Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: they rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing out of the grave--now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time. When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of the earth. --Lief Enger, American author of Peace Like A River
SCENE 1 (reference John 12:9-11)
Fade in. A man, Lazarus, seated in front of his home in ancient Bethany, is addressing a group of Jewish people who are asking him questions about his experience of being raised from the dead.
MAN 1: What was it like being brought back to life? I mean, you had been dead for four days!
WOMAN 1: Were your sisters Martha and Mary happy to see you when you hopped out of the tomb in your graveclothes?
LAZARUS: It was indescribable. Like going from darkness to light. When my eyes adjusted to the sunshine, I saw my sisters there, but I only wanted to see Jesus. He was the one who called to me. Jesus gets the glory. I didn't do anything, really. I just followed His voice.
SOLDIER 1: Break it up. This is an illegal gathering.
SOLDIER 2: Lazarus, you are under arrest. I am taking you into custody on order of the High Priest.
LAZARUS: Is it really unlawful to speak of Jesus now? What are you gonna do, kill me? I've been dead before--it really doesn't scare me.
SCENE 2, three months earlier (reference John 7:16-52)
FIRST OFFICER: Do you have the arrest warrant? We'll go house to house if necessary, all throughout Jerusalem.
SECOND OFFICER: It's the Feast of Booths. Everyone will be outside in a temporary shelters, commemorating the time that Moses led our people through the desert.
FIRST OFFICER: Oh, so it won't be quite as difficult to find Jesus if he's out in the open. How in the world can a Rabbi like him make statements like that publicly? Claiming to be like God. Blasphemy!
SECOND OFFICER: Let's start at the Temple. There's a big crowd there right now. Maybe somebody knows where he is staying.
As they approach the Temple, Jesus is there teaching.
JESUS: My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?
MAN IN CROWD: You must be mad! Who is seeking to kill you?
First Officer and Second Officer look at each other.
JESUS: I did one work, and you all marvel at it. (A man needed to be healed; it was the Sabbath. What was I to do?) Look, Moses gave you circumcision, and you circumcise a male baby on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.
FIRST OFFICER: Can this man be the Messiah?
SECOND OFFICER: When the Messiah does appear, will he do more signs that this man has done?
JESUS: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."
First Officer and Second Officer go back to the place of the Pharisees
CHIEF PRIEST: Why haven't you brought him?
FIRST OFFICER: No one ever spoke like this man.
PHARISEE: Have you also been deceived? Have any of the priests or Pharisees believed in him. Anyone who does not know the law is accursed.
NICODEMUS: Wait. Just hold on. Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?
PHARISEE: Are you from Galilee too? (Pointing to a scroll) Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.
SCENE 3 (reference John 9:1-41)
LAZARUS (Voice Over) Things really came to a head one Sabbath day when Jesus found a man who had been born blind. Jesus stopped and said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." He spat on the ground, picked up the wet clay, and put it on the man's eyes. Jesus told the man to go to the fountain, the Pool of Siloam, and wash off the mud from his eyes. When the man obeyed Jesus, when he went and washed, he came back seeing.
MAN 1: Hey, isn't that the man who used to sit and beg? I thought he was blind and couldn't get around.
MAN 2: It sure looks like him, but it can't be. Maybe it's someone who looks like him.
BLIND MAN: It really is me. Jesus did this.
PHARISEE: Come with me. Tell us again how you received your sight.
BLIND MAN: You see, Jesus...
PHARISEE: We don't believe you!
BLIND MAN: He is truly a prophet sent from G...
PHARISEE: This man cannot be from God. He doesn't keep the Sabbath.
NICODEMUS: How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?
PHARISEE: I know this man's parents. Let's ask them. Hey you, is this your son, the one you said was born blind? How does he now see?
FATHER: We know he is our son. We know he was born blind. Apart from that, we don't know. Ask him, he is of age.
PHARISEE: All right. Give it to us straight. Glorify God by telling us the truth, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.
BLIND MAN: Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know: though I was blind, now I see! Look, I've told you this a thousand times, and you don't ever listen. Do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciple too?
LAZARUS (Voice over): Jesus fulfilled the Prophet Isaiah's words, "You will open the eyes of the blind and set free those who sit in dark prisons." Many believed in him after he healed the blind man. Many more believed after I was raised from the dead. That's why they arrested me, and are making plans to kill me. Yet it is they who are blind. They can't see how one man could be the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, but not keep their Sabbath tradition. They can't see how the man Jesus could claim to be the Son of God. That's what they'll arrest him for, but their true motivation is spoken in secret, so that the people cannot hear: I just heard the priests and religious rulers say to one another, "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation (reference John 11:48). The chief priest, Caiaphas, agreed, saying, "It's better for you that one man should die for the people, rather than the whole nation should perish." I don't know, I think those words speak more than Caiaphas realizes. I think they prophesy that Jesus will die not as a martyr, as I may, but that his death will be sacrificial, that in his death we might enjoy everlasting life.
THE END