Lazarus had died from an illness. After four days of being in the grave, Jesus restored him to life. As a result the Jews who saw this miracle came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They told their friends, who told their friends until the news spread throughout the entire region. Crowds began coming to Lazarus’ house to see the two men with their own eyes (John11:45; 12:17, 12).
But the Pharisees did not worship God for this amazing miracle. Instead they saw it as a threat to their political power (John 11:47-48) and began to plot to kill both Jesus and Lazarus (John 12:10-11).
Political power seems to have the ability to blind us to logic. If they succeeded in killing Lazarus, why wouldn’t Jesus just raise him from the dead again? Why didn’t they understand that if Jesus was powerful enough to raise Lazarus from the dead would he not have enough power to raise himself from the dead? The Pharisees were blinded by their opinion of themselves.
