In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.
Glory be to God. With today, Lazarus Saturday,
we have arrived at the conclusion of Lent, which
officially ended yesterday. And Lazarus is our
inauguration into the entrance of the Lord in
the temple, Palm Sunday, Holy Week. and culminating
in our Lord's resurrection. Lazarus Saturday
enjoys a prominence that, to my knowledge, does
not exist in other Christian liturgical rites,
ancient or modern. That Lazarus in this event
is accorded a special day, the resurrection of
Lazarus, Lazarus Saturday. Jesus, of course,
performed several other raisings of the dead.
The daughter of the ruler of synagogue, Jairus,
the funeral procession when he met the widow,
the son of the widow of Nain, and her only son,
and raised him from the dead. The event, the
gospel, the raising of Lazarus, is, to my mind,
a little odd because it's so important that it's
mentioned only once in the four Gospels. I was
pleasantly surprised that unexpectedly and in
a quite unexpected place, the resurrection of
Lazarus made its appearance on public television.
I enjoy watching Jeopardy. It exercises my mind,
my memory, and I like to match wits with usually
younger contestants who amaze me with their encyclopedic
knowledge. All topics. And they had Bible stories.
Books of the Bible was one of the categories.
And the question was, in which book of the Bible
Is it recorded that Jesus raised Lazarus from
the dead? And I thought, gee, that's an easy
one. One contestant said, Book of Exodus. And
I thought, I mean. And then a young woman pressed
the button and she said, Acts of the Apostles?
No. And then the third one didn't even want to
stab at an answer. So I thought, Lord, we have
to make the light of Jesus Christ and his gospel
shine more brightly in our country. And that's
an incentive for us to pray for this. But Lazarus...
Getting back to the topic, it's mentioned only
in the Gospel of St. John, peculiar to my way
of thinking. Some of the early church commentaries
offer what to me is a very plausible explanation
for this. The Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark,
Luke, do not mention this because when they wrote
their Gospels, Lazarus was still alive. and by
the time John finished his last and fourth gospel,
Lazarus had already undergone his second and
final death to the resurrection. Early Christian
commentators tell us that Lazarus went on to
become a bishop in Cyprus, and one of the charming
stories is that the Theotokos, wove his first
almophore. You know, the bishop's large stole
for him. But only in John is this very important
event recorded. Notice Lazarus was dead for four
days. St. John even uses that very stark word.
when he says, by now he stinketh, so that his
body had begun to corrupt. That was in the Jewish
thinking that the corruption sets in at four
days. This, of course, is in keeping with why
Jesus foretold his three -day resurrection. Not
only that he would just as... Jonah was in the
belly of the whale for three days, so the Son
of Man will be in the heart of the earth for
three days and then rise. But Jesus was raised
so that he did not go to the period of corruption
four days plus. This also is in keeping, with
one of the Psalms, Psalm 16, which says, Thou
wilt not let thy Holy One, or thy anointed, or
thy Christ, it can be translated by all three
of those words, Thou wilt not allow thy Christ,
thy Holy One, thy anointed, to see corruption.
The same fact is, truth is, mentioned in the
Liturgy of St. Basil, which we have heard on
the Sundays of Lent, when it says, it was not
possible for the author of life to be a victim
of corruption. So we see here a very important
theological truth. Jesus' body did not see corruption.
In the early church, 5th, 6th century, there
was such an emphasis on the divinity of Christ
that a wrong idea emerged that Jesus' body from
the moment of conception was incorruptible. The
church said, no, this is not true, because if
his body was incorruptible body, then the body
he assumed would not be the same as our body.
which is a corruptible body. So he assumed a
corruptible body, but in fact, in the tomb, it
did not see corruption because, again, it is
impossible for the author of life to see corruption.
event also, and it struck me again today when
I heard the gospel, this is the opportunity for
Jesus to tell us, I am the resurrection and the
life. He who believes in me, even though he dies,
will live. Do you believe this response was,
yes, Lord, I believe. We should thank God for
the possibility of eternal life and look forward
to the resurrection on the final day. Again,
a truth affirmed in the Troparion, by raising
Lazarus from the dead, thou didst confirm the
universal resurrection. So to our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has suffered, and died for our sins,
and rose again to lead us to eternal life, be
glory and honor forever and ever. Amen.