With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption. (Psalm 129)
Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead is the last and definitive sign he gives us of his divinity before his passion and death. By doing so, he signed his death warrant with the religious authorities of his time.
John describes the entire dramatic, magnificent story in today’s Gospel. We encounter his disciples, Martha and Mary, and all the curious friends and townspeople of Bethany.
While this story is very familiar to us, one moment is especially touching: when Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, he wept for the wreckage of human nature.
He wept for what sin had done to His Father’s magnificent and sinless creation. Beings created to live forever with God in glory and happiness had misused the crowning gift God had given humanity: freewill. Having turned against the Creator, the creature lost the gift of eternal life with God, the result symbolised by the body of Lazarus decaying in a tomb.
In the approaching Easter, we accompany our Saviour as He restores our lost gifts and gives us even more than we lost: the divine and abiding gift of Himself.
