Father Thomas Welbers' Homily

I cannot read this Gospel at Mass without observing that, as long as it is, it is really too short. Now that may seem strange, since you were standing for about six-and-a-half minutes listening to me read it. Do you recall the last verse that I read? It said: “Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.” But the next few verses say this: “Some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin (the governing council of the Jewish leaders) and said, ‘What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.’ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them: ‘… It is better that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.’ … So from that day on they planned to kill him.”

Those few sentences put this event in a whole new light, don’t they? Certainly the sign that Jesus gives by raising Lazarus back to life is an important testimony to his life-giving power even today in our lives and in our world. But there is something deeper and more significant happening as well. The very act of Jesus’ restoring life to his friend sealed his death-warrant. Imagine this! The ultimate good deed that one could do for a friend condemned him to the death penalty. Could it be that part of the apparent reluctance on the part of Jesus to do this, and his fiercely human emotions recorded by John, was that he alone realized the consequences of this life-giving act?

Sometimes people will say, “How much easier it must have been for the eyewitnesses of Jesus to believe in him. If only we had walked side-by-side with Jesus, and seen the works that are recorded in the Gospels, how much easier it would be for us to believe.” Nothing could be farther from the truth! If you pay attention to what you read in Gospels, it becomes quite obvious that a great many, perhaps even the majority of people who heard and saw Jesus did not believe in him, with the religious leaders, the “professional holy people” of his day, actively plotting to kill him, and even tragically succeeding in their goal.

Remember the other Lazarus? The poor beggar sitting at the Rich Man’s doorway in the story that Jesus tells in St. Luke’s Gospel. That story was pure fiction, a parable told and intended by Jesus to convey a message, but I wonder if the name of the beggar was purely coincidental. Recall how that story ended, with the beggar in heaven, symbolically depicted as “Abraham’s bosom,” while the rich man is suffering torment in what is euphemistically called “the abode of the dead.” The rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers on earth to mend their ways so that they would not end up in the same place of punishment, and Abrahams replies that if they don’t pay attention to the word of God that they already have – the Law of Moses and the prophets – they would not pay attention even if someone were to come to them from the dead. Well, in actual fact, the real-life Lazarus returned from the dead, and many were not convinced.

And what about us today? Do we keep saying, “If only I had a clearer sign, I’d change my life; if only I could experience what those around Jesus experienced, my faith would be stronger”? And perhaps the Lord is saying, “Look at the signs you have, listen to my word that I have given you, hear the voice of my servants through whom I am speaking to you. I’m with you. I love you. Isn’t that enough for you?”

© 2005 Thomas Welbers