Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 26 March 2023

Icon with the Rasing of Lazarus from the Dead. Constantinople 10th century

Fifth Sunday of Lent

The Lazarus Question

At the heart of this Sunday's gospel is the story of Lazarus, a figure who is close to Jesus, for they are friends and love each other, and whose sisters also make up part of that very close circle of people, distinct from the disciples, except of course `John, the one Jesus loved, who must have supported Jesus in all kinds of ways and been trusted by him in return. The Gospel story of John 11:1-45 is one of poignant insights into the closer attachments of the Lord, but also of that empathy he had with others need, in this case the death of his friend and the grief of Martha and Mary. Yet, underneath all this, there is also the follow up story, that sinister plotting of those who sought the death of Jesus and will achieve this aim, but as also we need to recognise that of Lazarus himself ; as John puts it in the next section of this gospel :' When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus".(Jn 12: 9-11)

What is the point I am trying to make? A simple one really! This gospel does puzzle some of us, and we tend to read it in all kinds of ways and form different angles, only the whole purpose of what takes place is not understood in the context of what happens then, but as Jesus tells us: '"This illness is not to end in death,* but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."'(Jn 11:4) The point is that the real story is the revelation to us of Christ, the one who will be the firstborn to rise from the dead to eternal life-not Lazarus whom he raises, but who has to die again. So how do we take this story into our own experience?

Friendship with God

This, I'm afraid is my own insight, which I have thought about and wrestled with for a long time, so bear with me. Throughout the gospels the story of Jesus the Christ, right from that angelic song of the angels to the shepherds in the fields, is one about relationship and love bound up in human need, suffering, pain and a desire to make all good in the hope of the Kingdom to come. There is a theme of deep friendship from the Divine One towards humanity and created life, of a love poured out upon us, but too often misunderstood, or in the case of our perverse sinful nature, twisted to fit our own narrative. Particularly as we remember in openness the last days of the passion and death of the Lord, this theme of love and friendship tugs at our hearts in continual remembrance especially shown to us by John's gospel. In the washing of the feet at his last supper Jesus gives us the command of friendship:

'If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet,
you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you'. (Jn 13: 14,15)

An example which he then tells all of us is summed up in a greater call that everybody who hears him can take up: '"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."'(Jn 13: 34-35)

When we take all this vocation to friendship into consideration, that story of Lazarus becomes not a distant tale of a healing, but of our friendship with Jesus, which will end up by our own individual calling by Jesus, to 'come out' of death, but unlike Lazarus to never die again! It is the story of our lop-sided friendship with Christ, for even now we are bound up by sin, death, illness, all those world weary events which tie us down, and only He, Christ can unbind us and call us to be free to love fully.

I am Lazarus

The other readings of this Sunday act like a mantra or refrain, basically the first reading from Exodus gives us the underlying chant: 'Thus says the Lord GOD: Look! I am going to open your graves; I will make you come up out of your graves, my people, and bring you back '.(Ex 37:12) Isn't that what so many of us come to hope in, that our earthly lives are not simply the years spent living here for a time-but so much more. That in the end some form of Divine Justice, will right the wrongs, make straight the crooked, give a peace that will never end, a forgiveness that has no retributive justice, a love that will not fail, a home forever? We have this hope at the heart of our Paschal celebrations when we chant; 'Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and to those in the grave he has given life'. We have it here in the story of Lazarus, who becomes each one of us, loved by Christ always and who wants us the have life. The best way to enter this gospel is to 'become' Lazarus and see everything said and done as if to ourselves, but to know that the miracle of Lazarus was the example of love bringing him to life for a while, to die again-in order that his friend Christ Jesus may wake him a second time forever, but that also each and every one of us may have hope and trust in Christ our true friend.

Lectio Divina

On Lazarus

I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Angelus 5th Sunday of Lent 2008

Reflection of Lazarus

Pope Benedict XVI

This lordship over death does not impede Jesus from feeling sincere "com-passion" for the sorrow of detachment. Seeing Martha and Mary and those who had come to console them weeping, Jesus "was deeply moved in spirit and troubled", and lastly, "wept" (Jn 11: 33, 35). Christ's heart is divine-human: in him God and man meet perfectly, without separation and without confusion. He is the image, or rather, the incarnation of God who is love, mercy, paternal and maternal tenderness, of God who is Life. Therefore, he solemnly declared to Martha: "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". And he adds, "Do you believe this?" (Jn 11: 25-26). It is a question that Jesus addresses to each one of us: a question that certainly rises above us, rises above our capacity to understand, and it asks us to entrust ourselves to him as he entrusted himself to the Father. Martha's response is exemplary: "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world" (Jn 11: 27). Yes, O Lord! We also believe, notwithstanding our doubts and darkness; we believe in you because you have the words of eternal life. We want to believe in you, who give us a trustworthy hope of life beyond life, of authentic and full life in your Kingdom of light and peace.

Poem of Lazarus

Fr Robert Gibbons

'Come out Lazarus!'
I heard Him,
my loving friend,
but I could not answer.

For sleep
had dulled me beyond dreams
to dark, dead, nothingness.

'Come out Lazarus!

It was like an arrow
of hottest fire
piercing my heart,
and into my innards
and my marrow.

I have no words
to describe
its awful power.

"Come out, Lazarus!'

Weary beyond weariness,
bound, tied, wrapped
I fell from my stone bier.

The stone of my grave
had been rolled away,
but it seemed back to front.

No unwrapped linen clothes,
no angel-but uncreated light.

And so it was!
For from these years I see
that greater angels ministered to Him
my friend,
who was and is that light of light.

Who called me
with love to life,
and then to be his witness
of power, glory,
and the resurrection to come-
which has come!

RPPG March 25th 2023