Main news for 24 March 2026

King James Version (en)

John, Chapter 11, verses 39-40

¹ Christ raiseth Lazarus, four days buried

³⁹Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

⁴⁰Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

NOTES

Today's reading gives us another testimony to the triumph of the Kingdom that Jesus brought into the world. In every age and among all peoples without exception, death's triumph over life has been perceived as something unjust and contrary to what ought to be. Attempts to regard death like a Stoic or a natural philosopher, viewing it with philosophical calm and accepting it as something regular and inevitable, and therefore normal, have generally failed. At the moment of coming face to face with death, it still inspires only horror and revulsion. Other feelings connected with the causes and circumstances of a death are often mixed with these, of course, but those feelings have nothing to do with death itself: their source is precisely those causes and circumstances, not the fact of dying.

The Bible explains this attitude toward death: death entered the world as a consequence of the Fall. It is part of the world's evil, which must inevitably disappear once the world, transformed by God's power, becomes part of the Kingdom. By weeping when He sees those who mourn (vv. 32-36), Jesus confirms that death is not an imagined tragedy of human life but a real one.

This, of course, is not the end: resurrection, Judgment, and the Kingdom lie ahead. In Gospel times every believing Jew knew about the resurrection (vv. 23-24), yet death still remained a state contrary to human nature; it contradicted God's design for human beings and their destiny. The Kingdom therefore proves incompatible with death.

It is no accident that Jesus says He Himself is the resurrection (vv. 25-26): He bears the fullness of the Kingdom within Himself, and death retreats before the Kingdom. Of course, a return to one's former life, not yet transformed by God's power, in the former world, which has not yet become part of the Kingdom, can hardly be considered the end of the journey. This is not yet the resurrection that believing Jews awaited. But death and the Kingdom are incompatible, and so even someone not yet fully transformed finds in the Kingdom the fullness of life available to him.

No one can contain more life than he is able to contain, but in touching the fullness of God's life, each person receives the measure of life available to him. Lazarus had not yet reached complete transformation, but he was entirely capable of living the life that every healthy person lives in our still not fully transformed world. He receives the fullness possible for him as he comes out into God's light from the tomb in which he was buried (vv. 38-44). Then everyone could see plainly that the Kingdom had truly entered the world and, with it, so had the resurrection that until then was thought to lie only in the future.

One might think that so vivid a demonstration would have melted and converted every heart, but apparently nothing of the kind happened. Some truly came to believe (vv. 45-46), while others became even more firmly opposed to Christ and the Kingdom. But the evidence was too plain, and those who rejected the Kingdom were left with no choice, in the logic of their persistent rejection, but to conclude that they had to rid themselves of the One who brought the Kingdom into the world (vv. 47-53). Thus rejection of the Kingdom leads the Savior of the world, sent by God, to the cross.

"Today Bethany, rejoicing in the rising of Lazarus, foretells the Resurrection of Christ the Giver of Life..." It is often said that there is, so to speak, this "artistry" in the Gospel: spokesman-figures like John the Baptist, and paired events such as...

Jesus' raising of Lazarus is described in unusual detail. The evangelist seems deliberately to set it apart from other miraculous events like it, whether healings or raisings. This is understandable: what is described here is truly something extraordinary. Even the raising of Jairus's daughter was not like...

Jesus' raising of Lazarus is described in unusual detail. The evangelist seems deliberately to set it apart from other miraculous events like it, whether healings or raisings. What is described here is indeed something extraordinary. Even the raising of Jairus's daughter was not like the raising of Lazarus. There, death had still only just touched a person. Here, its complete and obvious triumph has already occurred. So complete that people even want to stop Jesus when He is about to enter the tomb, because it is already too late and useless. Nothing can be done anymore, and entering the tomb means becoming unclean, in this case with no need at all.

But He knows what He is doing. He knows what He lives by and what He carries within Himself. And He knows that the Kingdom is stronger than death, that there in the Kingdom there is simply no place for death. And Lazarus, coming into contact with the Kingdom, rises. Death retreats, just as it will in due time retreat from Him Himself on the day of His Resurrection. Here everything depends on the life by which a person lives. If it is the life of the Kingdom, to the end and in fullness, then there is no death for that person. If it is the life of the old world, not yet transformed by the breath of God, then death is inevitable. So it is with Lazarus: he lost the life of this world that he had. Death conquered, as it always conquers what this world calls life but what in fact turns out to be something between life in its fullness and death. But Jesus brought him another life, the life by which He Himself lives. In this life there is no place for death, and Lazarus rises. He returns to life.

Of course, not to the fullness of the life of the Kingdom that the Savior carries within Himself. Death retreats before the Kingdom, but a person contains only as much life as he is able to contain. Lazarus returned to that relative fullness of earthly life that was accessible to him, and in that sense he remained the same. Even contact with the Kingdom does not change a person by itself, without that person's participation. But the experience of such contact remains with a person forever. In this sense, Lazarus certainly changed and could no longer become what he had been before. The evangelist tells us nothing about this man's later fate. What happened to him afterward, after the Resurrection and after Pentecost, can only be wondered about. But what is said is enough to understand: the Kingdom truly entered the world. Not yet in all its fullness, but finally and irreversibly.

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