A reading from the prophet Ezekiel (37:12-14)
Thus says the Lord God: I am now going to open your graves; I shall raise you from your graves, my people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel. And you will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, my people, and put my spirit in you, and you shall live and I will resettle you on your own soil. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done this – declares the Lord God.
Ezekiel’s famous vision of dry bones in a valley brought back to life (37:1-11) symbolised the resurgence of the nation after the long years of the Babylonian exile. The prophet, who is preaching in Babylon, now gives further encouraging words of the Lord. He uses a similar image, that of raising bodies from the grave. The whole people will receive the spirit which will renew God’s life within them. And they will return to the land of Israel. The prophet stresses that Israel will ‘know’ that it is the Lord who brings about this life-giving intervention.
Psalm 130 (129) The psalm speaks of deliverance from the ‘depths’, here suggesting the loss and despair which the exiled people knew in Babylon.
A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans (8:8-11)
Those who live by the flesh cannot be pleasing to God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies too through his Spirit dwelling in you.
The Christ who has given his life for the salvation of all offers new life through baptism. The life-giving Spirit is available to the followers of Christ, who choose to live not ‘in the flesh’ but ‘in the Spirit’. As suggested in the prophecy of Ezekiel, the Spirit is life-giving. The Spirit who raised Jesus up from death will give life to those who are baptised into Christ, even giving new life to our mortal bodies. The mystery of death and resurrection is lived out day by day.
A reading from the holy gospel according to John (11:1-45)
There was a sick man named Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. It was Mary, the sister of the sick man Lazarus, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent this message to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’ On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not lead to death, but is for God’s glory so that through it the Son of God may be glorified.’
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he heard that he was sick he stayed where he was for two more days. Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go back to Judaea.’ The disciples said, ‘Rabbi, just now the Jews were trying to stone you; are you going back there again?’ Jesus replied:
‘Are there not twelve hours in the day?
No one who walks in the daytime stumbles,
having the light of this world to see by;
anyone who walks around at night stumbles,
having no light as a guide.’
He said that and then added, ‘Our friend Lazarus is at rest; I am going to wake him up.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he is at rest he will be saved.’ Jesus had been speaking of the death of Lazarus, but they thought that by ‘rest’ he meant sleep. So Jesus put it plainly, ‘Lazarus has died; and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Then Thomas – known as the Twin – said to the other disciples, ‘Let us also go to die with him.’
On arriving, Jesus found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days already. Bethany is only about three kilometres from Jerusalem, and many 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. Mary remained sitting in the house. Martha said to 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.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her:
‘I am the resurrection and 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.’
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying quietly, ‘The Master is here and is calling you.’ Hearing this, Mary got up quickly and went to him. Jesus had not yet come into the village; he was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were in the house comforting Mary, seeing her get up quickly and go out, followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was, seeing him she fell at his feet, saying, ‘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 also, he was distressed in spirit, and profoundly moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept; and the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ Some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have prevented this man from dying?’ Again inwardly distressed, Jesus reached the tomb: it was a cave, closed by a stone. Jesus said, ‘Take the stone away.’ Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, ‘Lord, there is already a stench; he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus replied, ‘Have I not told you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?’ So they took the stone away. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and said:
‘Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer.
I myself knew that you hear me always,
but I speak
for the sake of all the crowd standing around me,
so that they may believe that you sent me.’
When he had said this, he 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 to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’
Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what he did, believed in him.
The seventh and final ‘sign’ in the Gospel of John is read as Easter approaches. It is the most obvious sign that Jesus is Lord of life. Jesus delays visiting his sick friend. His sickness, he tells the disciples, will be ‘for God’s glory’. When Jesus arrives in Bethany Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. The sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, express faith in different ways. Martha explicitly professes her belief in the resurrection ‘on the last day’, to which Jesus replies that he is ‘the resurrection and life’. Martha’s response is to affirm that Jesus is ‘the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into this world’. Mary has fewer words, and her tears show her love both for her brother and for Jesus. As he approaches the tomb Jesus too weeps. His prayer to the Father is for those around him to hear, to challenge their faith. The narrative in fact concludes with the statement that after this final sign ‘many’ came to believe in him. Plots are then made to kill not only Jesus, but Lazarus too (12:10-11).
How is it that this sign provokes plots against Lazarus and against Jesus?
Pray for those who cannot weep.