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Morning Devotion for the Season of Lent
April 11, 2025
Invitatory
Thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, “I dwell in the high and holy place and also with the one who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen
Reading: John 12:9-11
When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
We often skip over these verses as we have just read the more shocking scene where Judas and Jesus have a disagreement regarding the perfumed oil that Mary bought, and Jesus’s statement that Judas will always have the poor with him. But I think these lines are a bit shocking too.
There are two things that emerge from this reading for me: Jesus and Lazarus are celebrities that people are clamoring to see, and the chief priests' willingness to exterminate Lazarus because he represents Jesus’s divinity. The musical Jesus Christ Superstar captures this celebrity portrayal with paparazzi following Jesus and the disciples from event to event. It reminds me of when Taylor Swift was spotted at a restaurant in Wayne and the entire Main Line hustled out there to get a glimpse of her. Humans are fascinated with celebrities. But also fickle to celebrity’s allure. There is a collective smugness when a celebrity is canceled or shoved off their pinnacle. Why do we do this: obsessively stalk them and then dismiss them as crazy when they show any signs of weakness as we did with Brittany Spears?
Rene Girard famously talks about this in his Mimetic Theory, positing the belief that humans imitate each other as a way of learning, ultimately resulting in competition and conflict that must be resolved through scapegoats. By assigning blame and sacrifice, order can be restored. Jesus was a threat to the high priests and even to some of his own disciples. He had to be eliminated to restore social and political order. And Lazarus was just collateral damage, as the greatest example of the miracles Jesus performed. While Jesus was meant to be the final scapegoat, the final sacrificial lamb to carry all of humanity’s sin, I believe we still see scapegoating today. I would argue that our cancel culture, revisionist history culture, and vengeful human tendencies all come from a place of rivalry and threat. How can we transform that energy of needing to win, to an energy of love? How can we all incorporate the miracle of Easter, the final scapegoat into our everyday life and community? If we don’t make the commandment to love one another central, we may all be the Lazarus in our own story, offered the miracle of resurrection, but without the communal spirit of love to save us.
You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me(Isaiah 43:10)
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