Pastor
~ Most Catholic grade school students know Jesus’ first miracle. Heck, I bet that most of you know Jesus’ first miracle, right? Jesus’ first miracle is traditionally recalled at changing water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. But what is Jesus’ final miracle? Aside from rising from the dead and ascending to the Father, which are pretty good miracles I would say, you could make the case that raising Lazarus from the dead was his final miracle. After all, it takes place in John’s gospel right before the Passion. Every word, every sign of Jesus’ ministry has been leading up to this one. Even if you want to get picky and say it’s not Jesus’ final miracle, I think it’s easy to make the case that the raising of Lazarus is Jesus’ greatest miracle. (If you need some proof, Fr. James Martin wrote an entire book on the raising of Lazarus, and it’s subtitled: The Promise of Jesus’ Greatest Miracle. So there you have it! And if you are looking for some excellent spiritual reading, especially in these final days of Lent, I highly recommend this read, which Fr. Martin titled “Come Forth!” He said that he went with Come Forth, instead of Come Out, so that folks didn’t think the book was just directed at LGBTQ people. No, in fact, it is a story for us all!)
This story is unmatched in the New Testament for sheer drama! I think it would make a great movie. Consider the scenes:
Lazarus’s sisters Martha and Mary asking Jesus to come and heal their brother, whom they call, touchingly, “he whom you love”;
Jesus’s mysterious delay in arrival;
The sisters’ forceful response when he finally arrives after their brother’s death (“Lord, if you had been here our brother would not have died!”);
Jesus’s weeping at his friend’s tomb, out of sadness and anger;
and, finally the miracle itself: raising a person who had been dead for four days, with the words that the Gospel tells us he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!”
But what can the story of what happened over 2,000 year ago in Bethany, a few miles from Jerusalem, say to us today? Plenty, I think!
In the phrase “he whom you love,” used by the two sisters to describe Lazarus, we are reminded that Jesus had not only disciples but friends. Isn’t that lovely?
In Jesus’s delay in coming to see Lazarus, we are reminded of Jesus’s utter freedom, especially in John’s Gospel, but also in our lives.
In the sisters’ remonstrating with Jesus for his lateness, we see the importance of honesty in speaking with God.
In Jesus’s tears, whether from anger or sadness, we see his humanity on full display.
And in his raising of Lazarus, we see Jesus’s power even over death. As he tells the sisters, he will not only give life; he is life.
And in Jesus telling the crowd to “untie him” we see the need for a community to help us on our journey of faith. We can’t do it all alone!
But for us today, perhaps as important as what Jesus does, is what Lazarus does. Lazarus listens to Jesus and leaves behind death.
What does that mean for us? Well, all of us have things that prevent us from living fully, living wholly, living the way that God desires us to live. Maybe it’s an old grudge, maybe it’s a disappointment from long ago, maybe it’s an unhealthy pattern of living—you’re too mean or resentful or self-centered. These are the things that we are called to “let die” in the tomb. These are the things that God asks us to leave behind, so that we can walk into the sunlight, like Lazarus did.
But how can we “come out”? How can we leave behind those dead parts of ourselves? One way is to look at Lazarus. In a number of fictional versions of this story—novels, plays and poems—Lazarus doesn’t want to come back. He’s happy where he is, presumably in heaven. But, to come out of the tomb, to come forth into new life, Lazarus first had to know who was calling him. Lazarus can walk out of the tomb because he is so close to Jesus. He trusts him, because he knows him.
It’s the same for us. We can walk out of our tombs confidently because we know who is calling us. Yes, friends, Jesus is calling. He has been calling since Ash Wednesday. He has been calling all your life. So you might ask yourself today: What do you need to “let die” in the tomb? Because Jesus is calling you into the light, into new life, to leave behind all that keeps you dead, bound, entombed. Every day of our life, Jesus is calling to you, saying, “Come out! Come to life again!” So, will you?
