Our Gospel on this 5th Sunday of Lent, turns to the 11th chapter of John. For John, this is the moment, the miracle, the final sign that Jesus would work— because those whose very existence he threatened would be tolerant no more.
The cross will no longer simply be a shadow lurking in the background. The planks are now being cut, the nails sharpened, and the hill made clear.
The Pharisees, scribes, and all the others— oh they may have been able to endure Jesus' message of Good News that preached forgiveness, love, and mercy.
They could tolerate the cleansing of the Temple, feeding the hungry, and curing the blind. They could accept listening to Jesus compare himself with living water, as the Good Shepherd, and the Bread of Life. They could even bear his declaration to be God's equal!
But what they would not stand for, what they could not even begin to comprehend was this Jesus raising a man named Lazarus from the dead—
a man who had been dead and buried in a tomb for four days!
This truly was a sign that could not be covered over. Surely, now, the people would believe in him, and life as they knew and loved would be no more.
For here in their very midst was a man who held in his hand the power of life and death.
For some, this act of divine power proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that truly Jesus was the Messiah. And yet for others, this greatest and most stupendous act of glory, made even more rigid and firm, the hardened hearts of his enemies.
Jesus in this majestic act of love, now secured for himself the ghastly instrument of death.
And so, the raising of Lazarus, became for Jesus the "resurrection that prepared his death."
The empty tomb of Lazarus provoked the enemies of Jesus to give him in return— for this most extraordinary of acts— a cross. But little did they know that Jesus would give up the cross for another empty tomb.
Although he had clearly demonstrated by his power over life and death that he was indeed the Christ, the one sent by the Father as Savior of the Word, sin and darkness, and even death, would have one more shadowy moment of power.
Evil truly was near its most desperate hour, and the only way it could ever hope to triumph— was echoed in the words of Caiaphas, the High Priest, who said:
“It is better that one man should die for the people, than to have the entire nation destroyed.”
How truly filled with irony were these words of Caiaphas, as John wrote elsewhere in his Gospel:
“
Jesus was to die to gather God's scattered children into one fold.”
And so just as a resurrection sealed the Lord's death, because a stone had been rolled away and a dead man called back to life, so now, did the Jewish authorities decree that a stone should be rolled in front of Jesus' grave.