He Whom You Love
Today’s reflection is somewhat speculative. I first preached it to the congregation at St Albans Uniting, where my conjectures generated considerable discussion after the service. Maybe they will have a similar impact today. I am elucidating a theory that is on the margins of Biblical scholarship, although championed by Ben Witherington, a highly respected Johannine scholar.[1]
In the fourth gospel, there is an anonymous disciple, who first appears in the opening chapter when two disciples of John the Baptist decide to become followers of Jesus. One of these disciples is identified as Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. The other disciple is not identified by name. Traditionally it has been taught that this unnamed disciple is John the author of the gospel, and that this John is John the brother of James, and they are the sons of Zebedee. Read any conservative commentary on the fourth gospel and you will likely encounter a statement to the effect that while the author does not name himself, there is ample evidence within the gospel to indicate that the author is John the Apostle. The problem is finding the reputed evidence to support this assertion. In the synoptic gospels, John and James are almost always linked together. Most of the time, if one is mentioned so is the other. That is true in the fourth gospel also. John and James are not spoken of by name in the fourth gospel, but in the one clear reference to them, they are called the sons of Zebedee. This was on a fishing trip that took place after the disciples had returned to Galilee following the resurrection. What’s more none of the unforgettable events recorded in the synoptic gospels where John the apostle was present, like the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the transfiguration of Jesus, are included in John’s gospel. Also, the fourth gospel focuses mainly on Jerusalem and has a resident’s understanding of the geography and politics of the city that a Galilean fisherman would not have, although John could have acquired this later.
So what has all this to do with the story of Lazarus? Possibly not much or perhaps a great deal. The Bethany family of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus appear suddenly in the gospel, and yet it is clear that Jesus has had a close relationship with them over time. When Lazarus takes ill, his sisters send a message to Jesus, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” They don’t even consider it necessary to identify the ill man as their brother Lazarus. Jesus knows whom they mean, as is evident later on in the story when he tells his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him,” meaning that Lazarus has died and Jesus intends to raise him from the dead. As abruptly as Lazarus appears in the gospel he disappears. There is the long story of Jesus restoring him to life, the story of the banquet he hosts where his sister Mary anoints Jesus, and a statement to say that the chief priests planned to put him to death along with Jesus and nothing more. Or is there?
The anonymous disciple we met at the beginning of the gospel reappears following the stories about Lazarus, but this time he is given a description. He is called “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. Mary and Martha referred to their brother as “he whom you love” in their message to Jesus. This beloved disciple is prominent in the remainder of John’s gospel. He is at the Last Supper and is the one to whom Jesus reveals the identity of the betrayer. His position next to Jesus may indicate that he was hosting this final meal. Sometimes referred to as “the other disciple”, or “another disciple”, this anonymous disciple, along with Simon Peter, follows the arresting troops as they take Jesus to the residence of the emeritus high priest. It is said twice for emphasis that this disciple is known to the high priest, and thus he can follow Jesus unimpeded into the courtyard of the high priest’s house and get Peter through the door. Because he is known to be a follower of Jesus, the high priest’s staff rightly assume Peter is also – something Peter infamously denies. Peter flees the scene, leaving only the other disciple to follow Jesus to his Roman trial and then to his Roman cross. Thus the passion of Jesus in the fourth gospel is based on the eyewitness testimony of this anonymous disciple. There are five supporters at the foot of the cross, all women except for the disciple whom Jesus loved, to whom Jesus entrusts the care of his mother. Then on the morning of the resurrection, this disciple outruns Peter to the tomb when news reaches them that the body of Jesus is missing. His final appearance is on the boat during the post-resurrection fishing trip when he identifies the figure on the shore as the Lord. Clearly this man was a significant figure in the Jesus movement. Because of the strength of the church tradition that a man named John wrote the fourth gospel, Ben Witherington caused a stir in academia when he argued that Lazarus was the source of information about Jesus recorded in the fourth gospel by a writer known as John the Elder[2] (not John the Apostle). Apparently the beloved disciple being elderly died before his gospel was released, and hence it was attributed to the scribe who had written down his testimony for him.
After deliberately delaying his return to Bethany following receipt of the message from Martha and Mary that their brother is gravely ill, Jesus arrives at the home of the grieving sisters on the fourth day after the burial of Lazarus. We are told that many of “the Jews” had come from Jerusalem to console Martha and Mary. Most of the people living in and around Jerusalem were ethnically Jewish, but John doesn’t use the term “the Jews” to refer to a race of people but rather to a class of people. He is referring to members of the Judean aristocracy, primarily associated with the chief priestly families but including some influentially wealthy Pharisees. That members of “the Jews” had come from Jerusalem to support the mourning sisters indicates that the Bethany family belonged to the elite class. Only the rich had family tombs in which to bury their dead, and only the rich had the financial resources to spend three hundred denarii on perfumed oil with which to anoint Jesus, as Mary did. Three hundred denarii was the maximum annual income of a day labourer.
The Bethany family share names associated with one of the four chief priestly clans, which may be coincidental as their names were common in first-century Palestine. Nevertheless, in the days of Herod the Great the high priest was Simon Boethus, who had a son named Lazarus and daughters named Martha and Mary. The tradition was to name sons after fathers and daughters after aunts, so we could expect to find among the descendants of Simon Boethus a family where the father was Simon and his children were Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. In Mark’s version of the anointing story, the host is Simon the Leper, who may have been the father of the Bethany three, and being a leper would have been excluded from the priesthood. Even so, the family would still be accorded the respect due to members of one of the most powerful clans in Jerusalem. This would also account for the beloved disciple being known to the high priest and thus having access to the high priest’s residence.
Martha, Mary, and the mourners among “the Jews” all criticise Jesus for being late. They all believe that had Jesus got to Bethany before Lazarus had died he could have saved Lazarus’ life. When Jesus weeps, “the Jews” observe, “See how he loved him!” Another indication that Lazarus is a disciple that Jesus holds especially dear. Clearly Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead was his greatest miracle but it also was, according to the Gospel of John, the event that precipitated the plot to kill him, and Lazarus for good measure, because many of “the Jews” who had witnessed that miracle “believed in him.”
The chief priests wrongly assumed that Jesus was a potential insurrectionist. Through a system of taxes, tithes and rents members of the privileged class drew their wealth from the goods produced by peasant farmers, craftsmen, and traders, upon whom the burden of funding the administration of the province and the lifestyle of the elite largely fell. Not surprisingly this led to intense resentment and so Galilee, Palestine’s bread basket, was a hotbed for peasant uprisings, which were quickly and brutally quelled. That Jesus came from Galilee would have been enough to make the chief priests and leading Pharisees suspicious. However, what really got them anxious was that Jesus was attracting the influential rich as well as peasants to his movement. Their well-founded fear was that should members of the ruling class become involved in an uprising “the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation,” as happened during the tragic Jewish-Roman war a generation later. To avoid this they decided to act upon the recommendation of Caiaphas the high priest that Jesus be assassinated. Thus Jesus risked, and in reality gave, his own life for the life of his friend.
The Gospel of John is divided into two parts, commonly called the Book of Signs which features the miracles of Jesus which in the fourth gospel are called signs, and the Book of Glory, which covers the anointing and triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the last supper, crucifixion and resurrection stories. The Book of Signs concludes with the raising of Lazarus, and the Book of Glory concludes with the resurrection of Jesus. The former story points us to the latter.
While the identification of the beloved disciple as Lazarus has yet to gain wide acceptance in Biblical scholarship, the identification of his sister Mary with Mary Magdalene was for centuries a Roman Catholic understanding, although the Catholic Church is no longer dogmatic about this, and has rejected the tradition that Mary Magdalene was a reformed prostitute. The modern theory that Mary was called Magdalene because she came from the fishing village of Magdala is erroneous, for no village of that name existed during Mary’s lifetime. A competing, and probably accurate hypothesis is that Mary was called Magdalene because magdala is the Aramaic word for tower and Mary was a towering figure in the early church. If Mary Magdalene was in fact Mary of Bethany, and if the beloved disciple was in fact Lazarus her brother, then according to the fourth gospel an intriguing and very select group of people were at the cross. Only five people were present: three female relatives of Jesus (Mary his mother, Mary’s sister who is identified as Salome in the synoptic gospels, and Mary’s sister-in-law Mary the wife of Clopas), along with a close male friend who may have been Jesus’ best friend, and a prominent woman in Jesus’ ministry who may have been that friend’s sister. In the end, it was the people who loved him most that supported Jesus in his time of greatest anguish. His eleven young disciples and most of those who had benefited from his miracles were nowhere to be seen. According to the synoptic gospels, some of the women who’d followed Jesus from Galilee looked on from a distance.
Today we remember the saints who established the church and helped it flourish, who were faithful in spite of being persecuted for their faith, and whose testimony we rely upon for our own beliefs. Today we remember the saints who down through the ages were faithful followers of Jesus, who preserved the Scriptures for future generations, and who developed and handed on church traditions to us, and today we remember the saints whom we personally have worshipped with, the Sunday School teachers who taught us, the ministers who inspired us, and the friends who shared this journey of faith with us. Today we give thanks for all the saints, past and present, who like Martha, Mary, and Lazarus are disciples whom Jesus calls his friends. Amen.
[1] Blog: https://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-lazarus-beloved-disciple.html
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTx6A2pncIY
[2] See 2 John 1 & 3 John 1