More Nuances of Cultures and Languages – John 11 and Lazarus

OK, a second installment of the nuances of cultures and languages of Biblical times: More pealing back the onion layers. From John 11, the story about Lazarus and his sisters, Martha, and Mary: We blame God for everything, and Jesus snorts like an angry horse – among other things.

First, how Jesus reacted at the news of Lazarus’ affliction:

A cultural context: It seems mankind has always known there are things, herbs and such, that can put a person in a state that is not easily discernible from death. This might happen on purpose, to “fake” a death, or by accidental consumption of some chemical agent that causes a death-like state. In more recent times (19^th Century), the fear of being inadvertently buried alive because of such a death-like state resulted in putting a “pull string” in the buried coffin to “ring a bell” near the grave marker. We will see in John 11 that Mary alludes to a cultural “norm” of the time: If they are really dead, there will be a foul odor of decay after three days (three days in a tomb, sound familiar?)

John11:1-17
1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. 2 It was that Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3 The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, “Lord, behold, he for whom you have great affection is sick.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that God’s Son may be glorified by it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6 When therefore he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days in the place where he was. 7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let’s go into Judea again.” 8 The disciples told him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.” 11 He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.” 12 The disciples therefore said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep. 14 So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead. 15 I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.” 16 Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go also, that we may die with him.”

17 So when Jesus came, he found that he had been in the tomb four days already.

World English Bible

Wow! Jesus intentionally waited two more days before leaving on the journey to Lazarus’ side … essentially ensuring he would die, and people would clearly understand Lazarus was dead or he would have, by the end of 4 days been doing everything possible to exit that tomb. John tells us why: for the Glory of God when Christ calls him from the tomb.

A cultural context: From New Living Translation that puts some of the verses that follow in context for us, Jewish custom, based on scripture, utilized “professional mourners”.

Amos 5:16 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, says: “There will be crying in all the public squares and mourning in every street. Call for the farmers to weep with you, and summon professional mourners to wail.

Jeremiah 9:17 This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: “Consider all this, and call for the mourners. Send for the women who mourn at funerals.

New Living Translation

Now, let us look at the rest of the story:

John11:18-37 (WEB)
18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia (just under 2 miles) away. 19 Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. 20 Then when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21 Therefore Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Even now I know that, whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. 26 Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, he who comes into the world.”

28 When she had said this, she went away, and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, “The Teacher is here, and is calling you.” 29 When she heard this, she arose quickly, and went to him.

30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha met him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” 32 Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” 33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!” 37 Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?”

World English Bible

So, we will get to the cultural part about the mourners in a minute – First, consider the real “elephant in the room” statements. There are two of them: First, both sisters promptly state “If you had been here, my brother would not have died”. Second, Jesus pretty much ignores those accusations. Why are those things important – If we put them in context of Biblical times story telling, we need to go back to Genesis , where the serpent beguiled Eve, she ate of the forbidden fruit, shared it with Adam – There eyes were open to the evil of their deed, and they hid from God:

Genesis 3:8-13

8 They heard the voice of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. 9 Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 11 God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

World English Bible

So, after the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, when asked about accountability Adam blames “That women YOU created …”, and Eve blames “That serpent YOU created …”: That has been OUR “go to” defense for sin ever since the Garden – GOD it is ALL YOUR Fault! That is exactly what these ladies do, for they both acknowledge Jesus is GOD … AND it is HIS fault Lazarus is dead.

This is the story twist, which the original audience probably anticipated, for it says much about human nature. However, Jesus’ response could not be farther from “human nature”. Consider this: Your best male friend just died. You arrive at your friends home town, and the first thing out of the mouths of your friends sisters is “This is all your fault, if you had been here this would not have happened!” Forget all the cultural nuances between male and female of Bible times about how inappropriate such a statement may be. Rather fast forward to today, and most any honest man is going to admit they would not handle such an accusation well: WE would defend ourselves and put these ladies “straight”, that is our nature.

BUT, what does Jesus do? He give us the best lesson ever on how to deal with hurt and angry people: You put your ego aside, and simply “meet them where they are”:

• Jesus had built a relationship with each sister, therefore his perception of their “need” expressed in their accusation was rooted in that relationship, not some supernatural perception. The result is he responded to Martha with reassurance of the resurrection as guaranteed by the very Son of God. He responded to Mary by validating her grief: “Jesus wept.” When accused, Jesus did not “correct” them, but validated their pain – Jesus met them in their need where they were at the moment. Mary was truly grief stricken, so odds are she did not perceive the anger that passed across Jesus’ face, but rather only took comfort in His weeping with Her.
• So, build relationships, get to know people, and meet them where they are at that moment in time with the thing that is most needful spiritually for them – Kind of hard to go wrong with that formula – more productive then condemning people and bludgeoning them with the Bible.

Now that cultural thing about professional mourners, combined with a little understanding of the Greek as perceive by Greek readers or speaker of the time, will reveal another layer of the onion:

Revisit John 11:33-37

33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,

34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!” 37 Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?”

World English Bible

Many of the mourners were not friends of Lazarus, but local professional mourners (we do not know if they were paid, or simply area folks that were good at putting on a show). The later statements quoting them in verses 36 and 37 give some insight that the author of John 11, and hence Jesus, perceived them as clueless to what is really happening. So, let us look at the Greek for Jesus’ “groaning in the spirit”, and being “troubled”.

The Greek phrase commonly translated in this passage to English as “He was deeply moved” is the Greek “embrimaomai”, which literally is = “snort like an angry horse”. The word translated as “trouble” is “tarassó”, or “stirred up or emotionally agitated”. So, in context, our English translation falls short with “he (Jesus) groaned in the spirit and was troubled,” . It would be better understood as “Jesus was greatly emotionally agitated and his countenance was like that of a snorting angry horse or one about to roar with rage.” Jesus clearly was not a happy camper in relation to the events playing out before him.

It certainly does not appear Jesus was that upset with Mary. The story never really tells us why he had that reaction. However, there are hints that he was not the least happy with the phony Jewish religious people there faking their sorrow at the death of Lazaus. Some other postulations with merit are:

• Anger at the fallen state of the human race, the need for death, even His death to resolve that fallen state.
• Anger that Lazarus not only had to die for this moment, but had to be called back from the other side to suffer death once again someday.

Oh, and besides weeping with Mary, was Jesus also weeping for all those reasons as well?

And finally, in verse 37 (above), we come full circle as humankind, and the crowd publicly blames Jesus for the specter of death.

To finish up the reading, we have Mary’s reference to decay in the grave we mentioned at the beginning:

John 11:38-44

38 Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?” 41 So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me. 42 I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude that stands around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”

World English Bible

Oh, also ponder this … for the story as a whole:

For all us “manly” men – We are compelled to “fix” things, so we listen to the women with an ear to discerning “what can I fix, right now”, and truthfully, that is not what either Mary or Martha NEEDED: They did NOT need corrected for their blatant accusations and hear an explanation of how “wrong placed” it was, but rather that their need be understood. Many of us have instilled deep within us, from an early age, “men don’t cry” – “it is not manly to cry”. Look no farther than John 11 to see that is a lie, for one could not conceive of a more “manly” man than Jesus, who went willingly to a horrible death on a cross, for US, when He literally could have call legions of angelic beings to defend him. Yet, for Mary’s need, Lazarus’ passing, and for mankind’s fallen state, “Jesus wept”.

God Bless your pondering,Chuck