"To Kill the Author of Life"

Irony, the dictionary says, is “The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning.” Again, we hear it in John’s Gospel. And it is not rare in ordinary life; we all use it at times. We say to friends when tempting them to raspberry white chocolate cheesecake, “Sure, no calories in that.” Not only words but events in John’s Gospel are presented with irony.
In today’s scripture reading, Jesus given Lazarus back his life, raised him from the dead, and his opponents want to end Jesus’ life. They want to kill the One who gives and restores life! What irony! Jesus’ enemies may not have seen it that way, but John does, and he expects that we, his readers many centuries later, will also see what irony there is in their plotting against Jesus.

It says something about the perversity of human nature that we are all capable of doing the opposite of what we claim to believe and missing the inconsistency. Unfortunately with age and experience we let devious patterns of thought develop and shut ourselves off from seeing things as they are or accepting anything new. Prayer for an open heart and mind, for more of the child’s simplicity and wonder is always in order given our foolish and death-dealing tendencies of soul. This kind of honest, authentic prayer would help us to see that at times our actions and words are so opposed to what we claim to hold dear. If our actions, words, beliefs and ideals were all to be truly united and consistent, we would avoid the kind of irony present in today’s Gospel reading. We could leave it for more innocent matters, like the calories in cheesecake!

This Holy Week as we remember with love and devotion the saving events that give us new life in Christ, let us hold one another in prayer that the same mind and heart be in us that was in Christ Jesus in whom is our Life, our Hope and our Resurrection.