A good Sunday to all.

What happens to those who find Christ in their lives? He told us in last Sunday’s Gospel: They open their eyes, and they see the world, family, money, and friends in a different way than before. They have a light; they see where they are going because their eyes are now open, but one question remains: Where am I going? Christ has opened my eyes, and when I follow the light of the Gospel, I am certainly a beautiful Christ-like person, but the question remains: What is the final destiny of my life?

If we want to be a person, we must ask ourselves this question: What is our life? Is it a short trip to the grave? If this were our destiny, we would ask ourselves if it would be worth being born. Also, would it be worth it to give birth to children and then deliver them to the monster that is death? And if there is a God who made us with this destiny, he would be watching us as we walk to the grave. It would be a cruel God.

Our culture leads us to eliminate the thought of death, and even Christians are marked by this culture and don’t like to think about the final destination; they think it’s distasteful. Often, in fact, even Christians reduce faith in Christ to a list of prayers for him to intervene to get ahead, as much as possible, with this biological life; and when he does not grant the graces or miracles they ask for, they wonder, what is the use of faith if God does not help me when cornered by this monster that is death?

We always try to postpone this moment. We do not think about the ultimate meaning of our life. The question is inevitable: Will I sink into a dark and silent abyss, the ‘Sheol’? Will I remain there, and everything will dissolve into the nothingness from which I came? The world will go on after me quietly. It is this nothingness that is difficult to accept because we feel we were made for life, for infinity. God made us for life. What answer does Jesus give to this question?

If Jesus does not answer this question the rest of the Gospel is something beautiful that helps us to live, but the answer to the question that most distress us is missing: Where do I end up at the end of my life? Today the liturgy offers us the Gospel of what is improperly called the ‘Resurrection of Lazarus.’ We must be cautious because the subject is delicate. The evangelist did not want to write a chronicle of a fact, and whoever interpreted it this way would find himself confronted with questions he could not answer. For example, after Jesus has resurrected Lazarus, as described in this episode of the Gospel, according to John, anyone can say to Jesus, ‘since you have raised Lazarus from the dead, look, a relative of mine died a few days ago; raise him up.’

I do not want to make jokes, but it is essential to address this text that is not a chronicle, but a page of theology composed by the evangelist John, probably from a significant healing performed by Jesus; but the message is to answer the question we mentioned a moment ago. To understand this page, we must distinguish between ‘resurrection’ and ‘reanimation.’

I was saying that it is not accurate to call Lazarus’ resurrection; it is resuscitation, and to understand it let us imagine three worlds: The first world is where we live, where we grow, where we work, and where we form a family; it is our world. We know that this is not our final destination. We know that at some point, we must enter a second world which the Jews called ‘Sheol.’ That cave looked like a mouth; it comes from the verb ‘shaal.’ It calls us all to enter the second world. If anyone can get me out of this second world and bring me back to the first; it is not resurrection but resuscitation; it brings me back to this reality where I am used to living, with the problem that I must die a second time, I must go back to this second world, one of the realms of the dead, of Sheol.

Resurrection does not mean returning from here because death retakes the prey. This is not a victory over death. When Jesus performs these signs, we must understand what message he wants to give us what victory he can achieve against death. The victory over death is to introduce to those who have entered in the second world to the third world, the world of God, that is, we all must pass out of this realm of the dead because this is the condition of man. At the Passover, Jesus told us we did not know it; the wisest ones sensed it, but we did not have certainty. At Passover, Jesus broke down the gate of Sheol and took everyone to the third world, which is the world of God.

When one is resurrected, it means that he has entered the third world; and from the third world, the world of God where one puts on the new body, the spiritual body, incorruptible, as Paul calls it, one is already divested of this body; one cannot return to this world. So, we understand then that Lazarus did not enter the third world and, therefore, he was not resurrected because if he had been resurrected, he would not have gone back. He was reanimated. We don’t know in what situation he was, but the reality is that he was returned to this world. If Lazarus had been resurrected, that is, had entered the world of God, Jesus would not have done him a great favor by bringing him here so that later he would have to retrace the same path to die a second time, and then actually resurrect forever. Where is this episode set?

We’ll hear that Jesus is in Bethabara; you see it in the background and the Dead Sea; it’s a beautiful aerial shot. Jesus is there, where he was baptized, and he is with his disciples, and from there, we will shortly hear that he is receiving the news that Lazarus is sick. Note that it is also indicated where Bethany is located. Bethany is two miles from Jerusalem, and you can see it; before you get to the Mount of Olives, where the wilderness of Judah begins to descend. And, the temple in Jerusalem is shown so that you can locate where this significant episode, told in the Gospel according to John, took place. Here is also a picture of the village of Bethany as it was at the end of the 19th century. The town at the time of Jesus was not very different from what you see. It was the village that Jesus often visited because there was a family there that he cherished, consisting of two sisters and a brother, as we shall shortly hear.

Let us now listen to the beginning of the Gospel passage:

“Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the town 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 sent word to him, 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.”

The narrative begins by presenting a somewhat peculiar family; there is no husband, wife, parents, or children; only brother and sisters. One of the sisters, Mary, is remembered for sprinkling nard perfume on the Lord. Spikenard in the Bible indicates love. This sister gives to the Lord all she has, unconditionally, without reserve. This is precisely what Jesus asks of each of his disciples: Unconditional love for brothers and sisters. Lazarus, who should be the protagonist, has a secondary role, very marginal, and he is only remembered as a brother of Mary and Martha.

And there is another characteristic of this family that is composed only of brother and sisters: A close love relationship unites its members with Jesus. When the sisters send to tell Jesus that Lazarus is sick, they do not say that Lazarus is sick, but ‘the one you love is ill.’ And then, it will be said that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. When the Jews, in front of the tomb of Lazarus, see Jesus bursting into tears, they say, ‘see how he loved him.’

Then it becomes clear that the meaning that the evangelist John intends to give to this family nothing more than the image of the Christian community in which there are no superiors, inferior, parents, teachers… they are all brothers and sisters. And they are immensely loved by the Lord. Let’s say it right away to better orient ourselves. We find ourselves before the Christian community in which a brother dies, and this Christian community wonders if Jesus can do something when a brother dies. We would like to have him always with us, and so we ask Jesus to intervene to overcome death and keep him always with them. This is not possible, but when a brother dies, can Jesus do anything? This is the question.

When Jesus received the news that the one he loves is sick, he said: “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God.” With these first words, he is preparing the message that we will later grasp throughout the story. The disease that leads to biological death is not for Jesus a disease of death. For Jesus, biological death does not touch the life of the person; it is not for death but for the manifestation of the glory of God. God’s glory is the manifestation of how much he loves humankind.

When we look at creation, we realize that God has loved man, and he has prepared a beautiful home; we grasp love but, What does it hold for us? If we want to grasp all the love that God has for man, at some point, we want to know what still awaits us beyond this biological life. Here is what Jesus says: ‘This disease that leads to biological death is not for death, but so that the person who passes through death may discover the marvelous surprise God has in store for him.’

It is precisely in passing through death that it will be revealed how much God loves us. And let us also say that it is impossible to imagine that there is anything better than what God has prepared for us. Let’s listen to what Jesus does after hearing about the illness of this brother in the community that he loves:

“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 that 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.’”

We would have expected that, upon hearing the news of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus would have left immediately for Bethany; instead, he stayed another two days where he was. This behavior will anger the two sisters who will rebuke him: “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” Why did Jesus behave like this? This is an important message for our Christian communities; by letting Lazarus die, Jesus tells us that he has not come to prevent biological death, it is not for him to interrupt the natural course of human life.

We often turn to God for this reason; when we find ourselves in difficulties, we invoke him to keep us in this life. It is not his task to prolong perhaps an interminable old age, No. Biological immortality is impossible, for the human being, by his nature, his destiny is mortal. God does not intervene to change human nature; he cannot do it. Then, Jesus says to the disciples, ‘let us go to Judea’ and adds, ‘our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to wake him up.’

It is an image that will later become common among Christians, as a sleep for an awakening. Paul, for example, writing to the Thessalonians, says: ‘We do not want to leave you in ignorance about those who are asleep.’ It is the same term, ‘cemetery,’ that we employ; it comes from a Greek term ‘koimeterion’ – ‘kiometerion,’ which derives from the verb ‘κοιμούμαι’ – ‘koimaomai’ which means to slumber. This is a very inadequate image but used to say that biological death is not a death; it is for an awakening. In the beginning, the first Christians were buried together with the pagans, but then they felt the necessity to be together; since they were together in this world, they also wanted to be together in death, and they called the burial place where they were together, ‘οἰκητήριον’ – ‘oiketerium,’ the ‘dormitory,’ in expectation of an awakening from this passage from life to life.

Then Jesus says, ‘our friend Lazarus died.’ That dream is death, and Jesus sets out for Bethany. But we will observe a strange fact: Jesus does not enter the village; he stops first and waits there for everyone to come out and go to him. Let us listen:

“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had 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 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 Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.’”

The evangelist notes that when Jesus arrived near Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. That number 4 indicates a definitive death; they were going to visit the tomb for three days to see if there was still any sign of life, but on the fourth day, they resigned themselves; he was dead. What happens in Bethany in the face of this death? The evangelist says that the Jews went to Mary and Martha to console them for the death of their brother; they went to give them their condolences, as we do, repeating those phrases that, in the end, do not console anyone: ‘Cheer up; life goes on,’ ‘it’s always the best who leave,’ ‘he will always be in our memory,’ ‘no one dies as long as someone keeps him in their heart.’

I would say in these situations, more than words, silence is better; this participation in the intensely intimate, intense pain manifests itself in weeping. Then, of course, there are the farewell rites that we also see among non-believers; and then perhaps readings of some poem or song that the person who has left us liked. It is a way of saying that death has wanted to take him away from us, but somehow, we keep him here. It’s a way of overcoming the trauma of losing a loved one.

What happens now? Jesus does not enter the village. When Martha hears that Jesus is coming, she goes to meet him, while Mary sits at home. And when she meets the Master, she rebukes him and does not throw herself at his feet as Mary will do later. She gets angry with Jesus, ‘you should have been here’ to do what you can in this one life in which we believe. If God exists, why doesn’t he intervene when we are in need?

This would be the God we would want. Jesus didn’t intervene, and Martha said to Jesus, ‘but I know that if you ask God for something, he will grant it to you.’ What Martha has in mind is certainly the memory of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha who had revived children, the son of the woman of Zarephath and the son of the family of Shunem. There, it was a resuscitation of children who had just expired. Lazarus, on the other hand, had been dead for four days. And what can Jesus do?

Martha turns to him because she thinks only and still that life is this one and only this. Jesus answers her, ‘your brother will rise again.’ The Pharisaic conception, which Martha shares, was the belief that when the kingdom of God would come, the righteous would be resurrected; that is, they would return to this life to enjoy this new world. And Martha saith to Jesus, ‘my brother, being one of the righteous, will certainly be resurrected at that time.’ But this resurrection comforts no one.

Let us be careful not to project the resurrection of which Jesus speaks into the future. When one enters, as I have said before, into the second world, the world of the realm of the dead; you don’t stay there; you immediately enter the third world because Jesus has opened the door of this tomb wide, not to return here, but to enter the world of God. This is what Jesus says to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live.”

Martha believes in the God who raises the dead. Instead, Jesus speaks of the God who gives a life that does not die and that goes beyond biological death. ‘He who believes in me already has eternal life,’ Jesus has said; and ‘he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has the life of the Eternal, which is untouched by biological life.’ He who dies, does not die, but with his divine life, which was given to him in the world, enters the Father’s house. Jesus continues, ‘whoever lives and believes in me shall not die forever.’

Jesus brings the Resurrection into the present; but resurrection, not resuscitation, is an immediate entrance into God’s world. Jesus did not come to resurrect corpses but to give the living a life that does not die. What does it mean? Here we must resort to some images, and I think the most beautiful one is that of thinking about twins in their mother’s womb. They have no idea of the life that awaits them; they’re just happy to have their umbilical cord and for them to leave that life is death. Let’s imagine that one of the twins is born; what does the twin that remains in the mother’s womb, think? That his brother is dead. He did not die; he entered a completely different life; he came out of that little world in which, at one point, he was too tightly squeezed.

Precisely what happens to us after a long old age; perhaps we long for another life, another world; what Paul says in the letter to Timothy: ‘The time has come to set sail, that is, to leave this world and go to other shores.’ Faith enables us to see death and the passage from this world to a final world, as a dramatic, painful moment, but a blessed moment because it allows you to contemplate face-to-face that God is Father and Mother. The child cannot contemplate the face of his mother in the womb; only when he comes out of this form of life,he comes face to face with the face of the mother. Only in this way can we contemplate the face of God when we pass from life to life.

There is a beautiful saying of Laozi which says: ‘What for the caterpillar is the end of the world, for the rest of the world is a butterfly.’ The caterpillar does not die; it disappears as a caterpillar but continues to live as a butterfly. Martha responds to Jesus, saying, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who comes into the world.’ Jesus made Martha understand what the death of a brother means.

Martha welcomed the light that the word of Jesus gave to this painful event that she was experiencing, and she gave her adherence to this light. Consequently, we will see that while all the Jews and Mary weep, Martha will not weep. The sister, Mary, is still in town, and now Martha is going to invite her to make her own experience; to leave the village where everybody is crying and where there are only words that try to console, but they do not give true consolation, the sense of the painful event they are living. He invites her to leave the village and go to meet Jesus.

Let us listen:

“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. Sowhen 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?’”

In the encounter with Jesus, Martha received a new light; now she no longer sees the death of her brother as she saw it before, and she wants her sister to have the same experience. So, she goes to Bethany and says to Mary: ‘The Master is here and calls you.’ Jesus had stayed there where Martha had found him. This is very strange as a chronicle. Why doesn’t Jesus go to Bethany to meet Mary at her house or go to the tomb of Lazarus? From a theological point of view, the meaning is clear; Jesus wants everyone to leave that town; that they leave the conception of death as the end of everything that only makes them cry.

Let us observe the detail: Martha wants Mary also to have her experience and speaks in secret; ‘λάθρᾳ’ – ‘lazra’ in Greek means in a whisper. Certain spiritual experiences cannot be shouted; they must be communicated in a low voice, in a personal dialogue, in a proper context. It cannot be in a television debate. We also observe that in the encounter with this light of Christ, it does not reach all at the same time; some brothers or some sisters arrive first, and then they communicate their experience to other brothers and sisters so that they also can have the same light.

Mary goes out of the town, and with her, all the Jews go out also; it is beautiful that now they all go out of Bethany and go to meet Jesus. Mary throws herself at the feet of Jesus and, like her sister, rebukes him because she continues to have this conception of death as the end of everything, and who does not try to prevent this death; it must be rebuked if he can do anything. When Jesus sees Mary weeping, he shudders in his spirit.

What does this mean? Jesus shudders because this conception of death, which only makes one weep, is perilous because if one thinks that death is the end of everything, one cannot live as a person; to live as a human means to give one’s life for love, and whoever thinks death is the end of everything tries to cling to life, does not give it. Therefore, Jesus shudders at this conception of the Jews and again asks Mary: Where have they laid him?

This is the question that is also asked of us when a brother or sister has died, where do they put him? Do they put him in the cemetery, as if it were his last destiny? The answer to Jesus: ‘Come and see where we have placed him.’ The men place the dead man in a tomb.

Jesus shed tears; it is not said that he wept, no. In Greek, ‘he wept’ is rendered: ‘klaiein’; here, a wonderful verb is used: ‘Ἐδάκρυσεν’ – ‘edakrisen’ which means that tears flow and cannot be controlled. It is the grief of Jesus at the death of a friend. It is precisely the experience that every person has. There is a different way of weeping at death; that of the desperate ‘klaiein,’ he pulls his hair out because it is the end of everything; ‘edakrisen’ is different. You can’t help but shed tears when you lose a loved one, but it is not a cry like those who have no hope.

Death is always a tragic and dramatic event and it must be lived with respect, with the sympathetic pain that is expressed in tears, but those who have found Christ weep differently. The Jews’ remark is, ‘see how much he loved him.’ It is love that, in the face of the loss of a friend, provokes tears. The Jews observe, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?” They still think that love manifests itself only in perpetuating biological life. No, Jesus did not come to prolong old age; he came to tell us that God has given us a life that is untouched by biological death.

Let us now listen to what Jesus does at the tomb of Lazarus:

“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. 247 So Jesus said to them, ‘Untie him and let him go.’”

In front of the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus gave the order to remove that stone; it is the stone that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead; it must no longer exist because all are alive. Martha reacts by saying, ‘my brother is dead; it is not possible to remove this stone because there is a separation between the world of the living and the world of the dead.’ Jesus says: ‘No; take away that stone.’ Martha believes but is left in doubt, a little like us. And Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” ‘You will see the glory of God,’ that is, what he has prepared for us.

It’s tough to remove that stone, but if we don’t roll it away, we will continue to go to the cemetery to cry, thinking that there is still this stone that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. No, they are all alive. They take away the stone, and Jesus shouts: “Lazarus, come out!” And “The dead man came out.” Note that it is not Lazarus, but the dead man came out. Jesus brought the dead man out of the tomb where he was bound hand and foot with bandages, and his face was wrapped in a shroud. Therefore, all the signs of death. If it were a chronicle, Lazarus, who was bound, should have flown. It is not a chronicle; it is what Jesus managed to do; he has shouted the victory cry of the life that he brought into the world above death. And of the command, “Untie him and let him go.” Let him go where?

If it were chronicle, we would have expected that at this point, feelings of joy would be mentioned, Lazarus’ gratitude, the embrace given to Jesus, to all present, and then the feast. No; Jesus says: ‘Loose the dead man.’ This command is addressed to us. “Untie him and let him go.” We are always tempted to keep the person with us because we love him; no, the time comes when we must ‘unbind’ and let this person walk to his destination, which is the Father’s house. I would like to conclude this reflection on the resuscitation of Lazarus, which is the true resurrection of Lazarus, that of the definitive entrance into the world of God.

I would like to conclude by presenting a small slab of marble found in the Vatican museums. Let us note that there is a funerary inscription on this slab placed on the tomb of a child. The Latin inscription reads: “Here rests an innocent child named Sidi, four months and 24 days old, called by God to the world of Peace.” Let us note what is on this slab: a laurel wreath, which is the sign of victory over death, and in the center of this wreath is the monogrammed cross of Christ, who is the victor over death. And there are two doves with an olive branch in their beak, a sign of the world where peace reigns forever.

Then, what is more important, at the two ends of the cross arm of the cross there appear the two letters of the Greek alphabet: the Omega and the Alpha. The position of these two letters indicates the beginning and the end of the alphabet; we would have expected Alpha and Omega. Alpha is the beginning of life, and Omega at the conclusion. No; whoever placed this inscription, perhaps Sidi’s parents, said that the Omega of Sidi’s life was the Alpha, the beginning of a full life with God.

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.