John
11:1-44
The later career of Lazarus,
after his resurrection, is sadly not mentioned in the Bible. But Holy Tradition
is usually quick to fill in such gaps, and Lazarus is no exception.
According to the Eastern
Church, he had to flee a plot to kill him a second time in Judea and went to
Cyprus, where St Paul and St Barnabas ordained him first Bishop of Kition. His
episcopal stole was presented to him by no less than the Virgin Mary, who had
woven it herself. When he died there after a thirty year extension of life, he
was buried in a tomb over which the Cathedral of Larnaka was eventually built.
But according to a rival
Western tradition, Lazarus, Mary and Martha were expelled from Judea for
preaching Christianity, and put into a boat without sails or oars. A miraculous
wind blew them to Provence where Lazarus became the first Bishop of Marseille,
and founded an order of knighthood. There he was eventually beheaded by the
Emperor Domitian and buried in a cave, though his body was later taken to
Autun, or, possibly, to Vézelay.
But, whether Lazarus ended his
second career in Cyprus or in France, he died again. His return to life from
death in today’s gospel story is temporary.
But we read about it because it
is a sign. John’s Gospel is big on signs. The miracles that Jesus works, in
John, are described as ‘signs’. Now signs always point beyond themselves to
something greater. We are not meant to become fixated on the sign, but to
realise what it signifies. So, the first sign given by Jesus in John’s Gospel was
the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana. And the point of
that was not the wine, which was temporary: when it was all drunk it was gone.
That miracle was a sign of the new wine of God’s life in the wedding feast of
the Kingdom, the richness of life in the Spirit, something that will not end.
So, today, the raising of
Lazarus, who will die again, is a sign of something greater. It points to the
resurrection of Jesus, who will not die again, because he has passed into the
eternal life of God. Death has no more dominion over him. The description of
the tomb and burial of Lazarus, bound with cloths in a cave with a stone over
the entrance, just like Jesus, call this to mind.
But more than this, Jesus
himself tells Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life”. The resurrection
that the raising of Lazarus points to is not just something that happens to
Jesus, it is Jesus himself.
The “I am” sayings are another
big feature of John’s Gospel – those sayings where Jesus says “I am” – the Good
Shepherd for example, or the True Vine, or, today, the Resurrection and the
Life. There are seven “I am” sayings in John, just as there are seven signs,
and they are part of the message.
The “I am” sayings recall the
name of God disclosed to Moses from the burning bush: “I am who I am”, or
possibly, “I will be who I will be”. Moses had asked the name of God, and that
was the answer he got. Which is not really a name, not even a noun, but more
like a verb. This is a profound mystery. This God is not like the gods of the
nations, who can be understood, depicted or defined. This God exists of
himself, without a cause, without explanation, beyond names and forms. God is
pure act, said St Thomas Aquinas. God is not so much a thing that exists, as
the act of existence in itself.
So when Jesus says, “I am”, we
hear the self-existent God who revealed himself to Moses speaking also in
Jesus. God spoke once from a bush that was on fire but not consumed, a sign of
God’s limitless life, life that does not destroy or use up. Now God speaks in
Jesus of that same life.
God, speaking in Jesus, is
revealed as Resurrection and Life. God is not just life, but resurrection,
continually pouring out, continually creating and making new. According to St
Paul in Romans, God “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things
that do not exist”.
Only God can do this. Only God,
the self-existent continual creator, can call into existence things that do not
exist. And raising the dead is the supreme example of this.
And in today’s story God in
Jesus speaks this word of resurrection right here and now. Martha says, “I know
that my brother will rise again in the resurrection on the last day”. This is
true, and it is still true, wherever Lazarus was buried the second time, he
will rise again. This reading has comforted many people at the funerals of
their loved ones, and offers a sure and certain hope, as the prayer book puts
it. Martha is looking forward, in faith and hope, to a future in which she is
not yet present.
But Jesus says, “I am the
resurrection and the life”. I am. Present tense. Here and now, God is present,
God is doing a new thing, God is calling the dead into life. And the raising of
Lazarus is a sign of that.
Jesus tells us that it is in
the nature of God that God is resurrection and life. And this same God is
acting and speaking in Jesus. The Act of existence in itself, on which the
universe rests, is resurrection and life. There is no death in God, no
destruction. The bush that Moses saw was on fire but not consumed. And God in
Jesus is united with our human nature without our humanity being overwhelmed or
destroyed.
In Jesus humanity is raised to
God, to union with the Divine, without ceasing to be human. The resurrection of
Lazarus is a sign of this spiritual resurrection: humanity, body and soul,
raised into God who is Spirit. In the resurrection of Jesus we see this
completed, as Jesus in body and soul is taken into the Divine. But it is a truth
that begins to be present even now, even in our own lives.
The reading we heard from
Ezekiel speaks of this figuratively. The prophecy of the dry bones was
addressed to the Jewish people in exile in Babylon, and its literal meaning is
about them being restored to the land of Israel. But in the spiritual sense it
speaks of an interior reality: “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall
live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the
Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”
Our own soil, our own ground,
is the ground of our being, the mysterious depth where God speaks the word of
our existence and calls us into being, as only God can. Our deepest self is the
point where the human person opens to God who is Spirit, and the two are one.
When Jesus says, “I am the
resurrection and the life”, he is saying that in him this is fully present and
realised. He is the human person who is entirely open to God. He is entirely
filled with the Act that is resurrection and life. So that Jesus says and does
what the Father says and does. He and the Father are one.
But by the gift of the Spirit,
this truth and this hope are opened to all humanity. Jesus speaks what is the
Father’s will for all people: resurrection and life. Not just on the last day,
though that is true, but here and now, in this present moment. God gives his
Spirit to well up in our hearts like a spring of living water, the source of
resurrection and life pouring out within us.
How can we drink of this water?
How can we know resurrection and life? Jesus says, believe in me. That is, open
your heart to a living relationship with Jesus, the source of life, the Word of
our being. Cultivate that relationship in prayer and sacrament and through
loving service to those in need. Cultivate it by repentance, that is, by
turning away from everything that would hold us back from receiving that gift.
Believe in Jesus, and God will
be glorified in you, for that is what God wills, to pour himself out in love
and life and generosity. For the “I am” of our own existence is the “I am” that
only God can speak in us. And, speaking in us, he fills us with his glory
without overwhelming or destroying us, for he is resurrection and life, and in
him is no death or darkness at all.
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