John 12

Sunday, February 24, 2013

John 12

It seems amazing to me that we're already on Jesus's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem.  But then, so much of John is devoted to the Last Supper teaching.

A little detail was dropped in this chapter.  The Chief Priests plotted to kill Lazarus as well, the living proof of Jesus's status with God.  No doubt this is why Jesus warned the parents of the girl He brought back to life to keep things quiet.  But what ever happened to Lazarus?  Did he, like Jesus, fall victim to the plotting of the Chief Priests?  Did he live to be a witness to Jesus?

Something makes me think Lazarus was a victim of the Chief Priests.  Perhaps just that he did not become the most successful converter of the people of Judea and Galilee, having - after all - been personally brought back from the dead by Jesus.  Being Jesus's close friend.  The apostles were special, but really, how can you compete with that?

Or perhaps it's just that no one ever wrote that story.

I think the Chief Priests genuinely thought that their dilemma was complex and thorny.  I'm sure there were many good men who were convinced they were saving the Jewish nation among them.  I can imagine the terror of seeing "all the world" flocking to a radical preacher intent on completely upending the basic moral foundation of the world, making war on their way of life, and destroying the current power structure of the church.  I can imagine think that Jesus's teachings are radical and dangerous.  I can imagine thinking that everything would be better if He would just shut up.

I can even imagine convincing yourself that it would do everyone a favor to shut Him up.

But when you find yourself in a thorny moral web, I think we can learn from this story an excellent way to double check your positions and decisions.  Hollywood often provides us with this tactic as well, although all too often as a comedic moment before the original decision is reinforced.  Have someone say your position back to you in objective terms, with none of the excuses and justifications or even surrounding circumstances.

You want to kill a man because he brought another man back to life.  You also want to kill the man he brought back to life.

Who is more likely to be on the right side here - the man who brought someone back to life or you, who want to kill that same man?

It's an easy target, of course, but I feel like the story we get so often these days is that things are complicated.  Moral universes are complex and full of gray areas.  We can live our whole lives thinking drone strikes are necessary and even the relative good.  We can spend our whole lives convinced we are the good guys in the story as we wreak havoc on other people's lives and - worse - do absolutely nothing as people suffer.

Worse, we've trained ourselves to laugh when people point out the blunt truths to us.  We should listen, and think, and cut through the web we have woven around right and wrong.  The court jester became the fool, the one who can tell the king the simple truths of his seemingly complicated world.  Everybody laughs, and we forget to think.

Am I the bad guy here?

[Also, as a bonus for Sunday, here is the comedy version of this point: here]