Week 40 John
It’s hard to say whether the resuscitation of Lazarus was the Lord’s most spectacular miracle. You’d think that if you had incontestable and stupendous power to act into the material world then any one normally impossible action wouldn’t really be superior to any other normally impossible action. But Lazarus’ return from the grave was pretty spectacular.
Which makes it easy to glide over the conversation the Lord had with Martha.
Martha told him she hoped to see her brother again, as she put it: in the resurrection on the last day. The kind of formal thing you might say at a funeral.
The Lord then said: I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die…will live again.
Then he put her on the spot by asking: do you believe this, Martha?
Do you believe this about me?
What do you believe about me?
Turns out Martha knew exactly what she believed:
yes Lord…I have always believed you are the Messiah,
the Son of God,
the one who has come into the world from God.
I’ve noticed that John is preoccupied with what looks like a kind of belief-spectrum. I’ve been tracking it – there’s examples of it in every chapter so far. He keeps coming back to people meeting the Lord and then moving up the scale or down. Moving toward belief or moving away from belief.
Note: quotes from John 11:24-27 (NLT). Toward in 10:45; away from in 10:53.