Issue 408
Have you noticed how sports coaches are always striving for higher standards, better results or more records and trophies? Artists will tell you their best painting is the next one. Teachers will want to move their students to deeper understanding and higher levels of knowledge. Any business owner will tell you how standing still is going backwards and resting on laurels is a recipe for failure.
There is something hard-wired into us humans which wants to go faster, further, deeper, higher or for longer than before. Our history is one of expansion and inquisitiveness and a thirst for the new.
We are back in the fourth gospel. We are on our 11th look at the ‘what do you want?’ question which contains the first words Jesus speaks in this gospel. We are looking at the ‘what do you want’ aspect of Jesus’ question to Mary ‘Do you believe this?’
Mary, Martha and Lazarus were siblings in a family that Jesus counted amongst his close friends. He stayed in their house, he visited them, and they knew him – to a point. They knew Jesus could heal and cure so when the brother of the family is ill, they told their friend Jesus. They also knew not to tell him what to do – that generally didn’t go very far. So they just told him the problem.
Everyone in the surrounding group knew Jesus could help Lazarus – to a point. They knew Jesus could open blind eyes because they had seen him, so they had seen his power – to a point.
It did not take a great deal of faith to believe that someone who can open blind eyes could fix Lazarus’ problem, so they believed in him – to a point.
What Jesus wanted to do was take them beyond that point. So he waited for a while.
If you have experienced Jesus’ pause in your life you can get very frustrated. The disciples experienced Jesus asleep in the middle of the storm and were not delighted at this apparent lack of engagement with the problem.
Perhaps you are there right now. Your work has reached a point of need and Jesus seems to have paused his engagement with you. It’s almost as if he is distracted, otherwise involved or at least putting you on hold. Then your situation gets worse – you lose your job, you go bankrupt, or you get ill.
In the case of Lazarus, he died. So the same people who came to Jesus and believed in him, gave up. Yet it is at this point that Jesus wants to coach them to a deeper faith, a higher experience, so they find a faster pulse in his presence. ‘Do you believe this?’ becomes ‘What do you want – limited or unlimited belief?’ When you can’t see, when you can’t solve, when you can’t know, why assume, Jesus is teaching, he can’t either?.
What they did not know and could not see was that this man was not just a healer, a curer or a fixer, but a reviver – not of those who passed out those who but passed away – not just a few minutes ago, but who now stank of death.
The journey he takes them on goes past anything they have ever seen before. They verbalized their doubt with ‘but he stinks’ and find they have to go past the smell of death. A bizarre and surreal moment of a bandaged body emerging from a smelly hole takes them past every previous point of belief.
And that is the point. If you have seen it before, it is easier to believe it can happen again. But what if you have never seen?
I cannot possibly tell you what this means to you because I can’t know what you’ve seen, nor what you believe. It’s hard enough to figure it out for myself.
It seems to me, however, that this Jesus I follow wants to take me where I haven’t yet been, to where I have no track record and right into the smelly moments of surprise that will startle and shock. If you and I knew what they were, they would not be surprising.
So today at work you might want to check out whether you believe he can turn things around and he can take you past your current level. When you find yourself saying ‘Well I knew he could do this, but I never realized he could do that’, then you are going past the smell of doubt. So what do you want – limited or unlimited belief?
The opposition were not happy about this at all – a plot emerges to kill Jesus – not to oppose him – kill him – and, by the way, to kill Lazarus as well. Did we mention him? I suspect Lazarus thought knew about dying now – to a point.
Happy New Year to all our Readers with a prayer that you go somewhere where you have never been before in 2012.
John 11
1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” 4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”
9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” 12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. 14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Jesus Comforts the Sisters of Lazarus
17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. 21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead 38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” 40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” The Plot to Kill Jesus 45 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. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” 49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life. 54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. 55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?” 57 But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.
In preparation for the next GEOFFSHATTOCKweekly, do feel free to email us your thoughts to wtw@worktalk.gs or leave a comment on our Facebook or Twitter profile. You can also visit our YouTube channel - get inspired and share Worktalk's vision with others.
Work well
Geoff Shattock
© Copyright 2024 Geoff Shattock
All GEOFFSHATTOCKweekly archives are for personal use only. For permission to use for any other purposes please email using the address below thank you.
WORKTALK LEARNING
1 Washington Villas, Hythe Road, Marchwood, Southampton, Hampshire, SO40 4WT United Kingdom
T:+44 (0)23 8086 8543
http://www.geoffshattock.com
comms@worktalk.gs
