T he Fifth Sunday of Lent
 
 
“Unbind him, let him go free.”
 
In the Holy Land, pilgrims still visit the tomb of Lazarus. It lies in the  West Bank town of  al-Eizariya, the village called  Bethany in the New Testament, approximately one and a half miles east of  Jerusalem. According to a tradition dating back to the fourth century AD, this is the spot where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. The tomb lies inside a cave, which pilgrims access by clambering down steep, irregular stone steps. A favourite trick played by pilgrimage leaders is to get pilgrims who have managed to climb down to the floor of the cave to peer into the tomb, with its open hole in the stone wall, and repeat at full voice the words of Jesus: “Lazarus, come out!” Unbeknown to the pilgrims, someone is waiting behind the wall, and when the pilgrims shout for Lazarus to come out, the person emerges out of the dark – often accompanied by the screams of terrified pilgrims, frightened out of their wits by this unexpected piece of theatre.
 
It is easy to imagine just how petrified and astounded people would have been to see Lazarus suddenly emerge from his tomb after four days. It is curious that Jesus waited until he knew Lazarus was dead before going to Bethany. One possibility is that there was a Jewish belief that the soul hovered near the body for three days after death, but by the fourth day, all hope of life was gone. Lazarus really was dead.
 
Jesus himself is quite clear that this whole situation will lead to God’s glory and the glory of the Son. He says repeatedly throughout this story that this great sign will lead people to faith – as it does for his disciples, for Martha and Mary, and for the people standing round the tomb. He wants them to believe that he is the one sent by the Father. Jesus explains to Martha that faith in him is the only way to resurrection and life. And the story concludes by telling us that many of the people who witnessed this miracle did in fact come to believe in him.
 
Raising the dead to life is a sure sign of the presence and action of God. In Ezekiel, the Lord says: “you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, my people… and I shall resettle you on your own soil”. Here in Bethany, we see Jesus exercising that divine power, fulfilling God’s promise.
 
Over the last three Sundays the Church has been focusing in its readings and prayers on the many people across the world who will be receiving the sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil: the sacraments of life, of new, eternal life. These Sunday Gospels have presented us with various images of what coming to faith in Christ is like: having a spring of water inside us, welling up into eternal life (the woman of Samaria); moving from blindness to sight, from darkness to light (the blind man); and today, in the story of Lazarus, it is described as being a movement from lying down to being lifted up, from being bound to being free, from death to life. This is the difference believing in Christ makes to our lives – whether we are new to faith in Christ or old hands.
 
Tradition tells us that Lazarus relocated to Larnaca in Cyprus after the resurrection of Jesus. The church in Larnaca claims to be the site of Lazarus’ second tomb – where they buried him when he finally did die. It is a place of real calm and peace. Surely when Lazarus faced death once more, he would have felt no fear. Jesus had already brought him back to life once. He knew that was just a sign of an even greater miracle: that Jesus would bring him to eternal life, bring him to the kingdom of his promise. We get a taste of that eternal life whenever we put our faith in Christ, when even in our driest, darkest or “deadest” and most hopeless of situations, we hear his voice, just as the dead Lazarus did, and respond to his call. In our need, Jesus raises us to new life, unbinding us, letting us go free. Faith in Jesus Christ empowers us to live in true freedom: freedom from fear, freedom from the power of death, freedom to live by the Spirit which God has placed in us – the Spirit of the risen Christ.