The Miracle

Wrought in

taking of his life again, the uprise from this earthly stage of being to a higher, that made its motive and purpose clear. For such a masterful departure from earth, with its avails for humanity, it is natural to suppose such planning and preparation would be made as would preserve Planned and and perpetuate its meaning for all time and for all planes of spiritual insight. If resurrection is Bethany an available fact, it is of supreme importance that men should know its source, its power, its conditions. Such seems to have been the purpose that Jesus had in mind in his miracle of the raising of Lazarus, as narrated in John xi; which event we anticipate a little in time in order to note its relation to Jesus' reckoning on departure.

He had made one of the occasional visits to Jerusalem which the fourth gospel reports (John x, 22-24), and while there had spoken so plainly in divine character1 that the Jews were on the point of stoning him for blasphemy (John x, 31). He escaped their hands, however, and withdrew to Bethany across the Jordan (John x, 40; cf. i, 28), where for some time he taught and won believers. While there word was sent him from Bethany near Jerusalem that his friend Lazarus of that village was sick. The household to which Lazarus belonged consisted of three, himself and his two sisters Martha and Mary; and Jesus was intimate there, it being probably his home in his visits to Judea (see Luke x, 38–42). All were sincere believers of his teaching, and he loved them (John xi, 5). It was the sisters, Martha and Mary, who sent him word of their brother's illness.

On receiving the word, however, instead of going at once to his friend's bedside, he remained two whole days where he was, making in the meantime such explanations as indicate that he was planning not a cure of illness but a restoration from the grave. The sickness, he said, was not unto death but for the glory of God and the glorification of the 1 See above, pp. 561 f.

Son of God (John xi, 4). Then, telling his disciples plainly that Lazarus was dead, he started for Judea, and on arriving in Bethany found that Lazarus had been four days buried. A large company of friends of the family (for they were connected with leading families in Jerusalem) followed him as he went to the tomb; and before calling Lazarus forth to life he uttered a public thanksgiving that he had already been heard by the Father (John xi, 41-42). He had already assured Martha too of the power of risen life that resided inherently in him: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die" (John xi, 25; cf. viii, 51). The tremendous miracle that he now wrought was just the proof, or, as the gospel of John would say, the sign, of this truth. It was one of the greatest of those acts in divine character "1 which told truths of supreme importance to men and yet not expressible otherwise; truths which, left untold, would leave the race of men infinitely poorer.

the Plan

The immediate effect of this notable miracle was to precipitate the action of the leaders and chief priests, who held a council and, on the advice of Caiaphas the High Sequel of the Act and Priest, decreed Jesus' death (John xi, 47-53). Until the final passover season, therefore, when his time was come to lay down his life, he tarried with the disciples in a place near the wilderness called Ephraim (John xi, 54). To the power of the life that was in him, therefore (cf. John i, 4), he had by this miracle borne witness, not before a few intimate disciples merely but before the leading classes and in a public way. As a consequence the common people were ready to acknowledge his Messiahship by popular acclaim (John xii, 12-15); but the leaders, counseled by the High Priest, fearing for the political security of their nation, decided that he must die (John xi, 47-52). 1 See above, pp. 562 f.

In reckoning on departure, however, Jesus, as we have seen, had in mind not only death but resurrection; and this miracle at Bethany seems to have been planned in order to make resurrection a fact intelligible and available. His own uprise from death would show, indeed, the personal victory of his life over the bondage of death; but it was not for himself that he lived his life; it was to be a light and power for men. By calling Lazarus back from the grave, to live henceforth in the memory and influence of that experience, he furnished a concrete object lesson of renewed life which should remain when he himself had gone to the Father (cf. John xiv, 7). A man between whom and him was the tie of a reciprocal love would thus be a living witness to the power of life and the abolition of death (cf. 2 Tim. i, 10) inherent in such relation. It was in this way, as he said, that the Son of God and the Father himself would be glorified (John xi, 4, 40).

NOTE. On a careful study of data one is inclined to attribute a still broader plan in this miracle - a plan not only that he as Son of God should be glorified but that an adequate record of his divine claim should be made. This plan is concerned with the identification of the author of the fourth gospel, which we know is anonymous except as ascribed to "the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John xxi, 24).

If Lazarus, whom Jesus is repeatedly said to have loved, was the same as the disciple whom Jesus loved, we cannot well miss the suggestion that comes to light in this deliberately planned miracle: a suggestion of Jesus' far-seeing purpose similar to that in pursuance of which he trained the twelve to become apostles or representatives (cf. Luke vi, 13), and came later from his risen realm to make Saul of Tarsus a chosen vessel" bearing the Christ-values to the Gentile world (Acts ix, 15). In other words, though he himself wrote nothing, yet this event seems to show that he planned to have the deepest and highest truths of his ministry adequately written. To present these truths in their inwardness a specially susceptible mind was necessary; and the disciple whom Jesus loved evinces throughout the gospel the possession of such a mind.1

1 See below, pp. 641–644.

III

Rounding Off the Earthly Ministry. From the account of the miracle at Bethany, considered here as part of his preparation for departure, we return now to a somewhat earlier period of Jesus' career, the period beginning after the Transfiguration.

St. Luke's words, "And it came to pass, when the days were well-nigh come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem " (Luke ix, 51), give a just indication of the solemn and deliberate spirit in which Jesus ordered the last few months of his earthly ministry. By his frequent mention of the fact that Jesus was approaching the city of his martyrdom (Luke xvii, 11; xviii, 31; xix, 11, 28), Luke shows his sense of the momentousness of the journey, which he narrates much more fully than do the other evangelists. It was a kind of farewell tour, beginning near Mount Hermon in the extreme north and pursued in a leisurely but wisely planned progress through the numerous districts of Galilee, Samaria, Perea, and Judea, where his earlier ministry had been or where he desired to effect lodgment of his truth before he was taken away. By this time he had the apostles quite well in training. to assist him in his. work of preaching and healing (Luke ix, 1, 2); and an additional seventy were appointed to go forward and prepare for his entrance into the various cities and places. (Luke x, 1). This work of his was done in the feeling that time was short and that every word and deed must count for the most possible. "I have a baptism to be baptized with," he said, "and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!" (Luke xii, 50). This remark expresses his conviction that even his beneficent work of help and healing, to which he was ordained and anointed,1 must needs represent his mission in a cramped and limited way, until the 1 See above, p. 540.

supreme meaning is put to his life and his ministry reaches its sacrificial stage.

His later teaching, accordingly, whether addressed to the disciples, to the multitudes, or to the upper classes, has a kind of definitive note, as if it were the message His Later Teaching that he would leave with them as most significant and final. To the disciples, who, quite ignoring his predictions of suffering and death, clung to the notion of a worldly kingdom, he taught lessons of humility and mutual service (for example, Matt. xviii) and of that readiness for the kingdom of heaven which consists in the wise employment of talents (Matt. xxv, 14–30), faithful and merciful stewardship (Matt. xxiv, 45-51), and the keeping of lamps filled and burning (Matt. xxv, 1-13). To the general hearers he gave some of his tenderest and most searching parables, as if he would use every means to enlighten them. Such were the parables of the Lost Son (Luke xv, 11–32); of the Good Samaritan (Luke x, 29-37); of Dives and Lazarus (Luke xvi, 19–31); and of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke xviii, 9–13). Some of his later parables, like the story of the Unjust Judge (Luke xviii, 1-8), of the Unfaithful Steward (Luke xvi, 1–8), and of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matt. xx, 1-16), are paradoxical in the audacity of their implications, yet all in the interest of a more robust faith. It is in these later utterances, too, that he denounces the besetting falseness and hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees; 1 and to these leaders of the nation he gives the parable of the Rejection of the King's Son (Luke xx, 9–18). All this is like setting his messages, as it were, in final order, as that on which believers and unbelievers alike could permanently depend. The crown and culmination of these utterances, perhaps, is the tremendous picture he draws of the judgment that the Son of Man will pronounce at the end on all nations (Matt. xxv, 31-46). It portrays in simple terms the reversal 1 See above, pp. 554 f.