URC Daily Devotion Saturday 21 June 2025

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.  Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’  Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’  Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’  So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’  When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’
 
Reflection

“He stinketh” are the words that the King James Version uses in this passage, somehow more poetic and more evocative too. It conjures up a vivid image – which is what the writer was intending, of course. John is not only the most overtly theological of the evangelists, he’s also the funniest. He uses wordplay and irony in various of his stories, including this one I think.
Parables weren’t just told by Jesus, they were told about him too. That’s helpful to bear in mind, I think, when reading a story like this one. A plain reading puts Jesus in the position of miracle healer par excellence, but leaves us with a host of challenging theological, and practical, questions. Knowing John’s fondness for parables, though, and his sometimes playful approach, we might prefer to ask questions like ‘who, or what, might the name Lazarus signify?’ 

A Greek version of the version of Lazarus’ name is “Eleazar” which points us, immediately, to the most famous Eleazar, son of Aaron, High Priest of the Israelites. Might Lazarus, then, signify something to do with the Israelite priesthood?

At the time of Jesus the priesthood was not in a good place. The powerful Annas family were Roman collaborators, Annas himself was eventually assassinated for trying to do a peace deal with the Romans, his son in law Caiaphas, a Sadducee (legalists who didn’t believe in resurrection…), was so well in with the occupying power that he stayed in the job for 18-years. The corruption of these zombie priests was evident to all. “They stinketh.”
Jesus, a devout Jew, is ‘greatly disturbed’ as he looks on at this dead, corrupted corpse. But instead of turning his back on it, he calls it forth into a new life. ‘Unbound,’ the institution can leave its corrupt ways and serve its true purpose.

Prayer

God of justice and peace,
at times it feels like everything is beyond repair,
dead, rotten, and stinking to high heaven.
Call us back, God,
to a way of seeing
that looks beyond the corruption of the present to the hope of the new.
Help us to change our perspective.
Lead us to envision a better tomorrow,
so that we would have the strength to join in the fight to make it a reality. Amen