Thursday 25th July
Read John 11:45-46
“Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.” (NIVUK)
Stunning is the complete lack of interest by John in the responses of those involved in the revivification of Lazarus! We hear nothing about how they felt, when Lazarus died once more, how the disciples responded (other than the strengthening of the belief of some). Our piqued and understandable human interest in finishing the story is unrequited. Our curiosity denied.
It was a point noted by Tennyson in his poem ‘In Memoriam’, a semi-Christian reflection on death and grief.
“When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
And home to Mary’s house return’d,
Was this demanded-if he yearn’d
To hear her weeping by his grave?
‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days?’
There lives no record of reply,
Which telling what it is to die
Had surely added praise to praise.
From every house the neighbours met,
The streets were fill’d with joyful sound,
A solemn gladness even crown’d
The purple brows of Olivet.
Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal’d;
He told it not; or something seal’d
The lips of that Evangelist.”
(Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, Canto XXXI)
Why it remained ‘unreveal’d’, despite the intense interest of the world today in what happens after death, will always be a mystery it seems – frustrating as it is to us, and was to Tennyson.
It has the effect of pointing us back to Jesus even more strongly – He is at the centre of the story – the focus rightly remains on Him.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX9q2vmwNZU
