The gospel stories of Jesus of Nazareth all tell us that he was killed, executed by the state. Killed by the “world’s lone super-power,” if you will. And each of the gospels tells us that the powers of that time and place began to plot Jesus’ death because of an event, an action or a teaching by Jesus.
In the gospel of John this occurs in the eleventh chapter, when Jesus is told that his friend Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, is ill, and will die. Oddly, Jesus lingers for several days before going to Bethany. When he arrives, he finds that Lazarus has died, and has been entombed for four days.
He orders the stone to be rolled away from Lazarus’ tomb. Jesus calls to his dead friend, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man is bound, as was the burial custom. “The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” John 11:44.
Now, you would think that Jesus would be acclaimed for raising the dead. And he is. By Lazarus family and friends. But not by all.
However, the chief priests and the pharisees, upon being told that Jesus had raised the dead “called a meeting of the council.”
‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’ (John 11:47b-48, NRSV)
It might seem odd that the chief priests and pharisees were not pleased with Jesus acts and actions. At least, it seems odd to me. I mean, he raised the dead. This isn’t done every day. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, though.
The high priest advised, “You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” (John 44:50, NRSV)
Let’s get somethings straight. In many cases in the New Testament to believe in does not mean intellectual assent. In this case, it means to be persuaded to entrust. Just as it is now, the dominant power doesn’t care what people believe. You can believe anything you want. But when your belief creates a movement, a trust in a new leader that threatens the powers that be that is when they “will come and destroy both [your] holy place and [your] nation.”
The high priest’s numbers are accurate, one instead of a whole nation. That sounds reasonable. And “from that day on they planned to put him to death.” (John 11:53 NRSV)
Contemporary Parallels
In an earlier blog post I referred to a quote from Latin American Liberation theologian, Jon Sobrino:
…poverty—certainly in El Salvador—means literally to be near to death…In El Salvador, poverty has to do with death. Poverty means leading a type of life which is daily threatened by death. The poor ones are those who are destined to die before their time. (Jon Sobrino)
My argument in that post extended Sobrino’s observation that, in third world conditions, poverty is death, The poor ones are those who are destined to die before their time.
The power structure with which Jesus of Nazareth faced off plotted to have him killed because he raised the dead, one of the poor ones who die before their time.
Sobrino’s remarks about poverty and death are applicable to most parts of Central America. And the message in the story of Jesus of Nazareth is applicable to the region: if you raise the dead – if you try to better the lives of “the poor ones” – you will be killed. And in Latin America, as in first century Palestine, you will be executed by the world’s lone superpower.
The overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz, although he was not assassinated, is but one example of the dangers of attempting to raise the dead.
Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala in 1950, taking office in 1951. He was only the second democratically elected president in Guatemala’s history, his predecessor, Juan Jose Arevalo, being the first. Arbenz continued the policies of his popular predecessor – expanding the right vote, granting workers the right to organize, legitimizing political parties, as well as allowing public debate. Perhaps the most significant policy, or reform, initiated by Arbenz was the policy of agrarian land reform.
When Arbenz took power, “only 2 percent of the landholders owned 72 percent of the arable land (about 600,000 acres), and only a tiny part of their holdings was under cultivation.”[1] This resulted in the impoverishment of the Guatemala populace. With little industry to speak of, survival was tied the produce of the land, most of which was held by absent landlords – not unlike ancient Palestine during Jesus’ lifetime.
The United Fruit Company, for whom both the US Secretary of State and the Director of the CIA had worked (the brothers Dulles), was the largest single landowner in Guatemala. But the company also had monopolistic control over communications and transportation. [2]
Arbenz sought to relieve the suffering of his people by redistributing the unused land to about 100,000 families. The overwhelming majority of these families were the descendants of the indigenous people, who had lost their land during the Spanish invasion. In 1952 Arbenz got the Guatemalan Congress to pass Decree 900, which mandated the redistribution of idle lands in excess of 223 acres.
The owners were to receive compensation based on the land’s assessed tax value and they were to be paid with twenty-five-year government bonds, while the peasants would get low-interest loans from the government to buy their plots. As land reform programs go, it was by no means a radical one, since it only affected large estates. Of 341,000 landowners, only 1,700 holdings came under the provisions. But those holdings represented half the private land in the country.[3]
However, Arbenz did confiscate a huge chunk of the United Fruit Company’s unused land, stress on unused land. While the United Fruit Company was shocked by this action, Arbenz did offer $1.2 million in exchange for land. This amount “was based on the tax value [that] the company’s own accountants had declared before Decree 900 was passed.”[4] But the company balked and demanded $16 million. Arbenz refused.
Using its connections, the Dulles brothers, the United Fruit Company fomented a coup which deposed Arbenz. This coup has a name in the annals of the CIA – Operation Success. It was such a success that its methods were used to depose other popular, democratically elected, who might attempt to raise their people from death, the crushing weight of poverty that kills people before their time. Leaders in Iran, Vietnam, the Congo and Indonesia were either deposed or killed. Patrice Lumumba of the Congo was, in fact, killed. While Salvador Allende of Chile committed suicide, the presidential was surrounded by the military at the time.
If you attempt to raise the dead or those who will die before their time, if you attempt to raise the dead from crushing poverty you will be removed.
[1] Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire, Penguin Boosk, 2001. Zinn Education Project: Teaching People’s History, https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jacobo-arbenz-guzman-deposed/. August 8, 2024.
[2] “The United Fruit Company and the 1954 Guatemalan Coup “https://ufcguatemala.voices.wooster.edu/contextual-essay/#fn-26-1, August 8, 2024
[3] Gonzales, Harvest of Empire.
[4] Gonzales, Harvest of Empire.
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