Lazarus is Dead - oops

In which we see that Jesus acts like a jerk so later he can show off his awesomeness

Today we examine the story of Lazarus as told in John 11. Now this has nothing to do with the sixth episode in season 3 of the Dr. Who reboot (first aired 5 May 2007), titled “The Lazarus Experiment.” That Lazarus was a professor of human genetics and when he built a machine to cheat death it turned him into a shape changing monster that sucked the life force out of people to extend its own life. This story is totally not about THAT Lazarus.

This story is about the Lazarus who lived in Bethany in the early first century. Lucky for him, he was related to Mary and Martha. Because Jesus was hot for both Mary and her sister Martha he was always especially nice to their brother Lazarus. Things were going really well until Lazarus got crazy sick while Jesus was away on vacation (i.e. hiding from the law) with his “gentlemen friends” (apostles).

Of course Mary and Martha knew where their boyfriend was hiding out and once they figured out Lazarus was going to die they sent Jesus an urgent message, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” After Jesus and his apostles heard the message Jesus saw an opportunity to show off and said, “This sickness is not unto death. Lazarus is sick for the glory of God and so I can be glorified too.”

Then, just to be sure everyone reading the bible understood the situation, the author of “The Gospel According to St. John” said, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” (KJV). I hope this means they were just friend and that they weren’t into four-ways. That would be pretty twisted since three of the parties involved were siblings. Of course I’m not an expert on first century sexuality. For all I know, that sort of thing could have been perfectly normal back then. I do know that people used to sex up their cousins and siblings all the time in the Old Testament. Look, I’m just saying it’s something we should consider.

So after Jesus hatched his little plan to give himself glory from Lazarus’ sickness he stayed “on vacation” for two more days and then said to his apostles, “Ok, it’s time for us to head back to Judea.” Of course his apostle said, “Um, have you forgotten why we’re hiding out here? You’ve been sentenced to death back in Judea for your anti-government, anti-religion, and pro-wine stances: oh, and let’s not forget blasphemy. The Jews have already sentenced you to stoning and they’re certain to carry it out if we run into any law enforcement types or angry mobs.”

This next part really confuses me. To reassure the apostles, Jesus said something like, “Aren’t there 12 hours of light every day? If a man walks in the light he doesn’t stumble. If he walks in the dark, he will trip and fall.” I think Jesus was trying to say if someone is righteous nothing bad will happen to him/her, but that seems like a bit of a stretch (and a bald-faced lie). Then Jesus said, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep. I will now go and wake him.” The apostles were happy to hear Lazarus was just sleeping, so Jesus had to clarify his statement and said, “Look, I’m sorry you don’t understand my odd way of saying things. I meant to say that Lazarus is dead. Seriously, try to keep up.”

Understandably, the apostles were still convinced Judean law enforcement would do its job and take out Jesus. However, because they loved Jesus so much they decided to go with him so they could be stoned and die too.

Ref: John 11:1-16