Lazarus In The Odyssey

The two halves of John 12 have a very different tone, as Jesus moves from the private eye into the public sphere. Lazarus and his two sisters remain in the narrative as well. One major theme that can be noted in this particular Chapter is the hostility that those who are associated with Jesus face simply for having experienced the benefits of his way. Lazarus is threatened. The Greeks are threatened. John’s rendition of the classic “triumphal entry” narrative is full of sorry, in that regard. The parallels that we can draw, here, from characters in Israel’s history (Adonijah, Solomon, Simon Maccabeus, etc.) are present for all. Yet Jesus will act very differently than all of them – he and his followers will experience rejection from
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will arouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior's sword. – Zechariah 9:9-13
Now Adonijah son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, "I will be king"; he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. – I Kings
Such a messianic figure would ascend to David’s throne and restore the kingdom to its former glory. In both the Maccabees and Zechariah passages, the Greeks are explicitly labeled as the enemy. Jesus' kingdom, if we are to call it that, taking root in Jerusalem will have no part in excluding the Greeks from what God wants to offer. This reality would have been very important to the Johannine community, as they primarily lived in a Hellenized world, after the life of Jesus. The section of John shows both that Jesus meets the expectations of a messianic candidate…also that he does not meet those expectations in the ways people would have expected. Jesus was supposed to ascend in the temple. He was supposed to drive out the Greeks. Instead he has to hide himself (as indicated by the Greeks’ requesting, of Philip, an audience with Jesus) and he includes the