Now a man was ill, Lazarus (Gr. "God has helped") from Bethany (Heb. "House of mercy"), the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters went word to Jesus saying, "Master, the one you love is ill." When Jesus heard this he said, "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." Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." He said this, and then told them, "Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him." So the disciples said to him, "Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved." But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them clearly, "Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him." "So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go to die with him."
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world."
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, "The teacher is here and is asking for you." As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Sir, come and see." And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him." But some of them said, "Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man
have done something so that this man would not have died?"
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days." Jesus said to her. "Did I not tell you that if you believe
you will see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said,
"Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me." And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go."
Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.
The Gospel of the Lord.
"And Jesus wept." is the shortest verse in the New Testament. "Jesus wept" even though Jesus knew that Lazarus would rise ["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."; "Our friend Lazarus is asleep but I am going to awaken him."; "Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe."; "Your brother will rise."; "Take away the stone * * * * Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?"] His weeping shows Jesus knew the pain and sorrow the loss of a loved one causes, even for those with the strongest belief in an afterlife and who know that the separation is only temporary, and, from the viewpoint of eternity, even momentary. At a simple command from Jesus, Lazarus comes forth from the tomb.
Perhaps Jesus delayed going to Bethany to show that there is no way around death even for God's friends, even for God's only Son. "Unless a grain of wheat dies, it remains but a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces a harvest a hundred fold."
Death is not an end for the Christian but marks the beginning of something new and wonderful. Death marks the entrance to eternal life, where the faithful will be alive to God and happy with him forever.
As Jesus dies, he knows that his death is becoming the source of life, just as the seed in the earth must be destroyed that a new plant may be born: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." Jn 12:24.
Jesus is the grain of wheat that falls to the earth, is split open, is destroyed and dies, and for this very reason is able to bear fruit. From the day on which Christ was raised upon it, the Cross, which had seemed to be a sign of desolation, of abandonment, of failure, has become a new beginning; from the profundity of death is raised the promise of eternal life. The victorious splendor of the dawning day of Easter already shines upon the Cross.
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