12 April 2014 - miracle worker

12 April 2014 - miracle worker


But some of them went to the Pharisees
and told them what Jesus had done. 

Do they mean well?  They are among those who witness what happened to Lazarus.  Many of them believe in Jesus.  But this implies that some do not even after seeing someone raised from the dead.  Interestingly, everyone knows what happened.  They know Lazarus lives.  It is, in fact, hard to dispute.  But people still respond to it in very different ways.

It is unclear into which group these people who talk to the Pharisees fall.  Regardless, the Pharisees are so overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of testimony that they concede that Jesus "is performng many signs."  Jesus does these signs to reveal that he is in the Father and the Father is in him.  But all the Pharisees ignore the deeper significance that signs must have, choosing to focus instead on their temporal concerns. 

If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.”

This does sound significant.  But why do they miss the significance of this unity of Jesus with the Father?  If the Father is so present with them, surely they can trust him with the rest.

How then do the Pharisees miss this? Well, the Jews only tell them "what Jesus had done" without explaining what that necessarily means about who he must be.  If it is all about things that are done, things about which the Pharisees mostly hear rather than see or experience, they may feel like outsiders.  They may have a hard time rejoicing in these signs and wonders when they don't know what they signify.  They themselves walk a very delicate balance between Jewish observance and Roman law to keep their circumstances in check.  They feel that the slightest derivation from this path may be disaster.  Signs, even great signs, simply threaten this control which they so value.  It isn't enough to talk of miracles.  Our testimony must be to the miracle worker to be profitable.  Then, the threat to our control is coupled with an invitation to give that control to the one who is with the Father, the one in whom the Father dwells.

Isolated miracles will never be enough for us to let go of rigid control over our lives.  We are perfectly capable of seeing Lazarus rise and then plot to kill him too, because he is a threat to our control (cf. Joh. 12:10). 

This is why the content of our message must always be Jesus himself.  Jesus is the one who heals.  He is the shepherd into whose care we should entrust our souls.  We are worried about our land and our nation.  We are worried about the oppression of the Romans, the circumstances of our lives.  But now we know that if we are worried about these things the LORD is still more concerned.

Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
proclaim it on distant isles, and say:
He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together,
he guards them as a shepherd his flock.

The land on which he desires us to live is something more permanent, something better, than the land and the nation about which we are concerned.  Yet we can only truly realize this when we give ourselves over to the care of the Good Shepherd, the shepherd who will even lay down his life for his sheep.

and there shall be one shepherd for them all;
they shall live by my statutes and carefully observe my decrees.
They shall live on the land that I gave to my servant Jacob,
the land where their fathers lived;
they shall live on it forever,

This is, after all, why Jesus wants us to know about his relationship to the Father, his closeness to him, and the unity they share.  This is the purpose of the signs. He wants us to trust him.  What he wants for us, ultimately, is joy with him forever.

Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,
and young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.