O death, full of life! O death, the solver of death, the leader of salvation, the resurrection of the fallen, the rest of those who toil, the strength of the sick, the refreshment of the just! O death, the overthrow of the devil, the destruction of demons, the renewal of the first-formed Adam! O death, the partner of joy, the announcer of incorruption, the dancer of gladness! But that I may cut my discourse short, Jesus comes to Bethany; the sisters of Lazarus met Him, and falling at the feet of the Lord, they wept and said: A Lord, if You had been here, our brother would not have died (Ibid. v. 21). Was He not there? In body, indeed, He was not there; but in divinity, He was not only there, but also in the heavens. For how did He know when Lazarus died, if He were not present in the invisible power of His divinity? And they said: Lord, if You had been here, our brother would not have died. The Lord said to them: Believe, and you shall see the glory of God; teaching that faith is the leader of good works. And seeing them weeping, and the Jews who were present, He groaned in the spirit and troubled Himself, and said: Where have you laid him? What is this "He groaned in the spirit"? Wait, beloved, and after a little while you shall find the solution to what is sought. He troubled Himself, not as we are troubled by cowardice or grief, but He Himself troubled Himself, and said: Where have you laid him? Did He then not know where he was buried, He who knew when he had died? But He mixes human words with divine miracles, to show that He was also man, B as the prophet also says: And He is man, and who shall know Him? He prefixed this to signify that He is also something else, which is God. Where have you laid him? And Mary says: Come and see, Lord. And Jesus wept (John 11:35). What need was there to weep, when He was about to raise him after a little while? But Jesus wept, that He might show the sympathy and philanthropy He has towards those of our own nature; Jesus wept, that He might teach (by deed rather than by word) that one should weep with those who weep; Jesus wept; He wept, but did not mourn, rejecting what is altogether without tears as pitiless and inhuman, and putting aside the love of mourning as ignoble and unmanly; rather, imposing order upon sympathy, He wept. He comes to the cave, and sees a stone lying against the tomb. He orders the Jews who are standing by to roll away the stone from the mouth of the cave. He who says: If you have faith C as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, and it shall come to pass for you (Matt. 17:19): how is it that He now is unable to roll away the stone? But He does this not as though it were impossible, He says, but so that what is happening might not seem to be a phantasm, I command these same Jews to roll away the stone with their own hands, leaving the greatest sign for Myself; that they themselves might be witnesses of the signs performed by Me. Then, after rolling away the stone, Jesus looked up to heaven and said: I thank You, Father, that You have heard Me. But when did He pray? Now take, beloved, the solution to the saying sought by you a little before—for when He groaned in the spirit, then He prayed. And having said these things, He cried with a loud voice, saying, Lazarus, come forth. And immediately the dead man came out, bound D as to his hands and feet with graveclothes. O power of the voice, which rent the bars, shattered the gates of brass, broke in pieces the iron levers, cast down the devil, abolished death, and raised the dead! O power of the voice, which gathered the separated members into one and set them upright, and brought what was from non-existence into existence! O power of the voice, which wakened the four-day-dead as if from sleep, and led him forth from the tomb, bound in graveclothes as if he were unencumbered and a fast runner! Fix, beloved, your mind upon the voice, and you will find it is the same Word that said in the creation of the world, Let there be light, and there was light. Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, and they were, saying the same even now: Lazarus, come forth. And the humors of the flesh that had flowed away filled the sockets again, and the fallen hairs recognized their proper order and were implanted in the limbs. Lazarus, come forth; and the dead man arose, and the four-day-old was as if he had not died at the beginning. Lazarus, come forth; and the soul was pulled back from the nether world, with no devil gainsaying, with no death wrestling against it; and rejoicing, it recognized its own dwelling. Having seen this divine work of miracles, beloved, do not doubt the resurrection; let Lazarus be a mirror to you, and having seen yourself in him, believe in the rising. For the same voice shall raise all of us, as also the Apostle says: For He shall sound the trumpet, and the dead shall rise incorruptible (1 Cor. 15:52); by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
On the Four-Day Lazarus. III
He loosed Lazarus; but although called thus, he hastened, so as to show forth a race while wrapped in swaddling clothes, he who on the fourth day having decayed in the tomb, and having been ravaged by worms from the bowels, and having had the whole harmony of the body broken, and possessing the stench of the tomb as a witness of decay. But the fragrance that smelled the dead one refashioned the rot of the bowels; the tomb became a womb for the one lying there, and as if sown in a womb, and not in a tomb, Lazarus leapt forth new-born. O new wonder-working! A tomb carried forth a man for us into life, wrapped in the burial clothes, just as an infant in swaddling clothes. For the voice of the Master, having been made known to the dead man, pulled him from the tomb along with the swaddling clothes. Lazarus, He says, come forth; and at the word the dead man immediately came forth, and the members in the tomb ran together to one another; the eye returned to its proper order, the nose took its proper place, the cheeks hastened to their former shape, the neck was knit together with the shoulders and head, the union of the hands prepared for movement, the harmonies of the joints were joined together, the order of the fingers was settled, the connections of the nerves were bound, the nature of bones was reclothed, the arteries were stretched along with the veins, marrow was molded, membranes were woven, and hairs were sprouted. I am slow in speech in describing the movement of the members. Just as a horse from a signal, so the dead man, pricked by the voice of the Master, leaped up. Lazarus, come forth. Before saying, "Arise," He orders the departure; he is still lying down, yet He urges him toward the race: "Arise first, and then to him who has arisen, order him to run." Why, Master, do You preach a departure to the one who is lying down before the resurrection? "I order the race to the one lying down," He says, "so that by not occupying the dead man with two things, I would waste time on the departure. I do not say to him, 'Rise, and come forth,' so that he might run more quickly, having received one deadline for both the rising and the race." From this, Lazarus leapt out of the tomb as if winged, rather as a guardian than a dead man, sitting beside the tomb. And Hades from below, as it seems, delivering up the dead man, cried out: "Who is this who by a voice raises the dead from the tombs as if they were sleeping? Who is this who is dissolving the ancient laws of the dead? Who is this who has set such a proclamation for the dead to return? Who is this who is accustoming those who have been buried to run back to life? Who is this who is loosening my dead so easily? Who is this who is tearing away my ancient dead by a command? The scepter of my tyranny over men, as I see, is gone, and the prison of death is henceforth rotten to me. Elijah raised a dead man as a favor to a woman, demonstrating it; Elisha coming after was made a double snatch-robber of my dead; now this one has campaigned against me more bitterly as a helper for the dead, stealing my putrid dead, and I am in danger henceforth of having no power even over the decayed dead. For I have been despoiled of a dead man whom I had consumed; a four-day body triumphs over me, dancing together with the living in visible form; I shall be trampled hereafter along with the swaddling clothes, by a dead man having escaped from me. For who ..."
A will fear me hereafter, having been defeated by a putrid corpse, and having become, as it were, a keeper of the dead—as if they were some kind of deposit? For Lazarus was a certain deposit in the tomb, like gold returned with the seals with which it had been placed. He was placed in the tomb bound with grave-clothes, and with these same ones bound, he was returned to life. For the multitude of the Jews was faithless, and doubtful regarding the magnitude of the miracles. They would B have said of Lazarus even now, just as once concerning the blind man who was healed, "This is he," or "This is not he." Therefore, just as someone intending to return a deposit, and foreseeing the suspicion of the one who had entrusted it, preserves the seals of the deposit, so that the sight of the seals may persuade the one who had entrusted it; so too does the Master Christ, in returning Lazarus to the Jews from the dead, bring forth along with the four-day-old deposit among the dead, the signs of his burial cloths, like a certain seal, in order that by loosening them they might see that it was not some other person, but the very one C they had laid there. But the persistent blindness of unbelief cannot be corrected. For having recognized the dead man, they envied the miracle, and devised a blind counsel. For, it says, "the chief priests consulted" that they might "put Lazarus also to death, whom he raised from the dead; because by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed in him" (John 12.10-11); to whom be the glory for ever. Amen. D