"LAZARUS, COME OUT!" ^_[1]

MYSTERIOUS CHOICE

1.  The Mount of Olives, familiar to most Christians for its Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus' jubilant procession into Jerusalem, and later his ascension to the right hand of God, proves to be the dramatic setting for still another miraculous event in salvation history. When Lazarus becomes ill at his home in Bethany, a village situated on the east slope of the Mount of Olives about two miles distant from Jerusalem, his sisters Mary and Martha send an intimate, revealing, yet discreet message:  "Lord, he whom you love is ill."  [Jn 11:3]  Their words, neither florid or sterile, witness their belief in Jesus' lordship and express feelings of tenderness and worry. Jesus mysteriously chooses to linger beyond the region of Judea, thereby giving full reign to the finality of Lazarus death. On the third day, approaching his decisive rendezvous at the cave in which his dear friend is interred, Jesus becomes deeply emotional. A number of years ago, in the month of September, I entered a small and complex cave. I felt its cool atmosphere to be heavy and solemn. Not entirely quiet, the little chamber echoed with curious noises--the sound of sighing and varied little chirps. People milled outside of the cave. The voices were intrusive, and I resented them. The cave was a small room in the Intensive Care Unit of a nationally known cancer center. The sounds of sighing were formed by a mechanical respirator, the little chirping noises were beeps from a heart monitor and other equipment. My friend Jim, being maintained on life support machinery, actually died two days before I was able to see him. After the long flight from Toronto, I was shocked to see my friend Jim on life-support. Only a few days earlier, he was the picture of health. Who could guess that a devastating leukemia would cut him down within the span of one week? Jim, only thirty-two years old, had been studying for the priesthood! I prayed at his bedside through the night. In the morning, when the medical staff moved to disconnect Jims life support, I remained at his side in vigil until it was over. The sighing of the respirator stopped. The rhythmic up-and-down  movement of Jims chest ceased. The color of his complexion darkened immediately. The chirping of the monitor went on for what seemed a dreadfully long time, getting slower and slower until the alarm sounded in one long uninterrupted cry. The triumph of silence was complete. Contemplating the story of Lazarus causes my thoughts to turn to Jim and my powerlessness to wake him from unending sleep. Even now, I sometimes ask God to tell me why, to show me how Jim's death was a fruitful part of his divine plan. Why? is the universal plea of families whose loved ones die tragically and young. Mary and Martha lost their brother. In sorrow, Mary laments, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."  [Jn 11:21]  We cry for Lazarus, for our deceased, and for ourselves. The experience of physical death is not the only condition which enables one to identify with the enhumation^[2] of Lazarus. For example, it is possible for one to live in an emotional tomb, trapped and imprisoned within himself. One may even feel that he is dying inside, his fortunes adrift like the falling leaf, his melancholic heart a gravestone:  "It is in this darkness when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our own minds, when we seem to be useless and worthy of all contempt, when we seem to have failed, when we seem to be destroyed and devoured, it is then that the deep and secret selfishness that is too close to us to identify is stripped away from our souls.  It is in this darkness that we find liberty. It is in this abandonment that we are made strong. This is the night which empties us and makes us pure."^[3]

RENDING HUMAN BARRIERS

2.  Delaying his return to Bethany in Judea, Jesus prepares to contend against the principalities and powers of death.  [cf. Eph 6:12]  "This illness," he says, "is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it."  [Jn 11:4]  His disciples--fearing that he could be stoned on order of the religious authorities--beg him not to return to Judea. If Lazarus is only asleep, they remark, would it not be foolish to risk death by traveling to Bethany?  Lazarus is dead  [cf. Jn 11:14], Jesus responds emphatically, and if you wish to discover what meaning this death has for you, come with me. The apostle Thomas begrudges a commitment that only John will honor at Golgotha:  "Let us also go, that we may die with him."  [Jn 11:16]  As Jesus approaches his friends gravesite, he is "deeply moved in spirit and troubled".  [Jn 11:33]  The shadow of the cross looms over him: the height and depth of God's incomparable mercy rending the human barriers of sin and death. Jesus hears the bell of salvation history tolling his own impending sacrifice. He weeps for Lazarus, for his people, and for himself. Why did Jesus not deliver Lazarus at the moment he receives the sisters' urgent message? As he had done for many others? Would not the cure of Lazarus reveal God's power and glory? But this occasion was to be totally unique. That Lazarus had died could not be contested; Jesus would raise him from the dead in the presence of many witnesses as a sign of Gods glory. Hence, the raising of Lazarus would be a proof and a prophecy of Jesus' power over life and death. In John's gospel, the Lazarus miracle is the culmination of Jesus' public ministry and its definitive sign. Jesus offers prayerful thanks to God before summoning the dead man in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out!  [cf. Jn 11:43]  The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke relate that, preceding the moment of his death by crucifixion, Jesus cries out with anguish and suffering. The evangelist John, however, relates that Jesus consummated his earthly life and ministry by a simple passion proclamation, It is finished.  [cf. Jn 19:30]  Tellingly, John situates Jesus in front of Lazarus tomb in the act of crying out. Lazarus is delivered from the grip of death. The summons to life must triumph over the lament of death. Jesus reverses his disciples expectations by revealing God's glory with confidence and assurance, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me."  [Jn 11:41]  We hear the bell of John's Gospel pealing the favorable time in salvation history:  1.)  the faithful disciple Lazarus who dies even as Jesus receives word of his illness,  2.)  the three days in which Jesus receives the news yet delays in setting out,  3.)  Our Lord's profound love for Lazarus and his sisters,  4.)  Jesus' growing realization of his own abandonment at the hour of his crucifixion,  5.)  the finality of the great stone covering Lazarus' tomb,  6.)  Jesus' ministry crowned by the triumphant miracle of Lazarus rising from the dead, and 7.) Lazarus name which means one whose help is in God.  Fortunately death does not have the last word for Jim or the believer who faithfully follows the light of Christ.  [cf. Jn 11:9]  The final, authoritative word of the Christian story is resurrection. Our Lord, who died on the cross two thousand years ago, was a single grain of wheat cast into the fertile soil which he himself prepared.  [cf. Jn 12:24]  As the first fruits of the resurrection, Jesus Christ enables all Christians to share in the bountiful harvest of his passion, death and resurrection. This is why the bells ring at the Vigil of Easter during the singing of the Gloria:  "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"   [Jn 11:25-26]