Conclusion
In depicting a
Christ who weeps out of love at the death of a friend, yet who also publicly
declares, “I am the Resurrection,” the author of the Fourth Gospel establishes
an inseparable nexus between the raising of the dead to new life and the sacred
bond of divine love—a bond of love so strong that it will ultimately lead to
the cross. The return of Lazarus from the grave is a proleptic microcosm that
foreshadows the resurrection of Christ and, as we shall see below, the future
resurrection of the dead. In other words, “The raising of Lazarus is the Gospel
in miniature.”[1] When Jesus
later claims that “No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life
for one’s friends” (15:13), the author of the Fourth Gospel completes the
relationship between the love that brought Lazarus out of the tomb and the love
which motivated Christ to enter it.
The Resurrection of Jesus
There has long been
an understanding that the crucifixion of Jesus was an act of divine love—that
is, it is commonly accepted that love was the motivator for Christ’s submission
to the cross. “Through his death,” claims Jo-Ann Brant, “our relationship with
him is not severed but strengthened, because his dying reveals his love for
us.”[2]
Furthermore, “[The Fourth Gospel] understands Jesus’s death as the consummate
expression of divine love, but recognizes that this is only apparent in
retrospect, from the vantage point of the resurrection.”[3]
It makes little sense, then, to assume that the resurrection and vindication of
God’s Messiah would not also be a continuance and intensification of that same
love. However, following the death of Jesus, love is seldom mentioned in conjunction
with his resurrection. The purpose of this section is to discuss the
possibility that in order to fully grasp the theological implications of the
empty tomb, one must explore the resurrection of Jesus as another act of love
in connection with his death on a cross.
The concept of
love in the Fourth Gospel fundamentally involves the act of giving and
sacrifice,[4]
and this is illustrated quite well in Johannine theology—“For God so loved the kovsmon, he gave his only son…” This
giving is further implied in Peter’s “reinstatement” in ch. 21. As Christ
submitted himself to death in the cross out of love, so God rewarded Christ
with a vindicated, transformed body. Therefore, when Jesus questions Peter on
the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, he is also dictating to Peter the mark of
true discipleship, that is, love submits itself to and receives its reward
from the Source of Love. The cost of the
eschatological promise is mutual submission and “feeding lambs” and “tending
sheep” here in the present reality.
If we build upon
our earlier assumption that the Fourth Gospel has fashioned Lazarus as the
Beloved Disciple, it is not difficult to imagine the source of his “seeing and
believing” at the empty tomb of Christ; Lazarus would have recognized the signs
of one who has been raised from the dead through the power of love—the very
love that called Lazarus forth from his own grave in ch. 11.[5]
Yet unlike Lazarus, the Jesus that was laid in the tomb is not quite the Jesus that emerges on Easter morning. “In the
resurrection God’s love for Jesus transforms him, attaining for Jesus his
ultimate good and becoming, by anticipation, the embodiment of God’s new
creation.”[6]
It is the defining love of God that raises Jesus and transforms him into the
living icon of New Creation. As the raising of Lazarus constituted a
microcosmic illustration of what divine love envisioned in Christ looks like,
so the resurrection of Christ has macrocosmic significance. The divine love
illustrated in the body of the risen Lord as he calls Mary the Magdalene by
name and as he hails the frustrated disciples from the shore of the lake is the
result of the fulfillment of God’s ultimate cosmological plan for the salvation
of the universe and the redemption of all things.
We now see that
love is the impetus for both the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of
Christ. Yet, unlike Lazarus, Jesus becomes the opportunity through which the
resurrection of all believers is made possible—he is, as Paul says, the
first-fruits of the dead. “The risen Jesus is the living embodiment, the
historical anticipation, of that realization and perfection towards which
transformative love moves."[7]
The confession of Christ coming in the flesh in 1 John 4:2 refers not only to
the initial incarnation of the Logos in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, but
also to the resurrected Christ physically returning from the grave, clothed
anew in that which is incorruptible: the transformative love of God.
[1]
Sandra Schneiders, 52
[2] Jo-Ann A.
Brant, “A Sure Thing: Death and Eternal Life in the Gospel of John,” Vision 5, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 62.
[3]
Craig R. Koester, 123
[4] Paul S.
Naumann, “The Presence of Love in John's Gospel,” Worship 39, no. 6 (June-July 1965): 369.
[5]
Floyd V. Filson, 86
[6]
Lyle K. Weiss, 200
[7]
Ibid, 202
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