Lent V, Year A
By The Reverend M. Fletcher Davis
Words that Breathe Life
“I am Resurrection and I am Life, says the Lord.” Those words begin the Episcopal Church’s burial service [Book of Common Prayer, 491] – words of comfort, words of mystery, words of invitation. Jesus first spoke them to console Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus died [John 11.25]. They’ve consoled millions ever since.
When he visited Jerusalem, Jesus stayed in their warm home in Bethany. The town crowns the ridge atop the Mount of Olives. Today it’s a Palestinian village called El-Azariya. From there on a clear day you can face east and see the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. Turn around and get a spectacular view of Jerusalem and occasionally the Mediterranean.
Not surprisingly a larger building now stands on the ancient site of their hospitable home. It’s called Hagios Lazarios - St Lazarus - Church. And just up the road is the grave (actually a limestone cave) where Lazarus was buried and called forth.
Each year on the day before Palm Sunday, St Lazarus Church is packed, like a Tokyo subway at rush hour. A thousand people spill out onto the grounds. When the Divine Liturgy ends, the whole crowd processes up the road to Lazarus’ grave where another ceremony recalls the events that transpired so long ago at that very place.
Eastern Orthodox Christians call that day ‘Lazarus Saturday.’ Together with Palm Sunday it marks the end of what they call Great Lent. The whole weekend offers a break between the self-denial of Great Lent and the penitence of Holy Week – a grand feast in a solemn season. On that weekend in Russia the faithful are even invited to eat caviar!
During the week leading up to Lazarus Saturday, Orthodox churches everywhere recall in word and song first the sickness then the death of Lazarus, then Jesus’ long trek up to Bethany from the Jordan Valley.
On Lazarus Saturday, hymns and readings focus on the joy of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, foreshadowing Jesus’ own resurrection. And ours. The Liturgy emphasizes the two natures of Christ – his humanity in asking, “Where have you laid him?” [Jn 11.34], and his divinity in calling, “Lazarus, come forth from the grave.” [11.43].
So Holy Week in Eastern Orthodox churches is bracketed by the resurrection of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus. Our tone in the West is different. As we observe the deep shadows of Jesus’ final days, our only note of joy is in the brief hosannas of Palm Sunday. But knowing how our Orthodox sisters and brothers celebrate Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday can help shape our devotions.
Russian Orthodox priest Alexander Schmemann writes, "The joy that permeates and enlightens the service of Lazarus Saturday stresses one major theme: the forthcoming victory of Christ over Hades. Hades is the Biblical term for death and its universal power, for inescapable darkness that swallows all life and with its shadow poisons the whole world. But now – with Lazarus' resurrection – death begins to tremble.
“A decisive duel between life and death begins giving us the key to the entire liturgical mystery of the Pascha [Easter]. Already in the fourth century Lazarus Saturday was called ‘the announcement of Pascha’ because it anticipates the wonderful light and peace of the next . . . Saturday” – Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. [Schmemann, The Christian Way, 1961]
In today’s Gospel story [John 11.1-45], Lazarus, as humanity, is not fallen in the Augustinian or Calvinist sense but enslaved, imprisoned. He is not free to be fully alive - as God intends. What he needs is not Law but freedom, freedom from the fatal forces that bind him, from the uninvited chains of death.
Jesus comes to Lazarus as a friend. Fr Schmemann notes that Holy Week celebrates the liberating action of a God who is a friend to all of suffering humanity. He’s not a bloodthirsty tyrant seeking revenge or punishment but a lover of people. At the sight of humanity’s bondage, God is moved not to wrath but to tears. “Jesus wept.” [11.35] Then Jesus acted.
“Leave him alone,” the bystanders warn. Many of them believed a person’s soul hovers near the body until decomposition begins, by the third day. Only then would it leave for the place of departed spirits. But it was now the fourth day.
“He stinks!” they shout. And their chorus echoes through the ages. “He’s beyond help. What will be will be. Death is only natural. Nothing can be done.” But Jesus will have none of their nay-saying.
“Lazarus, come forth!” [11.43] Against all odds, against all advice, Lazarus stirs, sits, stands, staggers forth from his smelly sepulcher. Was he hesitant – like us – to respond to Jesus’ call? It’s so easy to accommodate to the status quo, so tempting to adjust to the embrace of its winding, binding sheets, even to rationalize the clanking chains of slavery – worry, self-pity, resentment, fear, despair.
“Lazarus, come forth!” It’s a call to personal conversion
and social transformation. Lazarus dared to abandon dead-end schemes and death-dealing passions, to venture forth into the light of that new day that only God can give. Dare we do the same? Dr King advised, if you want peace work for justice.
Lazarus responds, still bound by burial cloths. Jesus instructs, imparting some of Scripture’s most powerful words, encapsulating the mission of everyone who would follow him. “Unbind him and let him go.” [11.44] Free him from everything that restrains him, from anything that keeps him from being fully alive – as God intends. Christ calls each of us to be free.
“I am the resurrection and the life” Jesus said. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.... Do you believe this?” he asks Martha. [11.25-26]. Do we believe it
Can you remember three two-word phrases until Easter, two weeks from today? Jesus wept. Come forth. Unbind them. Remember them and meditate on them.
They are the heart of the mission you and I are called to accomplish in Jesus’ name, the heart of what the sin-sick world hungers to hear, the heart of hope.
Weep. Weep for broken humanity, for the sick, for the victims of injustice, for those we would rather forget. Copy Christ’s compassion.
Call forth. Call forth those who are chained and restrained by anger or attitude, fear or failure, prejudice or pride, trend or tradition. Share Christ’s hope.
Unbind them. Unbind them and set them free. Your smile, your touch, your every thoughtful act for anyone who is bound makes a difference. Live Christ’s love.
Those three brief phrases from the Lazarus story – Jesus wept, come forth, unbind them – prepare us for Jesus’ death and resurrection. And our own. Amen.
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