Lazarus

We hear this weekend in John’s Gospel how Jesus travels to Bethany to comfort his dear friends, Mary and Martha, on the death of their brother Lazarus. When he nears the village, Martha goes to greet him and expresses a little disappointment with Jesus: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him. Mary, her sister, runs to meet Jesus and she too seems to express disappointment that Jesus had not come sooner. She fell at his feet, saying, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Even some of those that had come to comfort the two sisters said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have prevented this man from dying?

Jesus was inwardly distressed and wept. He went to the cave which was the tomb of Lazarus and asked that the stone be taken away. When it was removed Jesus lifted up his eyes and prayed to the Father, and cried in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of material and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said those around him. Unbind him and let him go.

Jesus, in raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, was not just doing something miraculous, but emphasising what he said to Martha: I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and no one who lives and believes in me will ever die. Do you believe this? She said, Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into this world.

On this Sunday evening, at the 6pm Mass, at the Third Scrutiny, we pray for those who will be baptised at the Easter Vigil: ‘Lord Jesus, by raising Lazarus from the dead you showed that you came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Free from the grasp of death those who await your life-giving sacraments and deliver them from the spirit of corruption.’

As we reflect on the Gospel this week, it would be good to reflect on the words of Pope Francis:

‘Before the sealed tomb of his friend Lazarus, Jesus “cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come out!’ And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth” (vv. 43-44). This cry is an imperative to all men, because we are all marked by death, all of us; it is the voice of the One who is master of life and wants that all we all may “have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). Christ is not resigned to the tombs that we have built for ourselves with our choice for evil and death, with our errors, with our sins….He invites us, almost orders us, to come out of the tomb in which our sins have buried us. He calls us insistently to come out of the darkness of that prison in which we are enclosed, content with a false, selfish and mediocre life. “Come out!” he says to us, “Come out!”…… It is an invitation to let ourselves be freed from the “bandages”, from the bandages of pride.’