Today's reading once again returns us to Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Although he remains in the background, he nevertheless takes part in such events as the anointing of Jesus (vv. 1-11) and the Lord's entry into Jerusalem (vv. 12-19). At the beginning of the account we meet Lazarus in the house where the events unfold (vv. 1-2), and his presence draws many people's attention to what is happening when they might otherwise have noticed nothing (v. 9). According to the evangelist, even Jesus' triumphant reception in the streets of Jerusalem was connected to a significant degree with the rumors spreading through the city about the man who had died and whom He had raised (vv. 17-18).

Such attention to Lazarus and to everything connected with the miracle of Jesus raising him is, of course, no accident. For most believing Jews, the resurrection of the dead was a sign that the day of Judgment and the messianic Kingdom had arrived. Someone capable of performing such miracles was naturally regarded as the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus Himself, who had previously concealed His messiahship and revealed the mystery of His ministry to only a few, now bears direct witness to His mission: He accepts the greetings of the people gathered in the city streets, who welcome Him as the Messiah (vv. 12-15). Indeed, after so evident a manifestation of the Kingdom's power before everyone, it would have been utterly impossible to continue concealing His messiahship. On the other hand, Jesus now had very little time left before completing His earthly ministry, so He no longer needed to fear being drawn into religious and political games by being made the leader of yet another messianic uprising.

But even such plain evidence apparently did not convince everyone. Neither the Temple leadership (vv. 10-11) nor most of the leaders of the Pharisaic movement (v. 19) changed their opinion of Jesus. Yet this position can hardly have been determined by any evidence or arguments. Had arguments been at issue, one could scarcely find one weightier than the living Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised before a multitude of witnesses. But judging by the evangelist's account, the priestly circles' only response to this argument was a plan to kill Lazarus and thus rid themselves of him as living evidence that Jesus was right.

This is plainly no longer about evidence or theological discussion but about a political game whose outcome is known in advance. Those who play it have no need of the Kingdom. They need religious and political stability in society, which in their view justifies any sacrifice. If at first the issue concerned only One (John 11:49-50), it now concerns at least two. Such is the logic of earthly power when it opposes the Kingdom: unwilling to acknowledge the obvious, it merely multiplies its victims as it tries to eliminate everyone who might become a witness to the Kingdom. It is the logic of the powers of darkness that leads the Savior to the cross.

When it comes to the Savior's earthly ministry, we understand that something unique is at issue: indeed, He alone was destined to be born and to live His earthly life as the Messiah; this was given to no one else. And yet His life became a kind of spiritual model suitable for every one of His followers. Moreover, there is simply no other model that allows one to enter the Kingdom, and apparently there cannot be, at least in our world that has undergone the fall.

This model is very simple in theory and not so simple in practice: a person must agree to part with his own life in order then to receive it again, but now as another life, in a new quality suitable for the Kingdom. The one who loves his life ("soul") as it is, in its present condition, cannot count on the Kingdom. The demand appears excessively harsh, but as we can see, this harshness is caused precisely by the specific nature of the fallen world, of which the life of each of us is a part. Even Jesus Himself, over whom original sin has no power, was not, during His earthly ministry, completely free from this specific nature: He, being fully and to the end an inhabitant of our untransformed world and part of it, became subject, if not to sin, then to death - though, of course, not in the same way as we are: death was possible for Him, not inevitable as it is for us.

And the only thing that can help us is readiness to renounce our life in its present quality, what Jesus calls "hating one's own life." It is worth remembering that in biblical language love and hatred denote not the emotional states we often mean by them, but an attitude of acceptance or nonacceptance toward that to which our will is directed. Nonacceptance of life, including first of all one's own life, in its present quality and state, and readiness to part with it for the sake of another, new life, constitute the necessary preliminary condition for beginning the path into the Kingdom: the path during which our former life will be remelted into a new one, fit for eternity.

Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem is perhaps His only clear and public testimony to His messiahship. Now, when only a little remained before the completion of His earthly path, there was no longer any danger that He would be placed at the head of some messianic uprising, though His own disciples were hoping for precisely such an uprising, right to the very end. Meanwhile the evangelist emphasizes that the people greet Jesus as the Messiah above all because rumors had spread widely through the city about the miraculous raising of Lazarus. This was understandable: if even one person had truly risen from the dead, then surely the very day of Judgment and the general resurrection spoken of by the prophets had come. And the one who raised him was obviously the Messiah. This logic was simple and clear, and it fit well within popular messianic ideas.

In reality, however, everything was far from so simple. Popular ideas about the Messiah went no further than the image of the Messiah as a great earthly King. Of course, this King was not imagined as an ordinary human being. He could, for example, perform miracles and even raise the dead. But His Kingdom was imagined as a fully earthly kingdom. And the life of this earthly kingdom was also, in general, fully earthly. Of course, it fully corresponded to the Torah. Of course, it had that measure of the nearness of God's presence without which the coming of the Messiah was unthinkable. And, of course, it did not have that triumph of death characteristic of the present age. But people remained the same. They only became righteous and pious. In the best sense of those words, but still in an earthly way.

Jesus' raising of Lazarus fit entirely within these ideas about the Kingdom. No one thought that such a resurrection was only a foretaste. A preparation for the main thing. Lazarus was not raised into that new life which Jesus brought with Him. He was raised because of that new life. But he did not contain it within himself. His nature remained the same. He returned to the life lived by people of the untransformed world.

But the Savior came to give the human person more. To unite him with the fullness of life, not with a small part of it. This is what those who greeted Him in the streets of Jerusalem could not understand. They thought the main thing had already happened, but it was still ahead. Even Jesus' closest disciples did not yet know this. He alone knew.