Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.
Psalms 130(129),1-2.3-4.5-6.7-8.
A song of ascents. Out of the depths I call to you, LORD;
Lord, hear my cry! May your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
If you, LORD, mark our sins, Lord, who can stand?
But with you is forgiveness and so you are revered.
I wait with longing for the LORD, my soul waits for his word.
My soul looks for the Lord more than sentinels for daybreak. More than sentinels for daybreak,
let Israel look for the LORD, For with the LORD is kindness, with him is full redemption,
And God will redeem Israel from all their sins.
Letter to the Romans 8,8-11.
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 11,1-45.
Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.
So the sisters sent word to him, saying, "Master, the one you love is ill."
When Jesus heard this he said, "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?"
Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him."
He said this, and then told them, "Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him."
So the disciples said to him, "Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved."
But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep.
So then Jesus said to them clearly, "Lazarus has died.
And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him."
So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go to die with him."
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away.
And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
(But) even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise."
Martha said to him, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day."
Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world."
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, "The teacher is here and is asking for you."
As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him.
For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him.
So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled,
and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Sir, come and see."
And Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, "See how he loved him."
But some of them said, "Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?"
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.
Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days."
Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?"
So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you for hearing me.
I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me."
And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go."
Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.
RESURRECTIONS
"I am the Resurrection and the Life: whoever believes in Me, though he should die, will come to life; and whoever is alive and believes in Me will never die." –John 11:25-26
How strong is your faith that the Holy Spirit will raise your body from the dead on the last day? (Rm 8:11) Do you believe your spirit will be raised at your death to meet the Lord and go to heaven? Do you believe Jesus still raises people from the dead, as He raised Lazarus from the dead? (Jn 11:44; Mt 10:8) Do you believe Jesus' resurrection can transform your life now?
Jesus' resurrection is a promise of the resurrection of the bodies and spirits of all His disciples. Jesus continues to raise Lazaruses as proofs of His resurrection and previews of ours. Jesus' past resurrection and our future resurrection should overshadow our present circumstances. Risen life begins when we believe in the risen Lord, not when we die. All the resurrections go together. The resurrection is past, present, and future. The resurrection is physical and spiritual. The resurrection is historical, personal, and eschatological.
We are a resurrection people, or more precisely a resurrections-people. In these next two weeks, prepare to celebrate the resurrection with a faith and joy that is unexplainable except for those who have met the risen Christ.
Saint Gregory of Nazianzen (330-390), Bishop, Doctor of the Church
Sermon on Holy Baptism
“Lazarus, come out!” Laid to rest in the tomb, you heard the resounding call. Is there any voice greater than that of the Word? Then you came out, you who were dead not merely for four days but for a very long time indeed. You were raised with Christ…; your burial bands fell to the ground. Do not fall back again now into death; do not rejoin those who dwell in the tombs; do not allow yourself to be stifled by the burial bands of your sins. For would you be able to come back to life once again? Would you be able to bring out from the death of here below the resurrection of all men at the end of time?…
So let the Lord’s call resound in your ears! Do not close them today to the teaching and admonitions of the Lord. If you used to be blind, without light in your tomb, open your eyes lest you sink into the sleep of death. In the light of the Lord, behold light; in the Spirit of God, fix your eyes on the Son. If you take to yourself the Word in its entirety then you focus onto your soul all the power of Christ who heals and restores to life… Don’t be afraid to put some work into preserving your baptismal purity and set the ways that lead to the Lord within your heart. Take care to preserve the act of acquittal, which you received through pure grace…
Let us be light, as the disciples learned from he who is the great Light: “You are the light of the world” (Mt 5,14). Let us be lamps in this world by holding up on high the Word of life, by being a life force for others. Let us set out in search of God, in search of the one who is the first and purest of lights.
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