Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. (John 11:1-6)
So continuing with our story in John chapter 11 of the raising of Lazarus, we come now to verses 5 to 7, which is what we’re going to be focusing on in this reflection.
Now Jesus was loving and continued in loyal appreciation of Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 However, when He heard that he continues being sick and weak, He then, indeed, remained two days within [the] place in which He was [staying]. 7 Thereupon – after this – He is saying to His disciples, “We should proceed going into Judea again. (Jonathan Mitchell New Testament)
So again, just by way of a reminder, we are dealing here with interior processes that have to do with the regeneration of the human mind, and that’s what the Word always is dealing with so far as its interior sense or internal meaning is concerned.
Reading from a process perspective, what we see here is that there is a need to bring what is unknown regarding the Word’s operation within the human mind into consciousness. Now, in that process, the Lord and his work with the human soul or the psyche may, at least our perspective, tarry, or not seem to move quickly enough for our liking. For of course, his work has nothing to do with our agenda or our timeframes and that’s what this tarrying of two days in the story here illustrates. The deeper psychological meaning is that for soul work to progress, all things must find an optimal arrangement, and all activity, or non activity, so far as Divine operations are concerned, is a fully conscious act in view of the end, which is the regeneration of the human mind. So every Divinely conscious act looks to bringing about healing and wholeness, where there is wounding and brokenness in spirit. Jesus’s apparent lack of urgency by human evaluation is precisely what’s needed so that a glorious end might be realised. The Lord’s love for all is palpably expressed in the Text’s declaration in verse five, where it states that
Jesus was loving and continued in loyal appreciation of Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.
By Martha, her sister, and Lazarus, we are not to understand the Lord’s affections for particular individuals. What we have here is an objective love that goes beyond any particular individual and is focused universally on aspects within the human mind, within every human mind, or every human soul, to which the Lord’s love is continually directed by means of an inward way. So by Martha, her sister, and Lazarus are understood psychological structures, not individual persons. From a inner process or Logopraxis perspective, they represent those faculties or psychic structures that are open to receiving the Lord’s influx of life into the more exterior plane of the human mind.
It is a mark of a truly objective state of consciousness that can hold off from acting under immense interior and exterior pressures that are demanding a response, and it does this to ensure that all things that need to align, do in fact align, so that the end which is preeminently in view, so far as the Lord is concerned, is able to be manifest. That end in view, from a limited finite perspective, is often invisible but here, represented by the Lord as the Word working within the mind, we have a higher degree of consciousness than can ever be accessed by any human capability. This consciousness works to an end which shall be fulfilled, and that end was described in the previous post as being God’s Son glorified, the salvation of the human race.
Now the key to understanding what’s happening in these three verses is found in verse six, where despite Lazarus’s condition, Jesus is said to have remained a further two days. This remaining in place is a consolidation of the presenting state, the mental state or the psychological state in us all. It’s helpful to remember that the only thing that ever prevents the Lord’s movement toward the human mind’s regeneration are the structures of the mind itself. It is not that the Lord won’t move, it is that He can’t move without causing harm to the soul that is being regenerated. Love would move the process forward in a moment, but wisdom maintains all that is necessary for the end to be reached so that the regenerating mind is not swamped by more than it can handle of the Divine love. So we read that there is a need for the Lord to remain in place. Psychologically or spiritually speaking, this means that it’s a state of mind that it must be maintained until all the elements within that state are aligned in such a way that things can move forward.
Now, what is in need of being aligned are states of belief and the affections associated with those beliefs. These are the preeminent aspects of the psyche that need working on if the Lord is to move the state forward. So all things have to be suitably arranged before a new state, represented by the movement through space and time to where Lazarus is can be enacted. So the key here is the use of the number two expressed in terms of Jesus remaining two days.
However, when He heard that he continues being sick and weak, He then, indeed, remained two days within [the] place in which He was [staying].
The number two is a significant number, it symbolically represents the relationship of one thing to another and so symbolises the nature of a relational connection. It specifically describes the link whereby two become one when they are seen together and as such carries the idea of a marriage or a unity of things being established. So before a new state of seeing the power of the Word manifest, there has to be this preliminary aspect of waiting or remaining two days, and that state has to do with things of the mind that have to be brought into alignment, and once those things are in alignment, then and only then can there be an interior movement initiated, as is captured in verse seven.
Thereupon, after this, he is saying to his disciples, We should proceed going into Judea again.
Let’s draw this back to our Logopraxis work. The names used of the Lord in the Text are significant. And the name Jesus here has to do with the Lord’s desire for the salvation of the human race and so it captures the idea of the Word working within the human mind. To bring that mind into a form whereby the Lord’s love can be more fully expressed through it. So one of the key ideas that is perhaps expressed here has to do with the need to lay aside our own agenda when working with the Word, and this is captured in the delay of Jesus tarrying to attend to the situation with regard to Lazarus. For often when we are working with the Text it doesn’t address what we think it needs to address. Portions of it reach out to us of which we can’t perhaps see their application, particularly in the light of what we feel it is that needs to be addressed. And there is this delaying that takes place until we can come into an alignment, taking hold of what it is the Lord wants us to work with from out of the Text. For it’s only as we come to terms with giving ourselves over to the authority of the Text, to that which is reaching out to us, that things can then perhaps begin to move forward.
The thing to hold in mind is that the Lord is never late. His timing is always perfect. So we’re admonished then to wait on the Lord and that is no easy thing to do particularly when we are confronted with states that perhaps are difficult to cope with. But we can’t rush things in this work, and we can’t make things happen. In Logopraxis, we have that aphorism, which states that no effort on our part can make anything happen, but without effort, nothing can actually happen. So really we are to do what we are given to do…
and in this work, what we’re given to do is what we’re offered to work with from the Word.