The Life
Lazarus lived in the village of Bethany, just two miles outside Jerusalem, with his sisters Mary and Martha. The Lord often stayed in their home during his public ministry. The Gospel of John tells us he was the friend of the Lord. “He whom thou lovest is sick,” his sisters wrote when Lazarus fell ill. The Lord came to Bethany only after Lazarus had been dead and in the tomb for four days. He stood at the tomb. He wept for his friend. Then he cried out: “Lazarus, come forth.” The dead man came out, still wrapped in his grave-clothes. The raising of Lazarus is the supreme sign in the Gospel of John — the seventh and final sign — the great prefiguration of the Lord’s own Resurrection eight days later, on the morning of Pascha. Lazarus, hunted by the chief priests after his raising, eventually fled to Cyprus, where the Apostles Paul and Barnabas ordained him as the first Bishop of Kition. He served as bishop for thirty years and reposed peacefully around the year 63. The Orthodox Church remembers his raising every year on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.
The Gospel of John mentions Lazarus only briefly, but tells us something extraordinary about him. The Lord loved him. “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). When Mary and Martha sent word that Lazarus was ill, they did not need to identify him by name. They simply said: “He whom thou lovest is sick” (John 11:3). When the Lord wept at the tomb, the watching Jews said to one another: “Behold how he loved him” (John 11:36). No other person in any of the four Gospels is described in this way — explicitly, repeatedly, by everyone who saw them, as someone the Lord loved.
When Mary came out to meet the Lord, she fell at his feet and wept for her brother. The other Jews who had come to comfort her were also weeping. The Lord saw their grief. He groaned in the spirit. He was troubled. He asked: “Where have ye laid him?” They said: “Lord, come and see.” And then comes the shortest verse in the entire English Bible, just two words: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). The watching Jews understood at once: “Behold how he loved him.” The Lord, knowing he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead in a moment, still wept for him. The Fathers love this verse with a deep love.
The Lord came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid against it. He said: “Take away the stone.” Martha, ever practical, protested: “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” He answered: “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” They took away the stone. He lifted up his eyes and prayed: “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.” Then he cried with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come forth!” The dead man came out, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, his face wrapped in a napkin. The Lord said: “Loose him, and let him go” (John 11:38-44). The raising of Lazarus from the four-days-dead is the supreme sign in the Gospel of John.
When Martha came out to meet the Lord on the road outside Bethany, she said sadly: “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” The Lord answered: “Thy brother shall rise again.” Martha said: “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Then the Lord said one of the supreme self-revelations in all the Gospels: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” Martha answered with one of the great confessions of the Gospel: “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world” (John 11:21-27).
After Lazarus was raised, many of the Jews who had witnessed the miracle believed in the Lord. The chief priests, alarmed, plotted to kill not only the Lord but also Lazarus, because his very existence was a living witness to the power of Christ over death (John 12:9-11). After the Resurrection of the Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit, the threats against Lazarus continued. He fled eventually to the island of Cyprus. There the Apostles Paul and Barnabas, on their first missionary journey around the year 45, ordained him as the first Bishop of Kition (modern Larnaca). He served as bishop for thirty years and reposed in peace around the year 63, when he was about sixty years old. He died for the second time and was buried at Kition. His tomb was inscribed: “Lazarus of the Four Days, friend of Christ.”
These are perhaps the most important verses in the entire Gospel of John for the Orthodox theology of death and resurrection. The Lord declares his identity with resurrection itself. He is not just one who can raise the dead; he is the resurrection. The being of resurrection and the being of the eternal Son are the same. He proclaims also a double promise: those who believe in him will rise from physical death at the end of the age, and those who believe in him already share in an eternal life that physical death cannot break. Then he asks Martha (and us): “Believest thou this?” Every Orthodox funeral repeats these words. Every Orthodox Christian is invited to answer Martha’s yes.
Lazarus reposed in peace around the year 63 at Kition in Cyprus, where he had served as bishop for thirty years. He was buried in a marble sarcophagus. The tomb bore the inscription: “Lazarus of the Four Days, friend of Christ.” The location of the tomb was lost during the period of Arab rule of Cyprus that began in 649. In 890, the tomb was rediscovered. The Byzantine Emperor Leo VI “the Wise” had the relics translated to Constantinople in 898 and built the great Church of Saint Lazarus there to receive them. He himself composed the troparion that the Orthodox Church still sings on Lazarus Saturday. The Crusaders carried the relics from Constantinople to Marseilles in France in 1204; the Marseilles relics were later lost. In 1972, however, additional relics were discovered in the marble sarcophagus under the altar of the original Church of Saint Lazarus at Larnaca — evidently not all had been removed in 898 — and these are venerated there to this day.
Lazarus matters to every Orthodox Christian for many reasons. He was the friend of the Lord in the deepest, most concrete, most ordinary human sense. He was the brother of Martha and Mary. He died and lay four days in the tomb. The Lord wept for him. The Lord raised him by his loud cry: “Lazarus, come forth.” He fled to Cyprus after his raising and served as the first Bishop of Kition for thirty years. He reposed peacefully around the year 63. The Orthodox Church remembers his raising every year on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday — one of the supreme feasts of the Lenten season. He is the patron of every Christian who has ever stood beside the grave of someone they loved, of every Christian who has ever asked whether the Lord cares about death, of every Christian who has needed the proclamation “I am the resurrection and the life.”