Holy Week Portraits: John (part 1)

John stood across from Lazarus in the house the man shared with his sisters.

“I feel as though my very stomach has been ripped from my body,” he whispered.

Lazarus nodded. John knew he felt it, too.

The mother of John’s dead best friend, the woman he had entrusted to John's care before he died, entered the doorway. Fresh tears stained Mary’s face. John had lost a friend, but she had lost a son. He couldn’t imagine.

It all seemed so wrong, like they were missing something big. Jesus was supposed to have been the Messiah, the one who would save his people from their sins. The prophecies had all lined up. John the Baptizer had been the voice crying in the wilderness. The miracles had proved Jesus had the very power of God. Only a week before, the people had hailed him like a conquering hero.

No one had seen this coming.

“Do you think…?” Lazarus stopped halfway through his question.

John looked up. “What?”

Lazarus stared at him for a long moment, as if weighing whether to say anything. “Could he… raise himself from the grave?”

John furrowed his eyebrows. It surely must have seemed a reasonable question to the man standing before him. After all, he had himself been raised from the dead by Jesus’ hand. But the idea was still insane. He shook his head. “He resurrected you because he had the power of God. But no man can raise himself from the dead. Not even Jesus.”