1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Now it was Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. 3 Then the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, behold, the one you love is sick.”
4 When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days in the same place where he had been. 7 After this he said to his disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Teacher, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks by day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks by night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 After this he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him up.” 12 His disciples said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be healed.” 13 Now Jesus spoke of his own death, but they thought that he was speaking of sleeping in sleep. 14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Then Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 When Jesus came, he found that he had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs away. 19 Now many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. 20 And Martha, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet him, but Mary sat still in the house. 21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give it to you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. 26 And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
28 And when she had said this, she went and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, “The Teacher is here and calls for you.” 29 But when she heard this, she rose up quickly and came to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha had met him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, comforting her, when they saw Mary rise up quickly and go out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” 32 So when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 And some of them said, “Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38 Jesus, again deeply moved in himself, came to the tomb, which was a cave, and a stone had been laid over it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 Then they took away the stone where the dead man had been laid. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said it for the sake of the people standing by, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 Then the dead man came out, bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped in a napkin. And Jesus said to them, “Loose him and let him go.”
45 Many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what Jesus had done believed in him. 46 But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What should we do? This man does many signs. 48 If we let him go like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation. 49 Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, 50 and do not consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and not that the whole nation perish.” 51 And this he said not of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but also that he might gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.
53 And from that day on they took counsel together to put him to death. 54 So Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the country near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.
the explanation:
One day before Jesus entered Jerusalem, he raised from the dead a man named Lazarus. This man was “the one whom Jesus loved,” and he was the brother of two famous sisters in the history of the early church: Martha and Mary, who anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume and wiped them with her hair (John 12:3). The church saw in the raising of Lazarus an image of the general resurrection and eternal life promised to believers. The evangelist John is the only one to tell the story of Lazarus’ death and raising him in the entire eleventh chapter.
When Lazarus fell ill, his sisters Martha and Mary sent someone to tell Jesus, who commented that “this illness does not lead to death, but to the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (11:4). However, Jesus remained where he was for two days before heading to Bethany, the village where Lazarus and his sisters lived. In this regard, Saint John Chrysostom (408+) says that Christ intended to delay two days before responding to Martha and Mary’s invitation “so that Lazarus might breathe his last and be buried, and his body might begin to decay and decompose.” Jesus himself says to the disciples, when he invites them to accompany him: “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to wake him up” (v. 11). And in another verse he says to them: “I am glad for your sakes, so that you may believe that I was not there” (15). That is, he knew Lazarus’ fate, that he would die and that he would raise him to “the glory of God,” as stated in the fourth verse.
The disciples are afraid to answer Christ’s call to accompany him to Bethany for fear of the Jews who tried to stone him (verse 8). In this context comes the answer of the Apostle Thomas: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (verse 16). At first glance, Thomas’s call to the other apostles seems to be an encouragement to martyrdom and a desire to share the same fate as Christ. However, Saint Chrysostom says that the Apostle Thomas said this “out of fear of death, not out of love of martyrdom,” and he continues by saying that Thomas “only after the resurrection and his faith in it did not fear death.”
The event reaches its theological climax in the dialogue between the Lord and Martha. Christ says to her: “Your brother will rise again.” Martha replies: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” But Christ declares to her in the famous verse: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live; and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (verses 23-26). Here Christ emphasizes, as in many verses of the Gospel of John, that eternal life has already begun, and is not something in the future that one awaits. He who lives with God in this earthly life continues to live in God and with God—without interruption—in eternal life. This is what the noble verse from John indicates: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life, and shall not stand condemned, but has passed from death to life” (5:24). It is worth noting that the writer uses the verb “to be” in this verse in the present tense, not the future tense, and this indicates that eternal life is present “now and here,” that is, in the present time and place.
The Gospel text describes the reaction of Jesus Christ to the death of his friend Lazarus, and narrates that Jesus “was troubled in his heart, and his soul was troubled (…) and his eyes welled up with tears” (verses 33-35). Here is an important reference to the human nature of Jesus Christ, and to his being a complete human being. This is very necessary, especially since the Gospel of John emphasizes the divinity of the Lord more than any other Gospel. Although Lazarus had become stench, having spent four days in the tomb, Christ cried out to him at the top of his voice: “Lazarus, come out,” and he came out (43-44). It is also noteworthy that Christ reaffirms that the goal of Lazarus’ death was “for the glory of God,” as he strengthens the resolve of his sister Martha, saying to her: “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” That is, you would see your brother’s return to life.
When the chief priests and Pharisees saw that many Jews believed in Christ as a result of his raising of Lazarus, they decided to kill Christ because “he performs many signs. If we leave him alone, they will all believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy our sanctuary and our nation.” The judgment comes from the tongue of Caiaphas, the high priest: “It is better for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (verses 45-54). The members of the Jewish lodge sentenced Christ to death because they realized that his teachings and miracles would destroy the literalism of their religion. Between their earthiness and the truth that Christ brought, they chose dust and rejected the truth.
Church tradition says that Lazarus went to the island of Cyprus and preached Christ there and became its bishop until he fell asleep in the Lord and was buried there. On this, Suleiman, Bishop of Gaza, writes a poem:
Lazarus' body lies on the island, and his grave in Jerusalem has become empty.
It indicates that Christ raised him from the dead, as he came from death as a healer.
Blessed is the dead man whom God has appointed as a bishop of the priesthood on the island and as a governor.
The poet was right when he said in the same poem, criticizing those who received Christ entering Jerusalem, for their hypocrisy and lack of sincerity and belief that he was the savior. Those who received him singing hymns in disbelief, were the same ones who cried out a few days later, “Let him be crucified, let him be crucified.” In this he sang, saying:
And Jesus is on the donkey, and the people are shouting to him, glorifying God, and he is fulfilling it.
The glorification of the Jews was not out of trust, but because of a saying that the people said in mockery.
About my parish bulletin
Sunday, April 28, 2002 / Issue 17
