9th March - Lent 5:
Lazarus: Power, eternal life, grief and joy:

(This added to the fervour of the journey to Jerusalem)

I was not in Bethany when the news came. I was expecting it, of course, but it still came as a bit of a shock. Lazarus was ill. My very dear friend was going to die. All my instincts were to set out immediately to help him but I knew that these events had to unfold in their own way. So I waited.

Those who were with me couldn’t understand what was happening. They had heard the message that had been brought and expected me to go rushing off to help. But I made no sign of leaving. Some of them thought that I was staying away because we had been threatened with being stoned to death when we were last there. But I was waiting for the time to be right. I was waiting to know that he had died.

I felt him die. I felt his spirit leave his body. And it hurt because I knew that I could have saved him that pain. But at least the time had come at last and I gathered my friends to return to Bethany. They wanted to know why I seemed to have changed my mind. I told them what I knew and they followed expecting that all of us would join Lazarus in death.

Martha came to meet me when we reached the house. She accused me of betraying my friend. She told me I had abandoned him in his hour of need. This was true, even though I did not tell her that. I knew every word she spoke was correct. And my pain grew. I gave her what reassurance I could and went to the place where they had laid my friend’s body some four days earlier.

I couldn’t believe how many people had gathered at that place. I knew we were only a short distance from Jerusalem and there were many people in the region that knew about the friendship between Lazarus and myself. It seemed that they had gathered expecting me to work some great miracle and I knew they were not going to be disappointed.

But would they understand what they were about to see? Could they comprehend the enormity of the action that I was going to take? Were they capable of grasping the significance of the next few moments? These questions were going through my mind. And then it struck me.

I could not do what I was about to do without having let my dear friend suffer in the way he had over the last few days. I looked around at his family and our friends gathered at his tomb. All were grieving, many were weeping. My pain was a mirror of theirs. Only there was a difference. I could have spared them all this pain. Now I could only share it. So, like them, I wept to ease my pain.

Then I acted. The time was right. The body had lain in the tomb long enough for everyone to know Lazarus was truly dead. When the stone at the entrance was rolled away there could be no doubt that all that lay within was a dead and lifeless body. So I did it. I challenged their certainty. I called my friend forth from his tomb.

And he came. Still wrapped in the bandages and grave clothes, still blinded by the cloth over his eyes, Lazarus came out of the darkness of death groping his way once more into the light of life. For those gathered there they could be no doubt. The Father had given me the power necessary to conquer even death itself.

With this very public act I knew that the inevitable end was approaching. Such a dramatic and total revelation of my power was bound to bring me into a final confrontation with those who opposed my Ministry. They would not accept me and would only plan for my destruction. This simple act of reaching out to a friend in need had brought me to the climax of my journey. All that was left for me to do was to show my majesty to as many people as possible before my friends once more found themselves gathered at the entrance of a tomb.

I stayed in Bethany for a while, resting and talking with those closest to me. All around me there was turmoil as people – friends and enemies – struggled to come to terms with what they had seen, with what I had done. That turmoil was nothing when compared to the turmoil that was going on in my mind. I was asking myself one question over and over again:

Where do I go from here?

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