Lazarus Saturday

We have completed the season of the Great Fast and now we come to two days of celebration before the rigors of Holy Week. Tomorrow we shall greet the Lord as He enters into Jerusalem and today we behold the resurrection from the dead of Lazarus!

These days are given to us by the Church to strengthen us and encourage us as we move forward into the coming days in which we will experience the betrayal, the sufferings, and the death of our Lord. Today we are given a foretaste of what awaits us when we approach the tomb of our Lord. Christ proclaims: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.’

These astonishing words are proven out in action by our Lord through the resurrection of Lazarus. It was a such a great mercy to all those close to our Lord to behold this miracle just prior to Christ’s arrest and sufferings. It provided some tangible hope that His words were true.

There are two key phrases from today’s Gospel account that I would like to highlight for us this morning…

The first comes from when the sisters of Lazarus - Mary and Martha - sent word to Christ to come quickly, the message they sent was: ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’

Think about those words… let them sink into the depth of your soul. ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’ Cannot this be our own deeply personal prayer to God? ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’ In praying this prayer and calling out in this way to God we both recognize and acknowledge our spiritual sickness and we also recognize and acknowledge that God loves us… that we are the beloved of the Lord.

This prayer is so perfectly balanced with the sorrow of repentance and the joyful hope of resurrection. Let us all memorize these words and use them to call upon our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’

The second set of phrases that I would like to highlight from today’s Gospel are the following…

            When Christ came to attend to Lazarus, He stood before the tomb, groaning in Himself. And He said to those standing nearby: ‘Take away the stone.’ And, the stone which sealed the tomb being taken away, Christ calls out: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’

Here again are a pair of phrases which we would do well to contemplate. ‘Take away the stone’ and then Christ’s call to each and every one of us as he calls us by name and says: ‘Come forth!’

Each and every one of us are also called to participate in this miracle. Christ calls us to remove the stone away from the tomb of our cold hearts… This has been the whole purpose of our 40 day Lenten journey… to remove that stone that entombs our hearts in darkness. God grant that this stone be removed! And then, may we listen for and heed the call of the Lord to ‘come forth’.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is a foretaste of the Resurrection which we will fully celebrate next weekend. Let us be joyful in the light of such hope. Let us recognize our state of spiritual illness and repent of it, let us understand how beloved we are to God, let us remove that stone from our heart and heed the command of Christ to come forth, out of darkness and into the light of His love!