John 11: 1-44

In this week of our Shift series, we get to plunge into a deep and rich passage in John’s Gospel (11:1-44).  It’s a deeply personal and intimate story, as well as a surprising and dramatic one. 

John organizes his Gospel around seven “signs” given by Jesus.  The sign of the raising of Lazarus is the sixth in the series, and points to the final one: Jesus’s crucifixion will be the seventh sign. In this week’s passage we witness a significant shift in Jesus’s ministry as he aims himself deliberately and directly towards Jerusalem and Golgotha.  An extraordinary miracle sharpens the hostility of Jesus’s opponents.  A storm gathers strength.

The word for this morning’s Connect Devotional is notice.  We hope you will downshift a bit, and take some time to notice how John tells the story, to notice the details he includes, and to think about why John included those details.

For example, notice how often John stresses “love”,” particularly Jesus’s love for Lazarus, Mary and Martha.  Most all of Jesus’s healings involved strangers, people he didn’t know; here, it is beloved friends.  

Notice the “death notes” that sound ominously throughout the chapter: “Let us also go,” Thomas says, “that we may die with him”; Lazarus has been dead, in the grave, for four days; “If you had been here, my brother would not have died”: “Could not this man who opened the eyes of a blind man have kept this man from dying”? And if you read just a bit further in this chapter, notice these words of Caiaphas the high priest, “It is better for one man to die than the whole nation perish.”

And, downshifting again, into your “low” gear, notice Jesus.  Notice him deliberately waiting before going, and how he explains this to the disciples (verses 4-15).  How he responds to Martha and Mary’s reproaches, “If you had been here…”  How he weeps.  What he commands, “Take away the stone … Lazarus, come forth! … Take off the grave clothes and let him go!”  Notice his prayer (verses 41-42).

“Take off the grave clothes and let him go!” Could this be Jesus’s “mission statement” for his church?  If so, how do we shift into doing that?

Imagine that you could interview some of the people in this story following the event John has reported n chapter 11.  What “shifts” might they have made?  What “shifts” is Jesus setting before you, and us – and into what “storms” might we need to face?