Lazarus Saturday
by Lev Gilet
Feast of the 120 Martyrs of Persia; Holy Monday in WestAnno Domini 2020, April 6
LAZARUS
Saturday has a very special place in the liturgical calendar. It is not included in the forty days of Lenten penitence; it is not included in the harrowing days of Holy Week – which are counted from the Monday to the Friday. Together with Palm Sunday, it forms a short and joyous prelude to the days of grief which follow. A topographical link unites it to Palm Sunday: Bethany is the place of Lazarus’s resurrection, and is also the point of departure for Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. Lazarus’s resurrection, which this Saturday commemorates, is an event that, as we shall see, carries a very deep meaning. It is mysteriously linked to the resurrection of Christ Himself; in relation to that event, it is like prophecy in action. One could say that Lazarus raised form the dead is shown to us, at the threshold of the Easter feasts, as the precursor of Jesus Christ triumphant over death, in the same way that, on the threshold of Epiphany, John when he baptized was the precursor of the Messiah who was about to be revealed. But, as well as its principal significance in relation to the resurrection of Christ, the raising of Lazarus has secondary aspects which will be useful to stop and meditate on.
The epistle read at the liturgy (Heb. 12:28-13:8) has no direct bearing on the raising of Lazarus. All the same, one of the verses – “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body” – could, by a spiritual exegesis, be applied to the compassion shown to Lazarus by Jesus. The epistle contains various moral precepts: to continue in brotherly love, to practice hospitality, to honor marriage, and to obey our superiors. Those who may be tempted to pass fleetingly over these ethical recommendations, judging them to be important, of course, but really rather elementary, should read with attention the three verses in which they are set, one at the beginning, another in the middle, and the third at the end: “Our God is a consuming fire…. For He hath said, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ … Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” For the highest spiritual truths cannot be isolated from these very simple practical imperatives which form their daily currency.
The gospel (Jn. 11:1-45) gives an account of the raising of Lazarus. The interpretation of this event given to us by the Church is contained in the chants for matins. Let us listen to them.
“When Thou didst wish … O my Savior, to establish the truth of Thy glorious Resurrection, Thou didst deliver Lazarus from Hades …” Here we find expressed the principal meaning of the raising of Lazarus. It was, as the sacred poem says in language that is a little strange, but striking: anticipation, “establishing the truth” of the resurrection of Christ, a preliminary proof of Jesus’s power over death. “Through Lazarus, O Death, Christ has released thy captives…. Before Thy death, Thou hast shaken the power of death.” The Church establishes a certain link between this victory of Christ’s over death, and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem which will be celebrated the next day. “O Death, where is thy victory? … We offer Him the palms of triumphant victory…. Like the children, we carry tokens of victory and acclaim Thee, who art the conqueror of death.”
In the second place, the raising of Lazarus announces the resurrection of the dead which is a consequence of Jesus’s resurrection: “O Christ, when Thou didst bring Lazarus back to life from amongst the dead, Thou didst establish the principle of universal resurrection…. Thou didst raise him, Thou the giver of life, thus confirming the resurrection of the world…. Through Thy friend as intermediary Thou didst predict that humanity was released from corruption.” Lazarus Saturday is, in a way, the feast of all the dead. It gives us the opportunity to confirm and give precision to our faith in the resurrection. Our Lord, in correcting Martha’s state of mind, gives us precious teaching about our own dead, for when he had said to her: “Thy brother shall rise again,” she had replied, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” and Jesus said, “I am the resurrection.” Martha’s faith was insufficient in two ways: she thought of her brother’s resurrection in terms of the future, and only of the future, and then she could not conceive of this resurrection except in relation to some sort of general law. But Jesus indicates that the resurrection is a fact which is already actual, because He Himself is (and does not bring about) resurrection and life. Our dead live through and in Christ. Their life is bound up with the personal presence of Jesus, and is manifested in it. If we seek to unite ourselves in spirit with someone who is dead that we love, let us not try to revive him in our imagination, but enter into contact with Jesus, and in Jesus we shall find him.
Thirdly, the resurrection of Lazarus is a wonderful illustration of christological dogma. It shows us how, in the person of Jesus, human and divine nature are united – without confusion: “O Christ, by Thy presence at the tomb of Lazarus Thou hast confirmed our faith in Thy two natures …” For, on the one hand, in Jesus, man can give way to emotion and grieve for the loss of a friend: “Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, ‘Behold how he loved him!’” On the other hand, God, in Jesus, can command death with authority: “He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth…”
Finally, the resurrection of Lazarus allows a sinner to hope that, even though he seems spiritually dead, he could come alive again: “So I pray to Thee, O Thou lover of mankind, to raise me to life, I, who through my passions am dead…” Sometimes this spiritual resurrection seems as impossible as that of Lazarus: “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days…” For all things are possible to Jesus – the conversion of the most hardened sinner as much as the raising of the dead: “Jesus said, ‘Take ye away the stone…”
This is what we learn if, on this Saturday, we go to Bethany, to Lazarus’s tomb. We want to meet Jesus at Bethany and to start Holy Week with Him, close to Him. Jesus invites us to be there, and waits for us. Martha goes to say, in secret, to her sister: “The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” And Mary “as soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto Him.” The Master calls me. He wants me to stay with Him, not to leave Him throughout the days of His Passion. During these days He wants to reveal Himself to me – who perhaps “already stink” – newly and overwhelmingly. Master, I come.
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From The Year of the Grace of the Lord
by A Monk of the Eastern Church (SVSP, 2001), 135-138
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"What is it that has ordered the things of heaven and those of earth, the things which move through the air and those which move in the water; nay, rather the things which proceeded them: heaven and earth and the natures of fire and water? What is it that combined and arranged them...set them into motion and put them on their unceasing and unhindered course?..But who is the architect of these things? Or did not he who made them also bring them into being? We shall certainly not attribute such power to spontaneity." On the Orthodox Faith, Chapter 3 This comes after St. John of Damascus sets out to delineate between the created and the uncreated, a fact which, while at the core of existence, seems for him to be, for this very reason, the simplest to believe. Everything but God is created and, thus, susceptible to change. This means people, but this also means demons, angels, the rest of the created order across the entire cosmos. Everything is vulnerable to unrest. Except for God. If you have ever tried to explain the Holy Trinity to a child for the first time, maybe you have felt as I have the weightier, inexpressible side of God's unchangeability: how do I possibly communicate this essential fact to the person in front of me? (This is usually when my faint stutter starts to pop up again.) I like that here, like St. Patrick reaching for a three-leaf clover, St. John brings us back to earth to better understand the cosmos. Fire and water are no less mysteries than heaven and earth. And yet here we are, cooking and washing, eating and drinking, filled and sustained on what we can neither fully explain nor claim to have created. Only God is unchanging. Vice versa, God is the only constant we need. Maybe the rest is better left unsaid. LUKE TAYLOR GILSTRAP is Vice President of the Board of Directors for Eighth Day Institute. His poems have appeared in Spiritus, Ekstasis (Christianity Today), and Relief Journal, among others. He lives happily in Wichita, Kansas with his wife and three sons.
"Now, one who would speak or hear about God should know beyond any doubt that in what concerns theology and the Incarnation not all things are inexpressible and not all are capable of expression, and neither are all things unknowable nor are they all knowable. That which can be known is one thing, whereas that which can be said is another, just as it is one thing to speak and another to know. Furthermore, many of those things about God which are not clearly perceived cannot be fittingly described, so that we are obliged to express in human terms things which transcend the human order. Thus, for example, in speaking about God we attribute to Him sleep, anger, indifference, hands and feet, and the like." On the Orthodox Faith, Chapter 2 When I was studying Fiction in graduate school, one of the first methods I learned to really situate the reader in the story you were about to tell them was disorientation; if you wanted to ground them in one story, first you had pull the rug out from under their feet. So it's fitting that in the beginning of St. John Damascene's On the Orthodox Faith, before rebuilding our foundation, he first puts us squarely in limbo, seesawing back and forth between certainty and uncertainty. To paraphrase, there is no doubt (certainty) that about God some things can be expressed...but not all things (uncertainty). Some things about God are truly knowable (certainty), but some are unknowable (uncertainty). Oh, and while we're speaking about God (certainty), let's admit there's a gap, too, between what we say and what we know (uncertainty). My favorite line in this spiraling excerpt, "...it is one thing to speak, and another to know," takes me back to the final lines in Wendell Berry's poem, "How to Be a Poet," which he wrote primarily as a reminder to himself: Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came. Wherever your preferences fall on the cataphatic or apophatic spectrum of theology (whether you lean more toward what we can say about God or what we cannot), Berry's poem, I think, would nod along with St. John: before we say too much, let our words be preserved by the silence from which they came. I'm thinking of the silence, that filling, restorative quiet I feel when I step into a cathedral or in some of my favorite moments with my kids in the early hours. Even before praying, can we hear the One already praying in us? Let's start there. LUKE TAYLOR GILSTRAP is Vice President of the Board of Directors for Eighth Day Institute. His poems have appeared in Spiritus, Ekstasis (Christianity Today), and Relief Journal, among others. He lives happily in Wichita, Kansas with his wife and three sons.
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