Scripture Daily

Context No. 343 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 11:8-12: in context

8The disciples asked him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you. Are you going there again?” 9Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.” 11He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.” 12The disciples therefore said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”

Jesus announces that he is going to Bethany, in Judea, and his disciples are alarmed, because Judea is exactly where the authorities had just tried to stone him. Rabbi, they say, they were just now trying to kill you there, and you are going back? Their calculation is simple and reasonable: that place is dangerous, so stay away from it. Jesus answers on a completely different axis.

Are there not twelve hours in the day, he asks. If a person walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world; but if he walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. He is not talking about literal daylight. The day is his appointed time, the span given for the work the Father has for him, and while it is day, while he is walking in the light of that will, he is safe to do the dangerous thing, because his security is not in avoiding risk but in being where God has him. The disciples were measuring only the danger. Jesus is asking a different question: is this the appointed hour, the light-filled thing I am called to? If it is, then walking into it, stones and all, is walking in the day. Then he adds, gently, that Lazarus has fallen asleep and he is going to wake him, using sleep as his word for a death he intends to undo, though the disciples take him literally.

The two ways of reckoning are worth holding side by side. The disciples asked only, is it safe? Jesus asked, is it day? Where a thing is risky but is clearly the light-filled work I have been given, do I refuse it because it is dangerous, or can I walk into it trusting that the one who does what he is called to do, in its right hour, does not finally stumble?

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