Lazarus, come forth!

And when she had said these things, she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister, saying, "The Teacher has come and is calling for you."  As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to Him.  Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met Him.   Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, "She is going to the tomb to weep there."  Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."  Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.  And He said, "Where have you laid him?"  They said to Him, "Lord, come and see."  Jesus wept.  Then the Jews said, "See how He loved him!"  And some of them said, "Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?"

Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb.  It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.  Jesus said, "Take away the stone."  Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days."  Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"  Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.  And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.  And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me."  Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!"  And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face wrapped with a cloth.  Jesus said to them, "Loose him, and let him go."

- John 11:28-44

Yesterday, we read that 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.  Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."  The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?"  Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?  If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.  But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him."  These things He said, and after that He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up."  Then His disciples said, "Lord, if he sleeps he will get well."  However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep.  Then Jesus said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead.  And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe.  Nevertheless let us go to him."   Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him."   So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.  Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.  And many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.  Now Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house.  Now Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You."  Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."  Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."  Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.  Do you believe this?"  She said to Him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world."

And when she had said these things, she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister, saying, "The Teacher has come and is calling for you."  As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to Him.  Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met Him.  Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, "She is going to the tomb to weep there."  Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."  We recall that Martha has gone out to greet Jesus, while Mary was sitting in mourning inside the house, together with those who've come from Jerusalem to mourn with her.  (Once again, we recall that the term the Jews in John's Gospel is used like a political term.  It denotes those from Jerusalem who belong to households of members of the ruling parties.   All the people in this story are Jews, including Jesus and the author of the Gospel.)   And we also note again the different characters of these sisters, consistent with all the Gospel stories we know of them.  Martha is concerned with hospitality, while Mary sits in the house in the position of mourning.  But Mary responds immediately when she's told that Jesus is calling for her.  And then we see that her words are those of her sister, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.  But Jesus' response to the two sisters differs.  He engaged Martha with words.  But He engages Mary with deeds, as we read farther along in the text.

Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.  And He said, "Where have you laid him?"  They said to Him, "Lord, come and see."  Jesus wept.  Then the Jews said, "See how He loved him!"  And some of them said, "Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?"  Jesus wept is the shortest verse in the Bible.   John's writing emphasizes that He wept and also groaned in spirit to show He had fully taken on human nature and was subject to grief as any human being would be.  Weeping, says my study bible, is the natural human response to the tragedy of death.  In the Orthodox Church calendar today is known as Lazarus Saturday.  An Eastern hymn of the Compline service sings of Jesus,  "Shedding tears by Your own choice, You have given us proof of Your heartfelt love."

Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb.  It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.  Jesus said, "Take away the stone."  Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days."  Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"   Although Martha's faith had increased, she still did not understand Christ's will nor His power.  We note that John's Gospel often shows us the evolution of faith in the people who interact with Jesus.  The spices and oils that were used to anoint a dead body would only keep away the stench of decomposition for a short time.  In icons of the Eastern Church that portray this event, many include bystanders covering their noses, illustrating both the time that has passed since Lazarus' death and the resulting decay, and also the fact that many did not believe Christ could raise Him after four days.

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.  And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.  And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me."   Jesus expresses the fact that His divine will is one with the Father's, and that His human will is freely subject in every way to God the Father.  He prays aloud for the sake of the people who are standing by -- and by implication, for everyone.

Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!"  My study bible notes here that Christ calls Lazarus to come forth, not in the name of the Father, but by His own authority.  This is a clear command from God the Word.  It shows the people that while Christ came from the Father, He fully possesses divine authority in Himself. 

 And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face wrapped with a cloth.  Jesus said to them, "Loose him, and let him go."   The picture of Lazarus walking out of the grave, bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face wrapped with a cloth, is a sort of indelible image.  Many Church Fathers hold that it's an indication that Lazarus will need these graveclothes again.  His resurrection continues an earthly life which will again end in death.  This is contrasted with the fact that Jesus' graveclothes would be left in the tomb (20:5-7).  My study bible says that unlike Lazarus's, Christ's Resurrection transfigures human nature.  He will never die again.  This seventh sign in John's Gospel of the raising of Lazarus prepares the disciples to believe in Christ's Resurrection.  My study bible also cites more words of the Eastern hymn for this day:  it "confirmed the universal resurrection."  This proves that Christ has the power to fulfill the promise given to Ezekiel that all the dead will one day rise (Ezekiel 37:-13). 

Tradition in the Church teaches us more about Lazarus' subsequent life after he was raised by Jesus.  The Gospel goes on (in chapter 12) to say that because of this extraordinary miracle witnessed by many from Jerusalem, the plot to kill Jesus also included the plan to put Lazarus to death.  In fact, it tells us that many in the crowd who come to greet Jesus on Palm Sunday do so because of the miracle of this seventh sign of the raising of Lazarus, and this gives another motive for the leadership to put both of them to death.  The Pharisees exclaim in frustration, "You see that you are accomplishing nothing.  Look, the world has gone after Him!" (see John 12:9-19).  Lazarus' pivotal place in the story of Jesus' life and death placed him in grave danger, and Tradition teaches that he eventually fled Jerusalem and came to Cyprus.  There, he was made bishop by Paul and Barnabus in what is now Larnaca, Cyprus.  He lived for thirty more years.  Tradition says that he never smiled after his miraculous resurrection by Jesus, and gives the reason as being the souls he saw awaiting redemption during his four-day stay in Hades.  There is one story in which he smiled on a single occasion.  Seeing someone steal a pot, he said, "The clay steals the clay."  We can't imagine what it was like to be Lazarus, friend of Jesus, among this family of close friends to Jesus.  We know that this great miracle was the occasion for greater persecution, and for a life, it seems, marked by the experience of seeing what most people never understand.  But the understanding of our own mortality is not seen as a negative in the spiritual tradition of the Church.  It is something which monastic tradition has held is an important reality for us to contemplate, keeping us aware of the here and the now -- the mindfulness of the present moment and the importance of our choices and in what (and Whose) light we make them.  It seems also important to understand that this supernatural power of Jesus has effects that none of us can foresee nor contemplate.  The great miracle of Lazarus' resurrection is the final one of seven in John's Gospel, occasion of affirmation for those who believe, but also spurring on the plot to kill not only Jesus, but also Lazarus, and eventually leading to the persecution and martyrdom of many followers of Jesus.   It teaches us that the power of God will not necessarily force those to believe who wish to reject what is on offer in that power.  Rather, it instead works as Jesus has said in the previous chapter, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."  God's power does not persuade in the sense that it destroys our free will. No one is compelled to love God.  But the power of God at work in the world does, in fact, accelerate and heighten the effects of our choices, at least as told in the story of the Gospels.  Intrigues swirl and heighten the degree of instability, the suggestions of injustice and murder and false witness, the strategies of those who live for their own power instead.  All of these things add up, not to compel us to follow one way, but to make our own choices:  in what or Whom do we put our trust?   We will find that the world remains in this place, right here and right now.  It is the allegiance that we choose, the trust with which we choose to align.   These choices are always with us.  Uncertainty and instability are times of danger because they invite in the illusion of false, easy choices which seem expedient, but deny the spiritual values of truth and justice and mercy.  Let us be alert and endure, His way.