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APRIL 2
LET US ALSO GO
“…Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard
that he was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then
after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go into Judea again.’ The disciples
said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you, and are you
going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours in the day?
If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of
this world. But if any one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light
is not in him.’ Thus he spoke, and then he said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus
has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.’ The disciples said to
him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ Now Jesus had spoken of
his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus
told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was
not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, called the
Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’”
(Jn 11: 5-16)
Four days before our soon-to-be-crucified Lord “awakens” Lazarus from
the dead, He unpleasantly surprises His disciples by saying, “Let us go
into Judea again.” This was a bad idea, the disciples point out. But our
Lord confuses them further, talking mysteriously about “walking in the
day,” and “the light of this world.” And finally, perhaps most perplexingly,
He tells them about Lazarus’s death and adds, “I am glad that I was not
there, so that you may believe.”
So in this passage our Lord is already focused on the light He is to
bring, first to Bethany, “so that we may believe,” and then to the entire
world, through His life-giving suffering, death, and resurrection. But the
disciples don’t see the “light” in this picture. They see danger and death.
Nonetheless, they all resolve to follow, as Thomas says, “Let us also go,
that we may die with him.”
I also don’t always see the “light” in the situations and paths my Lord
brings into my life. But let me follow Him today, as many followed Him,
and continue to follow Him, dying to self on the life-bringing path of the
Cross. As Jesus heads for Bethany today, let me get up and follow, as I
hear Thomas say, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”
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