculous of itself, naturalistic explanation.

            Now, to what I wish to get to.  Verses 45 to 48 tell of two reactions.  Verse 45 indicates that some people saw the miracle and believed that Jesus was who he indicated he was from it.  I am as much a person as any who likes the precision of how what God presents in the Bible has a miraculous degree of theological order, but I know that sound theology doesn’t touch many persons’ hearts to lead them to faith in Jesus (me included).  Conversely, Jesus doing the naturally inexplicable, both then and now, does bring people to faith in him.

            Verses 46 to 48 tell of another reaction.  Some people went and told the status quo religious leaders who, more the most part, had already rejected him in their hearts. What conclusions did they make?  First, they said, if left alone, “everyone will believe in Him.”  While I, as a person who has come to follow Jesus, feel this is quite logical, it isn’t true, and they were their own examples of its falsity.  They didn’t believe in Jesus, and “just” because he could raise a man to life who had been dead four days didn’t change their minds, or, more relevantly, their spirits.  Second, they say why they rejected Jesus—the Romans would take away their position of influence (as it turned out, they would lose that position of influence a few decades later, anyway) and the nation (they already were unpopular among the commonplace Jews), which would be scattered after populist Jews organized a military force against the Romans (twice) and lost (twice).  The allure of fame, money, and power always overrules logic among some.

            In verses 49 and 50, Caiaphas, the high priest, by accident, prophesies of the importance of Jesus’ death while urging His being put to death.  God’s penchant for the contrary and paradox should be sufficient to keep those who believe humble.

on Matthew 1 and 2

Last Sunday, at church, our participatory discussion (which is in lieu of a sermon, and we would defend is closer to the original way the early believers worshipped) was on Matthew 1.  This chapter deals with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus’ birth, and a rash of miraculous incidents—an angel coming to Mary,  Mary becoming supernaturally pregnant with the Messiah, who we would come to know as Jesus, God in human form, the angel coming to Joseph, the birth of Jesus in the manger—animal stall.  In the course of this discussion, the person leading the discussion, in mentioning a fact from the next chapter, noted that the Magi showed up possibly as much as two years later.  As much as I have read the Bible, I never noticed that.  If one grows up going to church, and one sees and participates in those Christmas programs the Sunday evening before Christmas, the norm is that they do the manger scene, the shepherds come in, and then the wise men come in.  The large gap in time never clicked in my head before.  The irony that God allowed to happen never struck me until studying Matthew 2 this week.  God forbade b’nai yesrael to participate in astrology in Deuteronomy 18:11, Is. 2:6, and Is. 47:11-15, and they were to instead seek true prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15.  Among Roman pagans, Magi were respected, and were particularly adept at dream interpretation.  Therefore, when they arrived in Jerusalem, it was a big deal.  Since they were told that a “king was born,” they figured to go to the king.  This was news, and not good news, to Herod.  They said that they followed a star.  A falling star was considered a sign of a king being deposed. 

            Now, as much as they could have followed a star from wherever east of Israel they came, something totally miraculous had to happen to be able to follow it to Joseph and Mary’s home in a village—stars are normally way too high in the sky to point out a specific house.  The scribes (Sadducees) could tell them that the prophecy of Micah 5:2, but they weren’t sufficiently interested to go follow the Magi.  Ironically, these scribes’ next generation would be the religious leaders so interested in Jesus as to push for his crucifixion.

            In the last verse of Matthew 2, Matthew writes something that twists at our western sensibilities.  He says that Jesus’ parents settling in Nazareth fulfills a prophecy, but that prophecy cannot be found in the Old Testament.  Confoundingly, Nazareth is spelled similarly for the Hebrew word for branch, and that word is used as a prophetic name for the Messiah in Jeremiah 23:5, Zechariah 3:8, 6:12, and Isaiah 11:1.

            What I would note is how easily we who were sent to Sunday School were young, and were taught the various Bible stories in a manner that was simple for small children to understand, in a form sanitized from some of the sex and violence, which is age appropriate, can have distorted ideas of these teachings as adults.