The Raising of Lazarus and Its Consequences

The house of Jesus’s Bethany friend was no longer now the peaceful refuge to which He and His disciples had more than once withdrawn from the noisy and hostile city of Jerusalem; in place of the former quiet and contentment this virtuous household had enjoyed, there now reigned grief and tears over a loss as unforeseen and irreparable as it was precious. Lazarus had died soon after the messengers returned from Jesus; his death was an irreplaceable loss for his sisters, to whom he had stood in the place of parents. The more he had been loved, the more bitterly they grieved at his tomb. The Lord’s mysterious promise—to reveal His divine glory in Lazarus’s illness—had not been understood, and so it could not bring the comfort it held within it. When they recalled the raisings of the young man of Nain (Lk 7:11–15) and the daughter of Jairus (Mt 9:18; Mk 5:22), which Jesus had performed in Galilee, a ray of hope might momentarily light up hearts darkened with grief, but this hope grew fainter the longer Lazarus lay in the tomb and Jesus delayed. The signs of utter decay now appearing in the lifeless body led them to abandon even their last hope of seeing him alive again; and now, four days after Lazarus’s death, Jesus, it seemed, was no longer expected in Bethany, since it was supposed that if He came to comfort His friends at all, it would be just before the feast, on His way to Jerusalem, or afterward, on His return to Galilee.

Meanwhile, the house of Lazarus appeared more crowded than ever. By the ancient custom of the Jews, partly preserved even to this day, the relatives, friends, and acquaintances of the deceased were bound, for seven days after the death, to visit his house, to bring comfort to the bereaved family, and to take part in the mourning rites, which did not end before the eighth day58. The number of such comforters was now very great, if only because the house of Lazarus was reckoned among the more considerable houses of Bethany. Besides this, Lazarus, by his virtues and his kindliness, had unwittingly drawn to himself a general esteem and love, which, as is well known, never show themselves so vividly as after the death of one who was esteemed. Among the visitors were many from Jerusalem, and among them men of the higher class, perhaps even members of the Sanhedrin, since the evangelist John, under the general name of the Jews (used in the present instance), almost always means the elders and rulers of the Jews59. The more surely to fulfill the duty of love and friendship, while also keeping the custom, some of the visitors from Jerusalem remained in the house of Lazarus for the whole mourning week.

Anyone might have known of the deceased’s acquaintance with Jesus, but that Jesus had been expressly summoned to His ailing friend, and likewise His mysterious answer and His delay upon the road, seem not to have been known to the visitors; the modesty of Lazarus’s sisters did not permit them to disclose these circumstances, which could so easily have been given an unfavorable construction—toward Jesus Christ, toward themselves, and toward their dead brother.

News of the divine Teacher and Wonderworker always went before His coming. Martha (having gone out, no doubt, on some household errand, with which she was especially occupied (Lk 10:38–42)) was the first to hear that Jesus was approaching Bethany, and at once, without going into the house to tell her sister, hastened out to meet Him by the very road along which the Lord was to come. He was still outside the village when the grieving Martha fell at His feet. At the sight of her all-powerful friend, the thought inevitably rose up in her soul with all its force: how different everything would have been, had Jesus come at the proper time—that is, while Lazarus was still alive. «Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But — Martha went on, wishing to correct her thought and show that her faith in the Teacher had not wavered — even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You!» (Jn 11:21–22). It remained only to add: «and that You can raise my brother.» But modesty, as Blessed Augustine remarks, did not allow her to disclose this wish; for how, he continues, did Martha know that it would be good for her brother to rise again? For this reason she said simply: «I know that You can; if You will, do it; for You alone know whether it should be done»60.

«Your brother will rise again!» (Jn 11:23)—the Lord answered, as if to justify the delay of His coming. The majestic simplicity and calm with which these words were spoken were meant to breathe hope into Martha’s soul, crushed as it was with grief.

But this very calm brought her no comfort; with her last words she had, so to speak, poured out the whole remainder of her hope. The thought that the Lord was simply and so suddenly promising her the miraculous resurrection of her brother—dead four days, and now decaying—was beyond her imagination; her heart sought for the Teacher’s words an ordinary and nearer sense, one that would not demand a fresh effort of faith. This sense presented itself of its own accord, for the word «will rise», as Jesus used it, always meant among the Jews the future general resurrection of the dead61. It was on this resurrection that Martha’s sorrowful thought came to rest. «I know — she answered, with a certain sorrow, and, as it were, dryness — that he will rise again at the general resurrection, on the last day» (Jn 11:24).

It was plain that Martha’s heart, stricken with grief, needed a powerful impulse to rouse it from hopelessness. And the Lord began to speak to her in that exalted language befitting only the Son of God, «who has life in Himself» (Jn 5:26) and can grant it to whom He will, and when He will.

I am — Jesus continued — «the resurrection and the life; whoever trusts in Me, even if he dies» (bodily), «will live, and everyone who lives and trusts in Me will never see death». (For bodily death, to which believers are subject, is not truly death, but only a change from a worse existence to a better.) «Do you believe this?» (Jn 11:25–26).

Such a demand for unconditional faith led one to expect something extraordinary from Him who demanded it. It seemed that Jesus Christ wished to impress upon her that He needed no condition whatever in order to obtain anything from God (as Martha had said)—that He Himself was the source of every good and every gift62.

Martha felt that she had said something amiss; she saw that the Lord was not entirely satisfied with her words; she did not know for what, exactly, faith was needed of her, or what she should expect from the Lord, but the reminder about faith touched her tender heart; it implied in her a doubt as to the Teacher’s worth, which she would have accounted the greatest misfortune for herself. This, as it were, roused her. «Yes, Lord—she exclaimed—I have always believed, and now believe, that You are the Christ, who was to come into the world for its salvation!»

It has rightly been observed by the Fathers of the Church that, after the confession of Jesus as the Son of the living God (the Messiah), once made by Peter, no one has confessed Him with such force as the promised Messiah and Savior of the world as Martha does now. But notwithstanding the vividness and sincerity of her faith, the thought of her brother’s resurrection, which the Lord precisely wished to awaken in her, remained even now foreign to her63. She could expect anything from the Lord except the return of her loss, which she reckoned irretrievable. Such is the way of those who have long wavered between hope and fear and at last given themselves over to grief: the exhausted heart grows numb; just as before, while it could still hope, everything encouraged and fed it in which a man of cold reflection would have found no encouragement at all, so afterward nothing can rouse it. It should not surprise us, then, if Martha seems to contradict herself; having begun in faith, when Jesus Christ had not yet given any sign of hope, she now appears, notwithstanding the plain hints of the coming miracle, inconsolable and uncomprehending. To a heart stricken with grief such contradictions are entirely natural: and in Martha—believing, wavering, perplexed—we see the image of every sufferer. Yet even the Lord’s last words, for all their force and their power to awaken hope of Lazarus’s raising, contained enough obscurity to serve as a trial of faith. To the inconsolable Martha it might have seemed that the Teacher was giving her an instruction that every believer in Him need not be anxious about earthly and temporal things, nor even about life and death itself, since eternal blessedness awaited him, before which temporal losses and sufferings count for nothing.

The Lord said nothing in reply to Martha’s words, though the conversation seemed not yet finished. The troubled Martha could not but feel that it would have been far better had her sister been with her, who, conversing more often with the Lord, had grown accustomed to understanding His exalted discourses. It was all the more welcome, then, when the Teacher, as if wishing to draw her out of her confusion, told her to go home and call Mary. He Himself did not go into their house, most likely because otherwise He would have had to return again to Lazarus’s tomb, which, by Jewish custom, lay outside the village. But it seemed to Martha that He did not wish to appear before the large gathering of Jews who were with Mary. And so, coming home, she told her sister secretly, away from the guests, that the Teacher (for so they called their divine Friend, who always taught them something) was here and was calling for her.

Mary followed her sister at once, without telling anyone where she was going or why.

Jesus remained in the same place where Martha had met Him, resting from the journey and conversing with His disciples.

The first thought that rose in Mary at the sight of her Teacher was the same one Martha had voiced. «Ah, Lord!» she cried, falling at His feet — «if You had been here, my brother would not have died» (Jn 11:32). In this cry was expressed the whole fullness of her feeling—her former hope, her present inconsolable grief, her love for the brother lost forever, and her reverence for the Teacher who had so unexpectedly appeared. She could say no more: only her tears bore witness to what was passing in her heart!

Jesus Christ had not yet begun His conversation with Mary when the whole sorrowful company of Jews who were in the house of Lazarus appeared before Him. As soon as Mary, at her sister’s first sign, had left them, it occurred to them that she had gone to her brother’s tomb, to give herself over to tears there once more64. Not to follow her seemed unseemly. But on leaving the village, to their astonishment, they found her at the feet of Jesus. The sight of the first meeting of friends and acquaintances, after some among them have suffered some great loss, always has in it something moving. The majesty of Jesus, of whom everyone thought that He commanded nature itself, and the weakness and helplessness of the bereaved sisters, who, bathed in tears, sought comfort at His feet, only deepened this pathos still further. Many of the Jews could not restrain their tears; others were moved to the same by mere decorum: all were silent, and all wept!

The loving heart of Jesus was ever full of compassion for those who suffered. We shall see that a single glance at Jerusalem, a single thought of the calamities coming upon its inhabitants, will be for Him a cause of tears. Now everything disposed to sorrow: the thought of the frailty of human nature, the image of a friend lying breathless in the tomb, the sight of the weeping sisters, who awaited, but had not yet received, His help. Meanwhile, the disregard shown for Jesus Christ’s words, by which He had wished to awaken faith; the ill will of some among the Jews, who were about to witness the greatest of all the wonders He had worked; and the very want of faith in His own friends, precisely when it was most needed—all this could not but stir a sorrowful feeling… «He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled» (Jn 11:33)65. «Where have you laid him?» (Jn 11:34)66—He said at last, in a tone that showed the speaker felt far more than He said.

«Lord, come and see» — one of the sisters answered (Jn 11:34). In their present state, even this seemed a comfort—to visit their brother’s tomb together with their Teacher and Friend. Fresh floods of tears showed how greatly comfort was now needed.

Such a condition of the sisters could move anyone. Could Jesus fail to feel for them? His perfect certainty that Lazarus would soon be raised by Him, and that the tears of His weeping friends would be wiped away and turned to joy, did not prevent Him from paying the debt owed to human nature. A heart truly loving mankind cannot but grieve with the one who suffers, even while preparing for him the fullest consolation. Joy itself, especially when it follows sorrow and, as it were, contends with grief within the soul, loves to express itself in tears. Joseph, weeping at his meeting with his brothers, offers a moving example of this67.

Jesus wept (Jn 11:35). «See how he loved him!» — said the Jews, as they went along after Jesus (Jn 11:36). His tears were, to them, something extraordinary—whereas in anyone else their absence now would have seemed extraordinary. If so great a Prophet, they thought, who cares for nothing earthly, is troubled by nothing carnal, and lives wholly in God—if He weeps, then the one He mourns must be exceedingly dear to His heart. «But»—others whispered, probably not altogether well-disposed toward Jesus—«could not He who once opened the eyes of a blind man have kept His friend from dying? If He did not wish to, why does He grieve so now? And if He did wish to, why did He not hasten to help? Any physician can heal a sick man, but no one can restore sight to one born blind. What, then, has become of His wonder-working power? Does it fail only for friendship’s sake?» Such talk showed that these men scarcely believed even in the miraculous healing of the man born blind, and recalled it now only to have some objection ready against the wonder-working power of Jesus Christ.

For the Lord, whose heart already ached at the sorrowful state of His friends, such unbelief among the Jews was all the more painful. Tears no longer flowed from His eyes, but by His looks and movements it was plain that His soul suffered greatly (Jn 11:38)68.

They came to the tomb. It was a cave hewn out of the rock, its mouth blocked with a stone, so that the buried bodies should not become the prey of carnivorous beasts. Such were the tombs of all wealthy people in Palestine69. The ground, strewn with small rocky outcrops, favored this custom; and the example of Abraham and the other patriarchs, all of whom were buried in caves of this kind, encouraged its being kept up in full force.

No one expected a miracle. It was thought, no doubt, that Jesus wished only to see the place where the lifeless remains of His friend lay, to pay him a last tribute of tears, and then to offer comfort to the sisters. It was all the more astonishing when He ordered the stone blocking the entrance to be rolled away—a stone which, by a custom that had become almost a law, was reckoned untouchable, and was rolled away only in case of special necessity70. To the attentive Mary and those like her, such an action might serve as a foretoken of something miraculous, but to the practical-minded Martha, accustomed to look at things more simply, the rolling away of the stone seemed even inappropriate71; she thought it necessary to warn the Teacher that carrying out His order would bring something unpleasant with it: «Lord, by now there will be a stench, for he has been in the tomb four days» (Jn 11:39).

This was the last effort of her weak faith. «Did I not tell you — the Lord answered — that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?» (Jn 11:40).

The stone was at once rolled away. Those standing nearer the mouth of the cave could see the corpse, wrapped in its burial cloths, already beginning to decay. But the eyes of all were fixed still more on Jesus: everyone wished to know what He would do, for, they thought, it was not for nothing that He had ordered the stone rolled away.

In a position such as this, Jesus Himself had never yet found Himself. Very often, in working wonders, He worked them, so to speak, in passing—that is, in the course of preaching the salvation of mankind. The more striking they were, the less He sought witnesses for them, and sometimes He even forbade that they be told of. Now the very greatest of wonders had to be worked, and worked before all the people! The circumstances of His ministry required precisely such a wonder and sign. For the beneficial impression left on the people’s mind by Jesus’s earlier wonders, worked in Jerusalem (where, however, He worked far fewer of them than in Galilee), might have weakened in part with the passage of time, and still more from the malicious talk of the Pharisees. On the other hand, for the friends and admirers of Jesus, the greatest of all trials now lay ahead—in His sufferings and death—a trial under which an unstrengthened faith might fall. It was needful, therefore, by a new and decisive wonder, to revive in the people’s mind the memory of former signs, and to grant His disciples and followers a firm support of faith and a pledge of hope. The present time, place, and other circumstances entirely favored this. Never could a wonder produce a greater impression than now, being worked near Jerusalem, in the presence of many of its inhabitants, before the feast of Passover, when the holy city was filled with Jews from every part of the world—so that whatever happened there might soon become known everywhere Jews were to be found.

«Lifting up His eyes to heaven» — where His heart always was — «Father — the God-man said — I thank You for hearing Me72; I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this for the sake of the people standing here, that they may believe that You sent Me» (Jn 11:41)73. Having said this, Jesus cried out with a loud voice: «Lazarus, come out!» (Jn 11:43)74.

At this cry the man dead four days at once rose and came out of the tomb—in the very state in which he had been laid there: his face bound about with a cloth, his hands and feet wrapped in burial linens. The power that had loosed the bonds of death loosed also the working of these bindings75. The Lord, however, ordered the linens to be removed and his face untied.

So sudden and extraordinary a miracle could not but produce not astonishment only, but terror. Before the eyes of all stood alive he who, but a moment before, had been in another world—whom his own nearest kin had not hoped to see again before the last day, at the universal judgment! Could one look upon Lazarus and not believe in Jesus? Many of the Jews present did indeed come to believe in Him. But there were also those who proved, by the very experience of it, the truth of the Savior’s words: «even if someone rises from the dead, they will not believe» (Lk 16:31). Instead of remaining longer in the house of Lazarus, sharing the general joy, and delighting in the presence and discourse of the Son of God, these ruined men hastened to Jerusalem, the sooner to inform the chief priests and scribes of what had happened at Bethany76. Thus the greatest of all wonders, and therefore the most sacred of the God-man’s acts, served for these men of seared conscience, perhaps, only as an occasion to display their attachment to some distinguished Pharisee!

Here the thread of John’s narrative seems to break off. He says nothing more, either of the first feelings and words of the raised Lazarus, or of the joy and rapture of his sisters; he passes over in silence even how this moving spectacle ended, and whether Jesus was in the house of Lazarus at all; only by inference do we find that the Lord, with His disciples, soon left Bethany and withdrew to one of the neighboring, secluded towns. A brevity truly astonishing! Where a writer guided by his own imagination would have given himself full rein, would have counted it his duty to show that he knows how to grasp the sublime, to be moved by the wondrous, and to convey his own feelings to others—there the writer moved by the Spirit of God, «speaking not in words taught by human wisdom» (1Cor 2:13), is silent, unconcerned that his account may seem incomplete. And yet it is complete: the purpose is achieved, Jesus’s prediction is fulfilled, His divine glory has been revealed in the raising of Lazarus; this is enough: the remaining details, however engaging to the mind and imagination, meant nothing in the eyes of the writer, whose aim was that his readers should believe that «Jesus is the Son of God», and believing, should have life everlasting in His name (Jn 20:31).

Of the other three evangelists, not one mentions the raising of Lazarus. The reason for this becomes clear of itself as soon as we attend to the character and purpose of their narratives. It is plain throughout that the evangelists had no intention of describing all the deeds of Jesus Christ (Jn 20:30–31, 21:25)77: each, in keeping with his own particular aim (though the chief aim—to beget faith in Jesus Christ—was one and the same for all), selected certain of His deeds and discourses; hence we find that the evangelists share certain accounts in common, while each also has something the others lack. In particular, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as is evident from their Gospels, occupied themselves more with describing those deeds of Jesus Christ performed in Galilee; of the later events—from the Feast of Tabernacles to the last Passover—they say nothing. St John, on the contrary, tells more of what Jesus Christ did in Judea, and especially of what took place from the Feast of Tabernacles to the last Passover. And so, just as it was quite natural for the other evangelists to pass over the raising of Lazarus in silence, so it was impossible for St John to be silent about it. To prove that Jesus Christ raised the dead, other wonders He worked in Galilee could serve; and indeed, St Matthew (Mt 9:18) and Mark (Mk 5:42) describe the raising of the daughter of Jairus, and St Luke the raising of the young man of Nain (Lk 7:15). John, on the other hand, having Judea more in view, no longer mentions these wonders, content with the raising of Lazarus, which he sets forth in especially great detail.

Also quite plausible is the thought of some78 that Lazarus was still living when the first three evangelists were writing of the deeds of Jesus Christ, and that to mention his raising, therefore, would have exposed him to fresh persecution from the Jews, who wished to put him to death even without that. St John, however, as is known, wrote his Gospel very late, when Lazarus, as one may suppose, was no longer living, and so there was no reason for such fears79.

Let us add something from ancient tradition to the Gospel account. Lazarus was about thirty years old when he was raised from the dead, and he lived almost as many years again afterward. After his resurrection, it is said, he asked the Lord whether he would have to die a second time. The manner of the risen Lazarus’s life and conduct was so austere that no one ever saw a smile upon his face; together with his sisters he did much to spread the Christian faith, and died as bishop of Massilia on the island of Cyprus80.

On the chief priests and Pharisees the news of Jesus Christ’s new wonder at Bethany produced the same effect that Herod experienced at the terrible-to-him report of the birth of the King of the Jews. Their ambition had long foreseen nothing from this new Wonderworker but danger to themselves, but the raising of Lazarus seemed to them a declaration of open war. In confusion and consternation the supreme council was at once assembled (Jn 11:47)—not to discuss the divinity of the new miracle (Annas, Caiaphas, and men like them scarcely believed in miracles at all, or if they did, had long since supposed that Jesus’s miracles were not from God), but to determine, by common agreement, how best to stop His successes, to forestall their further effect upon the people, and thus to save their own power and advantage. Annas and Caiaphas, in whose hands lay all the real power, were no doubt beforehand certain that the assembly would do nothing more than follow their own opinion; they could have carried out their own measures against Jesus by their own means, without fear of being answerable to their fellow members; but in so dangerous a matter, one that might lead to popular unrest, they wished to act in the name of the whole Sanhedrin, to have the general voice on their side—the ordinary cunning of men who do not wish to reveal their own arbitrary will, though secretly they direct everything, even their opponents, toward their own ends.

We have observed that from the very beginning there had been two opinions in the Sanhedrin regarding Jesus Christ: the greater part of its members, consisting of Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, were openly hostile to Him; another, far smaller part, but the best in point of virtue, was visibly favorable to Him. Now, when deliberation concerning Him had to take on a more decisive and final tone, when the matter began to concern not only His teaching but His life and death, the disagreement among the members was bound to show itself in the highest degree. So indeed it was, as is evident from the course of events, though the evangelist John, from his characteristic brevity, does not speak of it directly and in detail…

The voices of Jesus’s enemies, by their very numbers, were naturally louder and stronger in the Sanhedrin. To achieve their aim—to incline the assembly toward violent measures—they strove to paint, as vividly as possible, the supposed danger of the position in which the fatherland and the Sanhedrin were said to stand (Jn 11:48). To this end they willingly admitted what at any other time would have been an unbearable humiliation to Pharisaic pride—namely, that the greater part of the people, openly or secretly, favored the new Prophet and Wonderworker of Galilee, and that the measures hitherto used against Him had brought no success at all (Jn 11:47–50). The future they painted in still more terrible colors. «Is it not plain,—they reasoned, with an air of impartiality—that the tomb of Lazarus threatens ruin to the fatherland? So extraordinary a miracle, worked so near Jerusalem, just before the feast of Passover, in the presence of so many witnesses, was surely not done without purpose; it—and here is its secret purpose! — is bound to produce an extraordinary effect upon the whole people; even a blind man will now say: if He were not from God, He could not do such miracles (Jn 9:33); crowd after crowd will go over to the side of the Wonderworker; the Sanhedrin will be left with the empty tokens of a power that will lie in the hands of the Galilean, and the heads of the people of God will have to look for favor and regard from the fishermen of Gennesaret!.. But it is not our own calamity that terrifies us: what will become of the fatherland? Once acknowledged as Messiah, He, complying with the people’s wishes, will have to declare war on the Romans; and even should He not declare it, the masters of the world will not carry off their eagles without first tearing all Judea with their claws. And what will this war bring, a war that will cost the people—exhausted as it already is—its last efforts? For our enemies, new victories; for us, new defeats and chains. The Jewish people are too weak, too unprepared, to contest victory with the legions of Caesar; the new leader is too spiritual and too removed from earthly affairs for His spirit or courage to make up for a lack of real strength. The angered conquerors of the world will strip us of even our last rights, and turn to ruins all that is now best among us—the temple and the city; they will make heavier the yoke that already bows us to the ground; and the very name of Judea may be blotted out forever from the roll of nations» (Jn 11:46–53). Hearing such reasoning, one might have thought these were fathers of the fatherland who, forgetting their own advantage, cared only for the well-being of the people. Far from it! Rome and the fatherland were only on their lips; in their hearts was personal hatred of Jesus for His rebukes (Mt 15:14); fear of losing their own advantages and rights under a new order of things (Mt 21:38); an unwillingness to part with their impure dreams of the Messiah, which plainly did not fit the divine person of Jesus; and a habit of controlling circumstances rather than submitting to them. To anyone who knew the true state of affairs, the patriotic reasonings of Jesus’s enemies inevitably seemed pitiful and groundless. In the first place, Jesus Christ never showed any intention of being an earthly king; He constantly avoided every occasion when the people wished to render Him royal honors (Jn 6:15). Toward the Romans He always disposed men, by word and example alike, to unmurmuring obedience to the existing authorities: the tribute to Caesar, under which the supposed Jewish patriots so chafed, was, by His teaching, a due and by no means unlawful tribute (Mt 17:24; Chrysostom, Homilies on Jn 64). Hence the fear of war with the Romans on Jesus Christ’s account was entirely groundless. Meanwhile, what was falsely ascribed to Him, His enemies themselves were precisely guilty of: the thought of throwing off the Roman yoke and restoring the people’s independence—or rather, the Sanhedrin’s own—was the favorite thought of the Jewish nobles81. Had the new Wonderworker been indulgent to their vices, conformed His teaching to the prejudices of the Pharisees, not shrunk from friendly intercourse with the chief priests, and given them plainly to understand that His future greatness would be of great advantage to the Sanhedrin, then one could say with certainty that fear of the Romans would have restrained none of those who now feared it most, that the greater part of the nobles would have lost no time in declaring themselves for Jesus as Messiah, and that Annas and Caiaphas themselves would probably have gladly seized the occasion—in the name of a man who had won the people’s love and become famous for his wonders—to declare war against Pilate’s praetorium…

The acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, on the contrary—and this alone—could have delivered the Jewish people, as the God-man Himself remarked (Lk 19:41–44), from the calamities threatening it on every side. For this, only the dreams of an earthly, universal dominion for the Messiah needed to be dispelled: but it was precisely these dreams that, as history bears witness, brought Judea to ruin, driving it to rise up senselessly against the Romans. Only the absurd traditions of the Pharisees needed to lose their force, the empty disputes of the scribes to cease, the fruitless sophistries of the questioners to come to an end. But it was from these very evils that faith, morality, and civic life suffered, and from them sprang all the bloody events with which the history of the Jewish people, before its fall, is so richly stocked. Finally, with the acknowledgment of Jesus as Messiah, there needed to come an emergence from the forgetting of the ancient purity and simplicity of morals, an arrival at the strength of true piety, a cleansing of religion from superstition, a freeing of the laws from partial interpretations, a better direction for men’s minds, and a knowledge, in their hearts, of true love for God and neighbor. But it was precisely in this beneficial change that the spiritual and moral rebirth of the Jewish people would have consisted—that raising of it out of the grave which a prophet once foresaw (Ezek 37). Unhappily, all this was hidden from the eyes of the false teachers of Jerusalem (Lk 19:42). They feared, as Blessed Augustine observes, to lose what was temporal, giving no thought whatever to what was eternal, and so lost both82. Being incapable of penetrating to the lofty purpose of Jesus Christ’s actions, of feeling and valuing the excellence of His character and the purity of His teaching, of understanding the simplicity and yet the effectiveness of the means by which He wished to bring, among other things, earthly happiness to His own earthly fatherland—the very earthly happiness expected of the Messiah—they judged Him and His deeds perversely, superficially, and with ill will. Having themselves impure aims, never acting disinterestedly, for the common good, they supposed that everyone else acted as they did—seeking only their own advantage. With such a cast of mind, the removal, and, should that fail, the death of Jesus Christ presented itself to the Jewish nobles as the necessary means of delivering themselves and their fatherland from imagined dangers. Every other measure seemed weak, unreliable, and therefore imprudent (Jn 11:53; Chrysostom, Homilies on Jn 64).

The well-disposed members of the Sanhedrin, favorable to Jesus Christ, probably had to spare the cloak of hypocrisy that had now taken on the appearance of love for the fatherland; to tear it off openly would have meant arming the whole faction of Caiaphas against themselves. It remained, without touching the source of their opponents’ opinions and fears, and even supposing them to spring from love of the fatherland, to fight with the very same weapon, showing that their premises were unsound and their conclusions false. The high priest’s indignation against those of a different mind, which we shall soon see, leaves no doubt that no small word was spoken in defense of Jesus Christ (Jn 11:49). And what could not be said in defense of Him in whom there was not even the shadow of sin? While the sinister scribes were forced to ground their fears on mere fabrications, the friends of truth had the right to appeal to deeds and events beyond dispute. In refutation of the impure intentions ascribed to Jesus Christ, they could point to the divine purity of His morals, to His supreme love for mankind, to the manner of His life, in which nothing reprehensible could be observed. In the name of humanity they could demand that the Righteous One not be condemned without an impartial examination of whether He was guilty of what He was suspected of (Jn 7:51); in the name of that same fatherland they could beg that judgment not be hastened against Him who bore upon Himself so many marks of the Messiah, in whom the greater part of the people found their greatest comfort and edification. They could point to the danger of error, should the true Messiah be rejected (Act 5:39); they could even recall the promptings of conscience, which, no doubt, was already telling, or ready to tell, every member that he was acting wrongly if he acted against Jesus.

All such promptings flowed naturally from a love of justice, from respect for the laws of God and man; and so those who offered them had no need to fear the reproach that partiality toward Jesus made them speak so—a partiality that, under the present circumstances, His enemies would have counted as treason to the fatherland. But this very rectitude and freedom from passion seemed to one of the chief priests presiding at the assembly to be shortsightedness, a coarse simplicity befitting common folk rather than members of the Sanhedrin. The cause of Jesus, in his opinion, was a matter not of conscience and justice but of public order, and in it one had to look at nothing else but the public benefit or harm. «You,—he cried out, as if in a kind of frenzy—understand nothing! What use are these humane speculations? This righteousness and tender feeling? Let Him be perfectly innocent and righteous: but His life, as you see, is incompatible with the public welfare; and He must perish!» This is the sacrifice of necessity: for «it is better for us that one man should die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish» (Jn 11:50).

The evangelist, in recounting Caiaphas’s last words, observes that they were spoken by him not of himself but by a kind of inspiration, and that in them, without doing violence to the high priest’s own meaning, one may see a striking prediction concerning the saving purpose, for the whole human race, of Christ’s death; for, the evangelist continues, it was indeed necessary, by a predetermination from on high, that Jesus should die not for the (Jewish) nation only, but also to gather into one the scattered children of God (the Gentiles, already destined for the sonship of God).

And such a prophecy came forth from the mouth of Jesus’s foremost enemy, His murderer!.. It came forth, as St John observes, because Caiaphas was high priest that year; and who is more fitting to pronounce judgment on the price of a sacrifice than the high priest? Caiaphas, in the profound expression of one pastor of the Church, sounded on this occasion like the bell in which it was appointed that day to ring out the good news83. A ray, as it were, of higher illumination flashed for a moment in the gloomy soul of the Sadducee, as a ray of sunlight is reflected in murky and foul water without losing its own purity and strength.

With Caiaphas’s pronouncement the Sanhedrin’s debate came to an end, and the voice of Jesus’s enemies gained a decisive advantage. Caiaphas’s flatterers, who filled the Sanhedrin, could declare his opinion, without even breaching propriety, to be as it were a verdict of heaven itself, since among the popular beliefs of that time was the notion that God sometimes reveals His will through the great high priest. The clever turn devised by Caiaphas seemed bound, without giving offense, to silence even Jesus’s own friends, unless they wished to defend Him openly as friends: with them there was no longer any dispute over His innocence; only the sacrifice of this innocent man for the public good was demanded, for the sole reason that he had had the misfortune to come into the world, so to speak, at the wrong time and in the wrong place (Jn 11:53). It was resolved at once to proclaim, in the name of the Sanhedrin, that every inhabitant of Jerusalem, as soon as he learned of Jesus’s presence anywhere, should immediately report it to his nearest authority (Jn 11:57), whose duty it would be to seize Him and bring Him before the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin’s deliberation, with its bloody decree, could hardly fail soon to become known to the Lord, even had He not wished, in this instance, to make use of the power of His divine omniscience, since among those deliberating were, as we have seen, longstanding, though secret, disciples and followers of His. This news held nothing new for Him who saw all things, and nothing sorrowful or terrible for Him who, as we have seen, was even now going up to Jerusalem for this very purpose—to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the salvation of the world. Jesus Christ had more than once testified that He fervently awaited that great hour when, lifted up on the cross, He would be able to say: «It is finished!» But the good of His disciples and followers, the good of the faith He preached, the good of the whole human race required that He withdraw for a time now from persecution. The seed that was to fall into the earth (Jn 12:24) (the earthly life of the God-man) was so precious and so divine that, for its falling into the earth, the most fitting time and the most convenient place had to be chosen, and these were plainly now lacking. For the malice of His enemies was probably preparing for Him a secret death, and perhaps intended now that He should fall by the hand of some hired zealot. Such a death, instead of becoming a solemn witness to the truth, a universal sacrifice offered for the salvation of the human race before the face of heaven and earth, would have lost its majestic, universal, divine character. These, then, are the reasons—each of us can feel their weight—why Jesus Christ, as St John observes, from the time of Lazarus’s raising, «no longer went about openly among the Jews» (Jn 11:54; Chrysostom, Homilies on Jn 65).

To be in greater safety for the time being, Jesus Christ withdrew even from Bethany itself, notwithstanding the devotion its inhabitants felt toward Him. That place lay too near Jerusalem. It might be expected that, as the rumor of Lazarus’s raising spread, curiosity would draw crowds of people there, and, following them, the suspicions and schemes of the Pharisees. Meanwhile, He did not wish His presence to expose the people of Bethany to unpleasantness from the Sanhedrin.

The refuge chosen this time was the small town of Ephraim, lying to one side, between Bethany and Jericho, near the wild wilderness of Quarantania, dreaded for its robbers84. In that wilderness, as tradition relates, the Lord had prepared Himself, by a forty-day fast, for His great ministry. In these same places He now wished to spend His last days too, in preparation for His death. Here He and His disciples were in complete safety, since His whereabouts were probably known only to His disciples and a small number of friends from Bethany.

How pleasant it is, once more, if only for a brief time, to see the divine Teacher of truth in such a place, where, unhindered by crowds of people and untroubled by the schemes of His enemies, He could spend several days quietly, in stillness and peace! Hours of solitude and silence were always dear to Him (Lk 4:42, 5:16), usually devoted to prayerful converse with the Father or to friendly instruction of His disciples. Now, with His sufferings and death drawing near, such solitude and silence were needed and welcomed all the more. The majestic austerity of the place85, the sight of silent nature (Jesus Christ always loved to turn His attention to it) accorded fully with the matters that occupied Jesus’s soul. If His disciples had some presentiment of the weight of the events now approaching, then for them too the days spent at Ephraim were days of reflection, prayer, and hidden, great expectations.

The evangelist does not say that Jesus Christ taught His disciples anything in particular now. The seclusion at Ephraim seems to have been devoted by Him more to Himself than to His disciples. Yet closer communion with the Teacher, and the recollection of all that had passed, especially the most recent events, were in themselves already most instructive. So it had happened before too, that Jesus Christ would interrupt His teaching for a time. In general, the formation given to the future guides and enlighteners of the human race did not at all consist, as one might suppose, of a systematic instruction in the lofty matters of faith. No! It resembled far more the ordinary, free intercourse of a father with his children, of an experienced guide with young friends. The Lord often left His disciples to themselves, always allowed them to act with complete freedom, as it were alone, without directly entering into their conversations or their disputes; He only watched them constantly, and from time to time gave them to understand that not one of their thoughts, not one of their wishes, was hidden from Him, that His spirit was present among them even when they thought themselves alone.

Meanwhile, into Jerusalem, on the approach of Passover, ever more people were pouring in, hour by hour. The cause of the pilgrims’ early arrival was piety and profit alike; those wishing to keep the Passover were required, by ancient custom (Ex 19:10), to undergo a particular preparation, which in those days consisted of various purifications, fasting, and almsgiving. The more devout believed that such preparation could be carried out nowhere better than in Jerusalem, before the house of God, with the help and guidance of the Pharisees, and so came for this a week or more before the feast. Besides this, Jews coming from afar, especially from Egypt and Babylon, brought with them various wares and produce of their lands; the selling and exchanging of these obliged them to arrive for the feast earlier, and to leave later, than usual. For these and other reasons, the holy city, throughout the Passover month, resembled a gathering-place for the whole then-known world, especially the East.

The Raiser of Lazarus was now, naturally, the subject of popular rumor and universal talk. Everyone (except Jesus’s enemies) awaited His coming to Jerusalem with impatience, though everyone could see that the fulfillment of this expectation was bound up with extraordinary difficulty, owing to the Sanhedrin’s grim decree against Jesus. In general, among the people there was a secret expectation of something great, something extraordinary, powerfully awakened by so great a miracle as the raising of Lazarus—with which, it seemed, all Israel’s best hopes had risen again too. On the other hand, they saw that the supreme council of the Jews was filled with irreconcilable enemies of Jesus, ready to use against Him both their power and their cunning. From this there naturally spread a certain despondency, and sorrowful forebodings arose, all the more because, in the common opinion, the beginning and revelation of the Messiah’s kingdom was supposed to be preceded by the greatest universal sorrows and calamities86. Various true and false rumors and stories about the Wonderworker, about the miracle He had wrought, about the schemes of His enemies, and so forth—as usually happens in such cases—now increased hope for better times, now increased fear and perplexity. In these decisive moments, when the Jewish people had to accept or reject their Messiah, they resembled, more than ever, sheep without a shepherd (Mt 9:36). The greater part of the Jewish shepherds were nothing but wolves in sheep’s clothing, and almost all were against the great Chief Shepherd (John the Forerunner, righteous Simeon and Anna, and the shepherds of Bethlehem, who could have testified to the truth and instructed the people, were by now no longer living). Only conscience, in whoever still possessed it, spoke on Jesus’s behalf…

In such an agitation of minds several days passed87. Jesus Christ’s voluntary and unexpected withdrawal from Jerusalem gave a new turn to opinion and became a fresh subject for conjecture. Many of the foreign Jews, who had before heard Jesus Christ’s discourses in Jerusalem and held Him in particular esteem, came more than once to the Temple, thinking to find in Him, as before, the divine Teacher. Not finding Him, they began to think that He would not come to the feast at all (Jn 11:56). This opinion was confirmed, besides His delay, by the very secrecy of His whereabouts. In general, whoever knew less of Jesus—of the greatness of His character, His unwavering devotion to the will of the Heavenly Father, His readiness to offer Himself in sacrifice for the salvation of the human race—was, by the very state of affairs, inclined to think that prudence would keep Him from appearing in Jerusalem, at least until circumstances changed. On the other hand, it was known that Jesus Christ had always come to the feasts (Jn 2:13, 6:4, 10:22–23), especially to the Passover, in Jerusalem; and that He had recently come from Galilee to Judea for just this purpose. The very miracle at Bethany seemed a forerunner of His coming: for Him to have worked it so near Jerusalem and then to withdraw with nothing further seemed incompatible with the ordinary course of things and events. This last thought (though in a different sense) probably led Jesus’s enemies too to suppose that He would certainly come to the feast. For them it was hard to imagine that the event at Bethany would not be the beginning of other such events, and would remain without further consequence—that He who had worked it would forgo the fruits that Lazarus’s raising was bound to bring Him, in gaining Him the universal wonder and love of the people gathered for the feast. And so the Pharisees grew more active and watchful day by day; many of them, so as to be the first to discover Jesus’s arrival and report it to the Sanhedrin, to show themselves patriots, and to earn a reward.

Six days before the Passover, as St John says, Jesus indeed appeared again in Bethany. His arrival was a feast for the whole population, especially for His admirers and friends. One of them, named Simon the leper88, whom Jesus Christ had healed of leprosy, taking advantage of the rest of the sabbath day, arranged a rich supper in His honor89. Hospitable Martha yielded to him the honor of receiving the Lord in his own house, but took upon herself the labor of managing the meal and serving Jesus at table. It was already a mark of the greatest reverence for Him that all this took place so near Jerusalem, when every Israelite, under pain of curse and punishment, was bound to report Jesus’s whereabouts to the supreme Sanhedrin. The company consisted of His disciples and friends, who had been healed by Him or had received some other benefit from Him. The raised dead man was also among the guests, and on his face, no doubt, shone the joy that filled all those at supper, yet a joy of another kind, peculiar to one who had so recently spent several days beyond the bounds of this world. Everyone deeply revered and loved Jesus, but for Lazarus He was already the Lord of life and death.

No one felt the joy of those moments more keenly, no one felt more indebted to Jesus for that joy, than Mary. With her brother’s life, the Lord had, as it were, granted life back to her as well. Her tender heart burned with the desire to express her gratitude to Him by some special token. To her pleasure, she noticed that one service had not yet been rendered to her most precious Guest: He had not been anointed with fragrant ointment, as was sometimes done at rich feasts90. In her house there remained (probably from Lazarus’s burial)91 a pound of pure spikenard ointment. What could be better, she thought, than to use it in honor of her most precious Guest? With this thought she quietly leaves the gathering, and soon appears with an alabaster jar full of the precious ointment. While the others were at supper, she began to pour the ointment on the Lord. In such a case it was customary to anoint only the head92; but Mary’s hand was guided not by custom but by deep reverence and love; she poured the ointment on Jesus’s feet as well, and, not content even with this mark of the greatest devotion, wiped them with her own hair instead of the usual towel (Jn 12:3). Greater honor could not have been shown even to a king. The whole house was filled with the fragrance (Jn 12:3).

To one who looked upon the Lord with the same eyes as Mary, and knew how to discern in human actions the features of the beautiful and the good, her deed was most pleasing, and full of a particular resolve, devotion, reverence, and pathos.

The Lord said nothing to Mary, but from His very silence it was plain that her pure intention of giving Him pleasure had been fulfilled. No greater reward was needed for a grateful heart. Everyone rejoiced, but this general gladness was suddenly disturbed by displeasure, expressed, beyond all expectation, by one of Jesus’s disciples.

Mary’s beautiful deed seemed to him an ill-timed extravagance, more befitting some pompous Pharisaic teacher fond of luxury than his own Teacher, who loved simplicity, could not bear excess, was far from any appearance of luxury, and always rose up against the hard-heartedness of the rich toward the poor. Propriety demanded, at the very least, that such thoughts not be voiced: Judas (for that was the disciple’s name), on the contrary, lost no time in expressing them to those disciples sitting near him, and then carried his boldness so far as to begin openly condemning Mary. «What is the purpose of such waste,—he reasoned—would it not have been better to sell this ointment for three hundred denarii (for so much, at least, it would have fetched) and give the money to the poor?» So plausible a pretext for reproach seems to have had its effect on other disciples too, and some of them likewise came to think that, however bold Judas’s remark, the remark itself was not without foundation, and in this instance did not contradict their own Teacher’s own principles, and that, in general, it would scarcely have been better had the ointment been used as Judas suggested (Mt 26:8).

If the disciples, in condemning what Mary had done, violated in some measure the duty of respect owed to her, and still more to their Teacher, this arose in them not from any evil intention, still less from a bad heart, but from simplicity, from the habit of freely voicing all their thoughts before their Teacher, from a certain incapacity, on this occasion, to appreciate the worth, and, so to speak, the heartfeltness of Mary’s deed, from a praiseworthy but ill-timed concern for the poor, and hence from being carried away by the example of Judas, who, by the boldness and impudence of his character, was able to sway the others’ opinions on more than this one occasion. But in Judas himself something quite different was now at work; his supposed pity for the poor sprang from a source most impure… By his Teacher’s commission, and no doubt also by his own wish, he had long been the keeper of the money in Jesus’s small company, and for this purpose carried a small box, into which those so moved put whatever they could (Jn 12:6; 13:29). The greater part of this money was usually spent on the poor—through Judas’s hands, who observed no honesty at all in this matter and kept much of it for himself. By the nature every passion has, of gradually growing and strengthening when it is fed, avarice had at last become an incurable disease of Judas’s soul, and now possessed all his thoughts and desires. It was this that made him condemn Mary’s devotion and speak in that language of compassion for the poor which suited him least of all.

The three hundred denarii for the ointment would have been handed over to Judas, who would have dealt with this money exactly as he dealt with the rest. The Lord knew of this unhappy state of His disciple’s soul, and no doubt used every means for his correction; only He did not openly disclose His thoughts about him, nor expose his vice before the others. Under this magnanimous forbearance, the shameless disciple took the opportunity to conceal his avarice and thieving, now under the guise of concern for the poor, as at present, now under other, equally plausible pretexts. No doubt, on this occasion too, the base hypocrite, speaking so boldly, did not think he was doing anything improper by it; he hoped, perhaps, even to earn approval for his candor, his supposed forthrightness of character, and his love for the poor, which watches over their interests even when others would think it better to keep silent.

Sensitive Mary had all the more reason to be troubled by Judas’s rebuke, the purer and loftier the feeling that had prompted her deed. Ah, how coldly, how mercilessly they judged what was the fruit of an ardent, purest love for the Savior! Can one call it waste—the honor shown to Him who raised Lazarus? All the fragrances of Lebanon are nothing beside His benefaction. But Mary could only feel the rightness of her deed, not defend it.

The Lord was pleased to become the defender of her meekness. To expose Judas’s base passion, his shameful hypocrisy, would have been the most effective defense, and at the same time a just punishment for the treacherous disciple, who darkened by his presence the most holy company of the future enlighteners of the human race. And the other disciples might have learned from it not to rely without reflection on another’s words, however plausible. But the Lord, according to the plan of His own wisdom, having left the son of perdition to go his own way to the end, spared even now the ruinous secret of his heart, and made as if the regret over the ointment sprang, in everyone, from one and the same source—love for the poor. «Why do you trouble the woman?» — He said (turning to the disciples, and especially to Judas). «Let her be!… She has done a beautiful thing for Me… She has done what she could; she has come beforehand to anoint My body for burial93» (Mk 14:6, 8), «for you always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have Me… Truly I tell you: wherever this gospel is proclaimed» (of Me and My death) — «in the whole world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her» (Mk 14:7, 9; Mt 26:6–13).

Such words could not but produce a powerful impression, though a different one for different persons. A gentle joy shone on modest Mary’s face: he who had wished to cover her with shame and confusion was himself put to shame and confusion! Her name and her deed would become known to the whole world, joined forever to the deeds of Jesus! Oh, so great a reward for so small a service—for a moment’s embarrassment—only He can grant who raised Lazarus, in whose right hand is all things! The disciples, on the other hand, had every reason to feel deeply ashamed, on learning that they had reckoned as needless waste what had served as a preparation of their Teacher for death! How out of place, after this, their regret over the ointment now seemed! How disagreeable was Judas, with his untimely concern for the poor!

The thought of the Lord’s death was bound to give the conversation a different turn. Seemingly by chance, He had disclosed the fate soon awaiting Him, but this disclosure was all the more striking for standing in such sharp contrast with the general gladness. The eyes of all, already often turned toward Jesus, now did not leave His face; everyone wished to read on His divine countenance what this burial could be, of which He had just spoken. Was He really to die so soon? In place of gladness there now, of necessity, came thoughtfulness and gloom. The disciples heard once more that their Teacher’s death would not, as they had supposed, prevent Him from being the Messiah, or His gospel from becoming known and triumphing over the whole world. How could all this be reconciled? This gave fresh occasion for perplexity and conjecture. The coming night was spent in Bethany. The next day the Lord intended to go up to Jerusalem.