As I mentioned in my post on the woman at the well, I’ve been doing a class on John’s Gospel the past couple of months. It’s probably been my favourite class of this year, which is no small feat! John is such a rich gospel, and it’s been a real privilege to spend some time in it this year.
Today we reached John 11, which is all about the raising of Lazarus. This is a key chapter in John’s gospel: it seems to mark some kind of a shift. Some people talk about the ‘Book of Signs’, which culminates with the sign of Lazarus, and the ‘Book of Glory’ which talks about Jesus’ glorification as he is lifted high on the cross. Others talk about his public and private ministry (after this point Jesus’ ministry and teaching seems to move to just his disciples). It seems there there aren’t hard and fast distinctions, but however you look at it this chapter is the catalyst for the changes.
What I’d like to do in this blog post is just draw out a few thoughts on various aspects of the chapter. I’m going to skip over a lot – there’s so much here, I don’t want the blog post to become massive! – but I hope to draw out one or two key or even surprising aspects.