Palm Sunday gets lots of attention every spring. Which makes sense, seeing as how it is the first day of Holy Week and the image of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, with throngs of people laying down fronds to herald his arrival, imprints itself strongly on the mind's eye.
Between that and the subsequent images of his passion, betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection, what often gets overlooked is the event that took place right before Palm Sunday: His raising of Lazarus.
Because Lazarus's story has been told so many times and usually in a cursory way, people tend to give it little thought, but make no mistake: It was a seismic event in real time. By happening a scant two miles from the Holy City as pilgrims were flooding in for Passover, it functioned as the match that lit the kindling and became the most effective curtain-raising in history.
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The Lazarus we're talking about -- Lazarus of Bethany -- is discussed only in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. Within the first two sentences we are informed that one of his sisters is the same Mary who will eventually annoint Jesus's feet. Remember that John was writing to a contemporary audience of early believers, at a time when living memories of Jesus existed and many (probably most) Christians had been taught by eyewitnesses who put their own lives at risk. It tells us something that John identifies this Mary as being that Mary the moment he first mentions her, before the anointing chronologically occurs.
Lazarus is struck with a life-threatening illness. Aware that Jesus is on the road, Mary and Martha (Lazarus's other sister) send messengers to intercept him and encourage him to come cure their brother, identified as "whom you love." However, by the time Jesus finally arrives in Bethany, "Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days."
Leaving Mary behind, Martha hurried from the house upon hearing that Jesus was approaching. The first words she is recorded as saying when she got to him him are "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." There is disappointment in those words, a tinge of wondering whether God even cares.
Martha returned to the house and told Mary "in private" that Christ wanted to see her, and Verse 31 tells us Mary reacted without hesitation: "When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there." When she reached Jesus she fell in front of him and repeated her sister's plea verbatim: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
Being "deeply moved" by the mourning he witnessed, Jesus inquires about the location of the tomb and is invited to "come and see." This brings us to the shortest verse in all the Bible, John 11:35, which consists of just two words: "Jesus wept." His weeping was such that no adverbs have ever been needed to convey its depth.
Once at the tomb, Jesus asks those who are with him to open it by moving the stone that sealed its entrance. This makes them participants in a miracle, not simply observers of it -- a repeated habit of his that receives little commentary despite being evident ever since the wedding at Cana.
At first Martha responds to his request by protesting that "there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days." This drives home another point, namely that Lazarus wasn't only merely dead but really most sincerely dead. More dead than a doornail. Sure, Jesus had previously raised Jairus's daughter and the unnamed young man, but each of those resurrections happened within hours of death. By the time day four rolls around, a corpse's decomposition is underway and even a hyper-dreamer with the rosiest spectatcles would know there's no chance of the deceased coming back to life.
Jesus, however, brushed all that aside and proved everyone wrong. People answered his call to move the stone after he replied to Martha by asking "did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?" Then, looking skyward, he thanked the Father for "always hear(ing) me" and said he was speaking aloud "on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me."
Finally he called directly to the dead man by saying three words: "Lazarus, come out" -- which Lazarus did, still completely bound in his burial wrappings, and once again Jesus summoned others to participate in a miracle by saying "unbind him, and let him go."
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Something like that can't help but rock the countryside, even way back in those ancient days before electricity and mass communication.
When dinner was served that evening at Lazarus's house, a "large crowd" came because news of the miracle had already spread. The buzz was so loud "the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus."
This all happened the day before what we now call Palm Sunday. It was in this setting, pregnant with excitement and anticipation, and intensified by the influx of pilgrims, that Jesus arose the next morning and made the two-mile walk to Jerusalem. A donkey and colt were waiting there unsuspectingly, destined to encompany him into the city through the Gate of Mercy.
Talk of Lazarus's resurrection undoubtedly reached Jerusalem ahead of Jesus's arrival, and its pitch could only be compounded by the pilgrims. Lazarus's resurrection unleashed the downstream flow that would reach Class Five rapids with overturned tables and cat-and-mouse questioning... before plunging over the deadly brink of crucifixion, to find calm in the lush valley of resurrection.
Holy Week would have happened without Lazarus and it would have been just as glorious, but it would not have been the same.
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Tomorrow is Palm Sunday 2023, marking the approximate 1,990th anniversary of Jesus's triumphal entry to Jerusalem. Throughout the Christian world it will be celebrated and observed as such.
This means today marks the approximate 1,990th anniversary of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but throughout the Christian world it will be celebrated and observed as such only in Orthdox circles.
The Orthodox Church officially celebrates the Saturday of Lazarus and considers it to be the start of Holy Week. I feel like Catholics, Protestants, and "mere Christians" (I count myself among the latter) are somewhat missing the boat today, and failing to appreciate the full significance of this episode from that great collection of opuses we call the Bible.
According to Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou's masterful book The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, "the apolytikion (primary hymn) of both the Saturday of Lazarus and Palm Sunday explains, 'When you raised Lazarus from the dead before your Passion, you confirmed the common resurrection of us all, Christ God'."
This cathedral is 15 miles from where I sit. Maybe one day I'll go to a service there in person, even though I might be the only one in sight without Greek blood in my veins.
To be continued...
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