Christ the Creator according to John 11
By Dr. Rafat Amari
Jesus invites us to reclaim what has been lost and not restored.
The advantage of walking with Jesus and having spiritual fellowship with him is that he lets us hear the language of that wonderful distant thing that nature dictates is impossible to see any more, a thing is irretrievably lost. Jesus orders us to walk towards that thing, which no being has ever previously approached, where man is accustomed to proclaim his eternal loss of some precious thing or person. Is there a language apart from that of the Creator that can bring back that which has been lost forever from our lives and our earth? Who can promise to move once again towards the remains of that which has been lost forever and assure us that he will restore it, except the omnipotent Creator?
As Jesus did when He came to Lazarus, He invites us to approach that which is dead in our lives. We can't do this in our own strength, but Jesus is free to summon life. This is possible for Him because He is the God who established all natural and moral laws.
Look with me at the language of the prophets. They prayed for healing for the living and they comforted the friends of the dead. Their prayers respected the limits that God had set to human life and, except in a limited number of cases, they could not recall that which had passed forever into eternity.
But Jesus was not a creature to be bound by limits that he had set for others. All of life’s limits have been fashioned by Jesus’ noble and generous hand, There are no principles or laws from which He cannot summon someone who has become subject to them.
What Jesus did in recalling the spirit of life to Lazarus’ body was similar to the power He displayed when He created Adam from the dust of the ground.
When Jesus approaches that which we recognize as impossible for creatures to approach, He reveals His right to move in the infinite. He shows that He owns what does not exist and controls what is established for creatures and for nature. For Jesus is the One before whom all laws bow. He is the One who has established the laws, so He does not have to surrender to them as if He were a creature subject to them.
Thus, Jesus invites us into the arena where we can experience Him as the God of natural law. He has it in his power to recover that which has become subject to these laws and which would otherwise be considered beyond recovery.
When Jesus went where only the Creator could prevail and when He chose the sphere in which it is universally acknowledged that only the Godhead could work, it was His way of teaching us that He is God. There’s no experience more indicative of the identity of our Creator than seeing a new body created out of a decomposing body that is changing into a handful of dust.
Copyright 2006 by Dr. Rafat Amari. All rights reserved.