A Novel Idea
John 11:45 to 12:19
As I was looking at the suggested scriptures in the lectionary; I began to ponder the passage that was suggested. They had suggested the passage that encompassed The Triumphal Entry only (John 12:12-16). But as I looked at it, it seemed so disjointed. As I began to look at its place in the broader text, I realized that John wrote this as a full story from the raising of Lazarus from the grave to the coming of the Greeks to see Jesus. So the passage really runs from John 11:45 to John 12:19.
As I read this look at the interplay between the characters; particularly the Jews, Jesus, and the crowd. Now, hear the word of God.
John 11:45-12:19 (New International Version)
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. 48If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place[a] and our nation."
49Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."
51He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
54Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.
55When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, "What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the Feast at all?" 57But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest him.
John 12
Jesus Anointed at Bethany
1Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3Then Mary took about a pint[b] of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5"Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.[c]" 6He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
7"Leave her alone," Jesus replied. " It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."
9Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, 11for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.
The Triumphal Entry
12The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
"Hosanna![d]"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"[e]
"Blessed is the King of Israel!" 14Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written,
15"Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt."[f]
16At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.
17Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. 18Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. 19So the Pharisees said to one another, "See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!"
Begin Sermon
When I started looking close at this passage, I began to see what was like a suspense, mystery novel or movie. John presents these moves and counter-moves between Jesus and the Jews and in the middle is the crowd. Up to now the Jewish leadership, whom I will just call the leadership, as represented by the Sadducees, Pharisees, Chief Priests, and Sanhedrin was content to let Jesus wander about and do as he pleased. From time to time, they would challenge Jesus; but they had watched many Messiahs before Jesus just come and wither away. Until now Jesus was an amusing nuisance. But with the resurrection of Lazarus, the people were going out to Jesus and becoming believers. Now the Jews had had enough. They had had enough not because their relataionship to God was threatened; not because their religious position was threatened. They had had enough because their political power was threatened. They began to plot to kill Jesus and Jesus knew it. And in this passage the book of John reads like a suspense novel. So let us imagine that we are writing an outline for a novel based on the intrigue of this passage.
The first thing we need in our outline of a novel is a cast of characters; and we need to come up with a one or two word description of the characters. Kind of like the descriptions on the back of a dime store romance novel. “Ramon was the brave, noble man of honor; Isabella was the beauty that would break his heart.”
Our first characters would be the Jewish leadership - the Sadducees, Pharisees, Chief Priests, and Sanhedrin. This includes Caiaphas. The first thing we need to see is that the leadership is afraid of losing their power. They are afraid that if the Romans saw that the people are not controlled by the present Jewish leadership and that the people were following Jesus, then the Romans will take away the leadership from them and give it to Jesus and his followers. Now the Jewish leadership hated their situation with the Romans. But it was better for them to lead under the thumb of Rome than to not lead at all. They say politics makes strange bed fellows. Note that in the response of Caiaphas and the others that there is no mention of what God may want. You see their concern was not religious. Their concern was political. Contrast this to Nicodemus who was a member of the Sanhedrin. He was concerned about the spirituality of Jesus’ ministry. So in the end he became a follower of Jesus. So the first thing we need to say is that the Jewish leadership was political.
The second thing is that they were determined to kill Jesus. And later on we see they wanted to kill Lazarus too. They sound like the wicked witch of the East. “We are going to get Dorothy and her little dog, Toto, too.” In other words they were vicious.
So our description of the Jewish leadership is that they were political and vicious. Not like politicians we have in our modern times.
The next character we need to describe is the crowd. I love the way John presents the crowd. When something happens they just seem to show up. When Lazarus was raised they all came to see him and Jesus. So the Jews plot to kill Jesus, Jesus makes His move to go to Ephraim. When the Jews go back to Jerusalem, Jesus goes back to Bethany. And in each place the crowd shows up to gawk at Jesus and Lazarus. The leadership plots further to kill Jesus and Lazarus also. Then the crowd leads Jesus into Jerusalem, and proclaims Him as King. So there is all of this intrigue between the leadership and Jesus, and the crowd is clueless. They are the biggest bunch of rubbernecking rednecks. They are the ones that when something happens the police are saying, “All right, there is nothing to see here, just go on back home.”
But there is another side to this crowd. This is the crowd that on Sunday wants to make Jesus the king; and by the end of the week they want to have him crucified. So the crowd is fickle.
So our description of the crowd is that they are clueless and fickle.
Now there is Mary, Martha and Lazarus. It seems that Jesus loved to go hangout with them in Bethany. There is not much said or known about Lazarus. We know that Jesus loved him very much (John11:3). You don’t hear of Lazarus making waves. He doesn’t to seem to do anything in history other than this moment. But Jesus seemed to like him a lot. Have you ever had a friend that just made you feel good and happy to be around them? That is a ministry in itself. Now Mary seems to be something of a quiet intellectual. She seems to want to go deep in understanding God; she likes to listen to Jesus discuss God and faith. I think it is interesting that John writes that the people were coming to see Mary. And the only thing John writes about Martha is that she served. I see the family like this. Lazarus is a good old boy who is just pleasant to be with. Mary is like Belle from Beauty and the Beast - her head in a book and her mind in the clouds – but her heart all for God. And then there is Martha. Martha reminds me of Donna Reed with a nice dress an apron, a pearl necklace and asking, “Would any one like some Sara Lee cheese cake?” I have been writing a song about Mary and Martha. It goes like this (sung to Working on the Railroad).
We’d been working on the kingdom
All the live long day
We’d been working on the kingdom
To show the world the way
When we stopped to rest in Bethany
To relax for a while
When we stopped to rest in Bethany
It always made us smile
Mary where’d you go, Mary where’d you go
Mary where did you go – oh – oh
Mary where’d you go, Mary where’d you go
Mary where did you go
No one’s in the kitchen with Martha
No one’s in the kitchen we know – oh – oh – oh
No one’s in the kitchen with Martha
Kneading on the old bread dough
Knead that old bread dough
Knead that old bread dough – oh – oh - oh
Knead that old bread dough
Kneading on the old bread dough
Well, OK we’ll just call it a work in progress.
Ultimately, I guess we would describe Mary, Martha, and Lazarus as comforting and loving.
Next in our cast of characters are the disciples. For three years they have been under the tutelage of Jesus. They have seen the miracles, they have heard His teachings. They were sure they understood His purpose – to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. But now he is speaking of being with them for a little time only and soon will talk of being lifted up which is an euphemism for being crucified. Now they see Him riding triumphantly into Jerusalem. They understand the tension resulting from the Jewish leadership. Since the resurrection of Lazarus, they have been unusually quiet. But they are still there – determined to be with Jesus no matter what is to happen. SO we can say that they are devoted.
But they do not understand why Jesus is coming to Jerusalem to die. They have like so many before them felt that the Messiah was to come to reestablish the kingdom of David. So we describe the disciples as confused but devoted.
Finally, but in no way least, we have God in Christ. His goal is to create a bridge between Himself and mankind – a way for man to be reconnected to God. Even when he realizes that he will face tremendous pain, he is willing to go and face what is coming. There are so many adjectives that we would fail to truly characterize Jesus in this setting. We can say that He is holy, willing, sacrificial, determined.
So we have our cast. Now we need our plot design. A plot design gives us the overall direction of a story. For instance a common plot design is, “Boy meets girl. Boy Loses girl. Boy finds girl again.” Another would be, “Man follows the rules and becomes rich. Man finds that rich does not make him happy. Decides to follow his heart and becomes poor, but happy.”
The plot design of our story is that Caiaphas and the leadership was convinced that one man had to die to save the nation. Here is the amazing thing: Jesus had the same understanding. But whereas Caiaphas and the leadership understood the need for one man to die to save the whole nation of Israel; Jesus understood that one man had to die to save all of humanity. In the novel not only are the people plotting to kill certain that someone needs to die, but the intended victim is certain of the same thing. But the difference is that the leadership is doing this for political power; whereas Jesus is doing this for power over sin, death, and evil. So our plot design is, “God comes to earth to save humanity; politically powerful people plot to kill God; God is killed; God takes up His life again; God saves humanity.”
Next we need a good opening line that sets the tone of the novel. The worst opening line voted as the worst in history is “It was a dark and stormy night.” Some of the best are like in the book A Tale of Two Cities, the opening line is, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick the opening line is, “Call me Ishmael”. In our novel, John weaves a story of the leadership conspiring and making furtive moves. We have Jesus making countermoves. We have the crowd showing up like comic relief. We have Mary, Martha, and Lazarus as the place of sanctuary or comfortable safety. And we have the disciples following like little ducklings. But through it all is the idea that Jesus would die. So I would suggest that the opening line in our novel would be, “Someone was going to die…”
So now we have our cast, our plot design, and our opening line.
We need 2 more things for our novel – a plot twist and a title. I want to name the novel first then the go to the plot twist. I stated thinking about interesting titles. Like the movie the Eiger Sanction, we could call this the Jerusalem Sanction. Maybe we could plagiarize the title “A View to a Kill”. But this story is ultimately about salvation. So maybe we could call this “A View to a Salvation”.
We need a plot twist that leaves the reader saying, “Whoa”. Like the movie “The Sixth Sense”, everybody talked about the surprise at the end. I will not spoil it for you if you have not seen the movie. But it is a great movie because of the ending. You see our plot twist involves the reader because the reader is a part of the novel. Look back at Chapter 11 verse 52 where it talks about the “scattered children of God”. That’s us. We are the scattered children of God. It was better for one man to die so that He could bring us together and make us one.
Look at John 12:32 a verse not in our passage. Jesus says, “When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men to myself.” “Lifted Up” is a catch phrase understood by the people in that area and time as a reference to crucifixion. You see the Cross was not a defeat. But it was the triumphal climax of why Jesus was here in the first place. He came to die and that by dying he could unite all of the scattered children of God. This is our plot twist. Satan thought he had literally nailed God once and for all. Instead it was God who nailed death once and for all. You see our murder novel is not about murder at all. It is about the triumph of salvation over death – it is the death of death. The Triumphal entry was the victory of Jesus Christ as he established the kingdom of God and salvation over the dark kingdom of Satan and death. So you see our murder novel has a HAPPY ENDING !!! Who’d a thought it.
So that is our murder story of intrigue. We have a cast, a plot design, a title and a plot twist that leaves the reader happy. WHAT A NOVEL IDEA!!!
