The strangest Gospel
by Greg Krehbiel on 18 March 2013
At mass yesterday they read parts of John 11, which is the story of the raising of Lazarus. (We weren’t on the typical reading cycle, BTW.)
I have often heard evangelists recommend the Gospel of John as a good place for people who are new to the Bible. I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. I find the Gospel of John to be incredibly odd, and yesterday’s reading highlights some of the reasons.
Lazarus gets sick and the sisters send word to Jesus, who says, “This sickness is not to end in death.” The reader probably knows the story and knows that Jesus didn’t mean “he won’t die from this sickness” but that “this sickness isn’t the end of the Lazarus story.” The disciples don’t know that.
Two days later Jesus says, “Let’s go to Judea,” and the disciples feel they have to remind Jesus of something you’d think he knew quite well, i.e., that “they were just trying to stone you there.”
You get the impression of the well-meaning secretary trying to steer the brilliant but goofy professor away from walking into the closet.
Then Jesus says, “Lazarus has fallen asleep,” by which he means that he has died. We know that, but the disciples think he means regular sleep. “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”
Do they think Jesus didn’t know that?
Try to think of this from the disciples’ point of view. Jesus says “Lazarus is asleep.” They had to figure Jesus might have been speaking figuratively, but just two days before he said the sickness wasn’t going to end in death. They’re very confused. If “sleep” doesn’t mean “death,” then … what’s the problem? He’ll wake up, won’t he?
From the disciples’ perspective, it’s as if Jesus says, “We all need to go for a long walk so we can wake up Lazarus.” The reader knows what’s going on, but the impression you get of the disciples is that they thought Jesus was the mad scientist who needed practical people to remind him of normal stuff like waking and sleeping.
Then Jesus says Lazarus is dead, which he said — or at least seemed to say — wasn’t going to happen.
The point here is clearly not that Jesus is lying, or that he doesn’t know what’s going on. Rather, the point is that it must have been very hard to know what he meant by what he was saying.
The impression I get from these interactions is that the disciples reacted to Jesus the way you might react to a mad man — either to someone who is always speaking in riddles, or to someone who is saying strange, unhinged stuff — like the crazy aunt in the attic, who also happens to be a genius and a magician.
I’m not being disrespectful to Jesus or implying that he was crazy. That’s completely not the point of the Gospel, which shows him as knowing exactly what’s going on. But it seems that the Gospel of John portrays a Jesus that his friends just couldn’t understand — one who says strange things, and whose words always seem to have some mysterious, hidden meaning to them.
I find that to be very strange.
-- 2013-03-18 » Greg Krehbiel
18 March 2013 @ 10:02 am
The other possibility is that they were just verbally sighing with relief, “Oh, Jesus says he’s just fallen asleep, so he’ll wake up. That’s a relief.” And that’s something you’d expect from the Twelve — their literalism in the face of Jesus getting at something a little more subtle is another recurring theme.
I was briefly gleeful at reading your first sentence, then mildly disappointed at your parenthetical. Our pastor preached on John 11 also yesterday and I was prepared to be amused that he unknowingly was in line with the RC lectionary. Alas, no such small amusement for a Monday morning.
18 March 2013 @ 10:07 am
Yes, it seems strange, but at least it is consistent with a great number of Scriptures.
By analogy, suppose you have a computer running an old CPM operating system. Suppose you try to load a Windows program on that computer. The computer will be unable to understand the program.
In the exact same way, a natural mind is unable to understand spiritual things. They are foolishness to the natural mind.
The Bible teaches that spiritual things can only be understood from those who have received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Some will say that they cannot understand the Bible, therefore it is false. But if the natural mind could understand spiritual things, then the Bible would be false, or at least inconsistent.
18 March 2013 @ 11:13 am
@Pentamom, we were on a reading cycle, just not the one for this year. So I suppose it’s possible your pastor was following a different version of the same lectionary.
18 March 2013 @ 12:36 pm
LOL, no, that’s the point. He would never do such a thing, knowingly. He’s not a hardcore lectio continua type (he sometimes breaks from a book-based series for a season such as Advent or a topical concern), but he’s in the Gospel of John right now because months and months ago he decided to preach through the Gospel of John. It would be humorously ironic if his preaching coincided with any Catholic lectionary.
18 March 2013 @ 12:45 pm
Well, you could tell him he was accidentally following cycle A — on the wrong year.
On the general topic of lectionaries — I think there are certain things it would be to all churches’ benefit to agree on so they would maximize their collective impact on the culture. A common translation and a common lectionary, for example — even if the preacher doesn’t feel obligated to preach from that reading.
18 March 2013 @ 8:45 pm
Well, I agree, and my pastor’s a reasonable guy, but deep-seated Reformed prejudices die hard. There will always be some reason, some hill to die on, why agreements between churches about such things are worse than whatever benefit could be gained.