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I mentioned last weekend how you could not become a member of the Early Church unless you had some knowledge of the story of the Woman at the Well (two Sundays ago), the story of the Man Born Blind (last Sunday), and the story of the Raising of Lazarus (today’s story). Catechists, those who were a little bit more adept, led those who were inept into these stories, led them out of these stories, and help them to apply these stories to their actual lives.

There is a progression, a build up you might say, in these three stories. In the first story Jesus quenches the thirst of the Samaritan woman. If he does it for her then, he does it for us now. We’re not just talking about quenching our physical thirst for water; we’re talking about our deepest longings that are with us everyday. In the second story Jesus gives sight to the man born blind. If he does it for him then, he does it for us now. He gives us new eyes to see what is important in life to see. Furthermore, he gives us eyes of faith so that we might be able to see the hand of God at work in every situation of our lives especially on the days we feel like giving up. In the third story, Jesus raises a dead man to new life. If he does it for him then, he does it for us now. Jesus is not only Lord over thirst and the quenching of thirst, not only Lord over blindness and the coming to sight, but he is also—and most importantly—the Lord of the living and the dead. There is no reality off limits to God. His specialty is bringing all that is dead in us, and in our world, to life. Or, as he said to Martha, “Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

I really do believe Jesus quenched the thirst of a woman. I really do believe Jesus restored the sight of a blind man. I really do believe Jesus raised to life a man who had been dead in the tomb for four days. However, we also need to read and apply these stories to our own lives in a metaphorical and symbolic way. If we don’t, then they are just wonderful stories of God’s great deeds of power 2000 years ago leaving us saying, “That’s great for those people then, but what about us here and now?” Well, Jesus has already told us, “My Father still (right into the year 2023) goes on working and so do I” (John 5:17).

Let’s look at a few aspects of this gospel story metaphorically and symbolically and let us do it with the confidence that God is still at work in our world.

We are told that Lazarus is from Bethany. The meanings of these two names—Lazarus and Bethany—are the tipoffs of where this whole story is going. The name Lazarus means “God helps.” Bethany, where Lazarus is from, means “house of the afflicted.” When we put those two together, we see that this is a story of God who helps all those who live in the house of the afflicted. Affliction comes in as many unique ways as there are people. There is something universal about pain—every human being suffers from something—yet the way we experience suffering is absolutely unique to each of us. What pains me greatly might be only a slight inconvenience for you, yet pain is pain, and God helps all those living in the house of affliction.

Today’s gospel story starts off with pain. Mary and Martha are in the “house of the afflicted.” They send a message to Jesus concerning their brother, Lazarus, who is ill. They do not say, “Lord, Lazarus is ill.” Instead, they say, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” This is no longer a story of just Lazarus or of Mary and Martha. It’s now a story of all the people of the world whom Jesus loves. Regardless of how affliction visits each of us, Jesus loves us and is on his way to us. Like I said, Jesus delights in bringing life out of death. It’s what God delights in, and Jesus came to do only one thing—the Father’s will.

If you remember, in last Sunday’s gospel about the man born blind, Jesus tells us that this man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We have something similar today. Jesus says to Mary and Martha that Lazarus’s illness and subsequent death are opportunities for us to see God’s glory at work. Glory is a loaded word. Glory means weighty, heavy, or pregnant…really pregnant, on the verge of giving birth. In every moment when we think blindness or death are final, God is about to give birth to something new in us. There is no situation, in God’s kingdom, that is final or beyond hope.

In the first reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the setting is slavery. Our Jewish ancestors in faith have been torn from their country of Judah and sent into exile, into Babylon. Everything they have ever valued is gone. One of the people exiled is a 25-year-old man named Ezekiel. Even though the people closed their ears to God’s message, Ezekiel kept preaching hope. God tells Ezekiel to tell the people, “I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves.” Metaphorically and symbolically, our Jewish ancestors were all but dead as they languished in this enemy country of Babylon. For all intents and purposes, they were like corpses in a grave. In a real sense, not just symbolically, Jesus calls Lazarus from his grave.

There are lots of ways of being entombed. But among all the things that entomb us is the unmistakeable and persistent voice of Jesus that just won’t go away. God delights in restoring life. Restoring life to one who is dead isn’t just about biology; it isn’t just about getting the heart going again and blood flowing through our veins. Restoring life starts with hearing a voice that invites us to leave the tomb and trusting that that voice is the voice of the Lord. Leaving the tomb may be leaving an abusive relationship. Leaving the tomb may be the daily struggle of leaving a destructive addiction behind. Leaving the tomb may mean leaving a dead-end job. Leaving the tomb may mean opening our minds to a much larger image of God than the one we grew up with.

However, to do so implies risk and courage. When Lazarus exited the tomb, he wasn’t alone flexing the muscles of his own will. When he left the tomb, he was surrounded by people of faith. When we leave whatever entombs us, we don’t walk perfectly upright on day one. We need people to greet us as we stumble forth from darkness into light. We need a community of faith. We need cheerleaders. We need people who have known darkness in their own lives but who also had the courage to step into the light.

Speaking about cheerleaders, your former pastor, Jeff Doucette, is a wonderful cheerleader in my life. At a low point in my life, after discerning priesthood for 10 years and after five years of study, I had hit a wall. Things were going nowhere. I told Jeff that I was thinking of packing it in and getting a job selling shoes at Walmart. When he told me that would do me no good, I asked him why. He said, “Because you’ll still be dealing with people’s soles (souls).” In that moment, he was my cheerleader, calling my out of darkness into God’s wonderful light.

Jesus calls us forth into life. Notice Jesus did not physically take the bindings off of Lazarus. He tells others, the faith community surrounding Lazarus, to do so. “Unbind him and let him go.” As we are unbound, ourselves, our next job is to unbind and set free all those still living in the “house of affliction.”

Fr. Phil Mulligan