In John’s Gospel, as the Lenten Lectionary of Year A, the raising of Lazarus is the last “sign” that Jesus works in order to manifest the glory of the Father and announce his supreme personal glorification at his Passover.
For John, Jesus’ miracles— and his works in general— are “signs.” For, while glorifying the Father, these actions give us intimations of the true identity of the one who does them, and as a consequence, they aim at enkindling faith. We have here genuine theophanies that point to the supreme manifestation of the cross, the glorification, the “elevation” of the Son of Man. From his open side will gush forth blood and water, signs of the fecundity of Christs’ death, which is the source of life for those who, lifting their eyes to him, believe like John, the faithful witness.
If the evangelist devotes such space to the raising of Lazarus, it is because it prepares us to understand well the meaning of the Lord’s passion. An attentive reading reveals this intention. Jesus has escaped the hands of those who wanted to stone him and has withdrawn beyond the Jordan to the place where John the Baptist had first baptised. Now he returns to Judea — Bethany is “near, Jerusalem, only about two miles away”
— because the hour has come when the Son of Man is to be glorified.
Jesus leaves “to awaken” his friend from death, knowing full well that his Father always listens to his prayer. He assures Martha that her brother Lazarus will come back to life. However, he is “perturbed and deeply troubled,” and he weeps. Emotion surges again when he reaches the tomb. “See how he loved him,” some witnesses say; others “could not one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?” A good number of commentators and preachers have also seen in the emotions and tears of Jesus the expression of the deep friendship that bound him to Lazarus and his sisters. They like to highlight the fact that he was filled with the feelings common to all humans. Some even go so far as to interpret Jesus’ reaction to his friend’s death as the expression, equally human, of his trouble at the absurdity of death.
Despite its interests and lofty developments to which it can give rise, this reading is probably not the one that corresponds to John’s intent. For we notice that he speaks of a similar “trouble” in Jesus four other times. When Philip mentions the Greeks who want to see him, Jesus says: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” and he adds “I am troubled now.” — When “his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father,” during the meal he was taking with his disciples, “Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” But although the prospect of his passion troubles him, Jesus does not hesitate, and with full lucidity he assumes his vocation: “What should I say? Father, save me from this hour? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.” And he asks his disciples not to let themselves be troubled by the prediction of his death.
In the account of his passion, John does not speak of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane. It is hinted at here, in the gospel of the raising of Lazarus, which is a sign not only of mastery over death given by the Father to the Son of Man, but also of the glory that his own resurrection will make manifest on Easter.
But other details do not escape the attentive reader; these details show how much the reality signified by the raising of Lazarus goes beyond the sign. People had removed the stone that enclosed the tomb where Lazarus was laid. In the case of Jesus — “On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning…… and saw the stone was removed from the tomb” — Lazarus came out of his tomb “tied hand and foot. With burial bands, and his face wrapped in a cloth”; he had to be untied so that he could move. The linens used in Jesus’ burial remained there in the tomb Peter and John saw “the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial clothes but rolled up in a separate place.” No-one had to intervene either to roll away the stone or to free Jesus from his bonds.
Lastly and most importantly, Lazarus was called back to life only for a while. It even seems that he had been dead for a long time when John wrote his Gospel; for he speaks of him as of someone unknown to his readers, since he identifies him as the brother of Mary and Martha. In contrast, Jesus came out of the tomb to live forever.
Truly the raising of Lazarus is the sign that prefigures the definitive triumph of Jesus on the. Cross, God’s glory, and the glorification of the Son victorious over death, who “awakens” believers, making them pass, already here below, to the life that bodily death cannot touch.
The raising of Lazarus is the ultimate and decisive sign worked by Jesus. A variety of features show that it must be understood in the perspective of the “hour” of Jesus that will see his glorification and make manifest the Father’s glory. This all-important text is especially appropriate to the Sunday before Passion Sunday in Year A, after the Gospels of the living water and the man born blind. The liturgical context—in harmony with that of John’s Gospel—points to a symbolic understanding, replete with meaning, of this great deed in Jesus’ life. This is an event sign to which each of us must try to relate, an event-revelation that requires from each of us a personal answer. “I am the resurrection and the life…..Do you believe this?” No-one in the Christian assembly can evade this question.
The other miracles John reports are habitually followed by a discourse that explains the meaning of the sign just worked. Nothing of the sort here, but only a certain number of declarations made as the action develops. “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” “If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if he walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”
“Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe.”
This sort of composition has been likened to the words of a commentator explaining an unfolding of the liturgy, arousing the attention, spurring the curiosity, and provoking the reflection of the assembly.
And so, we find ourselves led to the dialogue with Martha and to the culminating point of the revelation, which confers meaning on the sign. “I am the resurrection and the life.” This supreme declaration of Jesus is followed by the ever-resounding question, “Do you believe this?”
Saint Augustine tells us:
“Jesus said to Martha ‘your brother will rise.’ The answer was ambiguous. He did not say, ‘I’m going to raise up your brother now,’ but ‘your brother will rise.’ Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day. Of that resurrection I am sure; of this, unsure.’ Jesus told her, ‘I am the resurrection. You say, ‘My brother will rise on the last day.’ It is true, but he who will raise him up then can also raise him up now. He said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ Listen my brothers and sisters listen to what he is saying. Assuredly, the hope of all those present was to see Lazarus, dead for four days, come back to life: let us listen and let us be raised up.”
Since it entered the world, death, together with sin that is its cause, puts its imprint on everything. For all that, death cannot defeat the God of life and the living God delivers his people from their graves—(as we hear in the first reading)—the grave of deportation, for instance— as soon as they turn from their sin. Indeed, from the beginning, he promised that death would not have the last word. “I have said it, and I will do it,’ he says over and over again.
This promise accompanies that of a Saviour whom prophets, sent by God, announced in order to teach humankind “to hope for salvation.”
“And the Word became flesh…..” “Through him was life….” “But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were not born by natural generation nor by human choice nor by man’s decision but of God.” (Jn 1:14,4,12-13)
Of this power and mission, Jesus gave signs, among which the raising of Lazarus stands out. Through this sign, he showed that he himself was the resurrection and the life, and he declared, “Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
This process of moving toward life is started at baptism, in which we are born to faith. Still under the law of death, we can and we must, animated by the Spirit who vivifies us, lead a life free of the control of mortal flesh, with the assurance of one day sharing in the Lord’s resurrection. Such a certainty must not, however, cause us to forget the inescapable step of the cross. Christ, resurrection and life, has gone through it with us. The raising of Lazarus had as its immediate consequence the condemnation of Jesus to death; he freely gave his life so that we might live forever. Like Thomas we say:
“Let us also go to Jerusalem to die with him,” and with him to rise, for:-
“With the Lord there is mercy, in him is plentiful redemption.”
