1. And now for the continuation of the story of Lazarus’ death, and…
2. Are people really asking if Jesus could keep Lazarus from dying, or are they talking smack?
3. We have a lot of parts in this story where we hear how moved Jesus was. Here are again.
4. It would have taken a lot of work to move the stone, I think. Not to mention the fact that, as the King James Version of the Bible says, “he stinketh.”
5. I think everyone would have said, “Yeah, I remember You telling us that…but…we didn’t think that it meant you could raise someone from the dead!”
6. Jesus is thanking God before the miracle, that’s the kind of faith He has in God’s power. And He says this out loud so that the people understand that God DOES hear Him.
7. This had to be one of the freakiest things of all time.
8. It would be hard not to believe after seeing all of this.
9. Uh oh…meetings with religious people. Those tend to get complicated.
10. Well, we get the motivation of the religious leaders. They didn’t want to make a scene (and Jesus would definitely make a scene) because then they believed that the Romans would stop extending them the favor of letting them continue to worship their God.
11. Oh, here comes Caiaphas. He’s going to play into the story big time, later on. But, for now, he’s the one who comes up with the idea that killing one Jesus is better than all the Jews dying.
12. Hmm…what do you think about Caiaphas saying that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation? It says that he was not on his own. Does that mean that God allowed him to prophesy this? Or does it mean that he was in a plot of the Pharisees to say this?
13. From this point on, the plot to kill Jesus was on. So, now He withdrew to the wilderness. And people were waiting to catch Jesus. The plot thickens…
