Jesus (45 page)

John's Gospel invites us into an intimate moment with Jesus. His humanity is on full display. So is his divinity. He weeps, but he also publicly declares that he is “the resurrection and the life,” and Mary affirms his divinity. The man who is proclaimed as divine shows compassion. God weeps for Lazarus.

When Jesus is brought to the tomb, he orders the stone to be taken away. At the time some of the tombs in the region consisted of a cave whose opening was covered by a stone that fit into a groove dug in the ground, so the stone could be rolled away. So the idea of “taking away the stone” fits with archaeological evidence; this kind of burial was widespread in first-century Palestine.
⁹
Many of the dead were buried in either a natural cave or a hole carved into the rocks, where there would be several shelves for bodies, each wrapped in linen, with the head and hands wrapped separately.

The practical Martha, however, protests. “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Why would Jesus want to open the tomb anyway? Martha might have thought that Jesus wanted one last look at Lazarus, “our friend.”
¹⁰

Martha's protests are entirely reasonable—she is concerned that if the tomb is opened, there will be a smell. Neither she nor the Gospel of John sugarcoats death. But notice something else: her inability (entirely understandable) to imagine something new, to look toward the future. Rather than anticipating something life-changing, she is concentrating on something small—the smell.

But let's not be too hard on Martha. She could not have known what Jesus was going to do. How could she? She had never seen anyone raised from the dead! By the same token, when Jesus asks that the stone be rolled away, Martha does not trust, but remonstrates with him. Her faith in God does not seem full. How often do we find ourselves focusing on the small problems (it will stink) or rehearsing past grievances (you're late) rather than trusting that God may bring about something new? She concentrates on the negative, on the privation, on the loss. Again, this is natural and human, but it prevents her from seeing the possibility of the new.

Undisturbed by Martha's protests, Jesus prays. “Father, I thank you for having heard me.” Then he says in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

The dead man emerges from the tomb, wrapped head to toe in his burial clothes, before the dumbfounded and frightened onlookers.
Lusate auton
, says Jesus,
kai aphete auton hupagein
. “Unbind him, and let him go.”

I
T
'
S HARD FOR ME
not to be overwhelmed by emotion even when writing about this passage. This is Jesus's supreme miracle, demonstrating the power of God over even death. Interestingly, John's Gospel says nothing about the reaction of the crowd. In other stories they are “amazed” or “astonished.” Perhaps this is taken for granted. How could they be anything
but
amazed and astonished? It is a stunning example of the life-giving word. Jesus's words literally give life to Lazarus.

As astonishing as this narrative is, it may be easy for us to identify with elements of the story. When Jesus decided to stay behind with the disciples rather than visit his sick friend, it must have seemed confusing to both the disciples and later to Martha and Mary. “What is he doing?” Who hasn't felt that God wasn't doing what God
should
be doing in a painful situation? When Mary falls at Jesus's feet and tells him that he should have come earlier and prevented so much suffering, it's easy to agree with her.

It's also hard not to think about the movies. No matter how many times I pray with this Gospel passage, I always think of my two favorite film depictions of this miracle.

In the 1977 miniseries
Jesus of Nazareth
, the director Franco Zeffirelli provides an almost word-for-word reproduction of the scene. Mary's lament about Jesus's absence is slow, heartfelt, gentle. “Lord . . . if you had been with us, our brother would not have died.” Martha on the other hand, remonstrates with him about the stench. “His body must already be decaying,” she says. Jesus leads the crowd down a sandy outcropping to the place of the tomb.

Then comes a close-up of Robert Powell, the British-born actor who plays Jesus, kneeling down before the tomb as he prays. He stands, lifts his arms, and shouts, “Lazarus, come
forth!
” The camera pans back and we see Jesus standing before the inky black opening of the tomb. Suddenly we see a small white figure emerge into the daylight to swelling music and hear the sounds of disbelief from the crowd. It's all terribly moving.

In
The Greatest Story Ever Told
, released in 1965, the director George Stevens handles the scene differently, particularly Jesus's words. The director gives us the widest shot possible, with the crowd peopling a hillside far below a tiny tomb hewn from the rock. Then we are in the tomb, as if we too are the dead, and we see the stone slowly being rolled away. Max von Sydow faces us and whispers, “Lazarus.” The camera pulls back, revealing more of the crowd, and we hear him say, more forcefully, “Lazarus.” Then he shouts, “Come
forth!
” The music swells, and an even tinier figure in white suddenly appears at the entrance of the tomb. The dumbfounded disciples literally fall back in astonishment.

Why does Jesus shout? It is not a cinematic flourish; both films hew closely to what is described in the Gospels. John's Gospel says that Jesus spoke in a
phonē megalē
, a “great voice.”
¹¹
But why? Lazarus is dead and cannot hear. For a long time I wondered about that. Then something occurred to me about Jesus's voice.

E
ARLY IN MY
J
ESUIT
life, I often thought about the person I wanted to become, the person I hoped to be one day. Most of us have an image, even if it is an unconscious one, of the person we are meant to be: our true self, our best self. For some time I had thought about that person: independent, confident, loving, charitable, and not concerned about people's approval—in a word, free.

During my annual retreat one year, I mentioned all this to my retreat director, who recommended that I pray with the story of the Raising of Lazarus.

That evening, I had a revealing dream. I met my best self, whom I recognized instantly, in a dream that was so vivid, so beautiful, and so obvious that it woke me up. Now, I don't put stock in every dream, but sometimes, as in Scripture, dreams can be a privileged place where our consciousness relaxes and God is able to show us something in a fresh way. In my dream, my best self, oddly, looked like me, but wasn't me. My double seemed looser, easier, more relaxed; he even dressed in a more relaxed way!

I knew the direction I needed to travel to become a better person. But I was afraid of letting things go—a need to be liked, a propensity to focus on the negative, a desire to control things. It is precisely those kinds of unhealthy patterns, unendurable yet seemingly ineradicable, that need to die, that need to be left in the tomb. From time to time, we need to ask, “What part of me needs to die?” For me, Lazarus's tomb became the place to leave behind whatever I no longer needed, whatever kept me from new life. For another person, what needs to die may be entirely different—an attitude of pride, a constant desire to be right, an inability to forgive, an overly cynical attitude toward life, a hatred of a particular person, anything that keeps that person from a full life.

As I prayed about Lazarus's tomb, I also imagined hearing Jesus's voice calling to
other
parts of me as well, those parts that desired new life, parts still open to the possibility of greater freedom. Some parts of us must die; other parts need to be revived. Some aspects of our lives are like dormant seeds, awaiting the sunshine of God's life-giving word. Maybe I've closed myself off to new relationships. Or I've decided not to look for love in my family. Or I've given up on finding a church that will nourish me. Sometimes the dead parts of ourselves are not meant to be dead.

But in order to experience new life, we have to listen for God—just as Lazarus did.

Often it seems that those dead parts are completely beyond the reach of God. That's probably how it seemed to Martha and Mary. Lazarus was dead. You can't get any deader than being in a tomb for four days and beginning to stink.
¹²
Many Jews of the time believed that the soul hovered around the body for three days, so Lazarus is meant to be seen in John's Gospel as dead in every conceivable way.
¹³

But God's word can awaken anything.

On that retreat, I found it easy to imagine myself in the tomb—as Lazarus. Jesus placed his hand on the cold, dark, damp opening of the tomb and spoke to me in a whisper, the softest imaginable. It was a gentle sound, an inviting voice calling to the parts of me that wanted to live. In such tender ways does God speak to us.

Sometimes, however, God needs to speak more loudly. That's one way to look at Jesus's speaking in a “loud voice” in the story. God may need to get our attention—in a very blunt comment from a friend that prevents us from doing something sinful, in an intense prayer experience that floods us with peace, in a Bible passage that hits us like a thunderclap, or in a homily that seems tailor-made for us—so that the dead parts of us can
hear
.

Obviously, we don't hear God physically speaking to us as Jesus did to Lazarus. A few of the saints reported hearing a physical voice in prayer—it's called a “locution”—but this is exceedingly rare. Yet God calls to us in other ways and offers change in a variety of modes. Perhaps in your prayer you feel drawn to leading a more selfless life; perhaps when hearing a Bible passage read aloud you feel moved to be more generous; perhaps a conversation with a friend suddenly encourages you to think about forgiveness. God calls to us in whatever ways are needed to help us come forth from our tombs.

The family and friends of Lazarus seem so dumbfounded that Jesus has to tell them what to do: “Unbind him, and let him go.” They don't know what to do with the newly alive Lazarus, just as our friends and family may not know what to do with us after we have responded to God's voice.

Jesus's final words in this story may hold another meaning too. “Unbind him, and let him go” is an invitation to all of us who are freed from old patterns and unhealthy behaviors. Untie him and let him be who he is
meant to be
. When I finished praying over the story years ago, that's how I felt: free to go wherever Jesus would take me.

B
EFORE
I
COULD DO
that, I had to confront my “stuckness.” Let's consider some possible reasons that Martha is focused on the stench.

Mary and Martha may be focused on the past, on the impossibility of anything changing, and so are not as open to seeing what might lie before them. Remember, they had presumably heard (if not actually seen) Jesus do incredible things. There are several stories of Jesus raising people from the dead in the Gospels—like the raising of Jairus's daughter, recounted in all three of the Synoptic Gospels.
¹⁴
Of all people, Martha and Mary would have known these stories. But they seemed focused on the status quo. “Look, Jesus,” they seem to be saying, “this is simply the way of the world.”

Offered the opportunity to change, we often focus on the possible pitfalls. Offered possibility, we often focus on the impossibility. Martha is worried, as she was before when she complained about Mary not helping her, about something other than God.

Or we may simply be afraid of the change. During that retreat I wondered,
If I let go of some of these old habits, what will people think? Will they see me as trying to be something I'm not? Will I be able to live in a new way?

Then I realized how foolish those fears were. Why focus on these things—people's opinions, worries about the future, concerns about change? Suddenly I wanted to say to Martha, “You're worried about the smell? Just look beside you: it's Jesus! Surrender yourself to what he is about to do, and stop focusing on the smell.”

But that may be unfair to Martha. I would have probably said the same thing, smelling the old and fearful of the new. Moreover, when Jesus asks Martha a direct question about her belief—“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”—Martha responds, clearly, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” Like most of us, Martha grapples with both faith (“Yes, I believe”) and doubt, or at least confusion (“There is a stench”).

Jesus, however, fears nothing. So the stone is rolled away and something else astonishing happens, accompanying the miracle of Lazarus's return from the dead. God sweeps away Martha's worries and most likely her friends' anxieties and replaces their despair with hope.

“U
NBIND HIM, AND LET
him go,” says Jesus. It's not only a spiritual message, but also a practical one, addressed to Martha and Mary, who were probably paralyzed with shock: “Take off his bandages.” Jesus is gently telling them how to help Lazarus.

The image of Jesus inviting the removal of bandages had great resonance with me. During that retreat I was worried about leaving behind what Thomas Merton called the “false self,” the image that we want to present to the world, not the person who we are before God. The false self is the person we want others to see—on top of the situation, in control, cool. Merton uses the very image of bandages when talking about the false self in his book
New Seeds of Contemplation: