Lazarus of Bethany
Lazarus of Bethany is a figure of the New Testament whose life is restored by Jesus four days after his death, as told in the Gospel of John. The resurrection is considered one of the miracles of Jesus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lazarus is venerated as Righteous Lazarus, the Four-Days Dead. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic traditions offer varying accounts of the later events of his life.
Quotes
[edit]Gospel of John
[edit]- Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."
When Jesus heard that, He said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." [...]
Then Jesus said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him."- John 11,1-7;14-15 (NKJV).
- Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. And many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house. Now 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."
- John 11,18-22 (NKJV).
- Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was [a]who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. [...] Now a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus.
- John 12,1;9-12 (NKJV).
Gospel of Luke
[edit]- And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
- Luke 16 (KJV).
- There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
- Luke 16:19-25
Quotes about Lazarus
[edit]- I do not wish to begin by “taking sides”; nor indeed to end by “taking sides.” I am sick of “sides”; which is to say, I am sick of war; of wars hot and cold; and all their approximations and metaphors and deceits and ideological ruses. I am sick of the betrayal of the mind and the failure of compassion and the neglect of the poor. I am sick of foreign ministers and all their works and pomps. I am sick of torture and secret police and the apparatus of fascists and the rhetoric of leftists. Like Lazarus, staggering from his grave, or the ghost of Trotsky I can only groan: “We have had enough of that, we have been through all that.”
- Daniel Berrigan, Responses to Settler Regimes
- Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own good, which we hold, but theirs.
- John Chrysostom, On Lazarus and the Rich Man, II.6
- There is also this remarkable fact: Paul quotes none of the miracles of the New Testament. He says not one word about the multitude being fed miraculously, not one word about the resurrection of Lazarus, nor of the widow’s son. He had never heard of the lame, the halt, and the blind that had been cured; or if he had, he did not think these incidents of enough importance to be embalmed in an epistle.
- Robert G. Ingersoll, "To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
- The Lord has taught with very great fulness, that souls not only continue to exist, not by passing from body to body, but that they preserve the same form [in their separate state] as the body had to which they were adapted, and that they remember the deeds which they did in this state of existence, and from which they have now ceased, - in that narrative which is recorded respecting the rich man and that Lazarus who found repose in the bosom of Abraham [Luke 16:19ff].
- Just as between the rich man in hell and Lazarus in Abraham's bosom there was a yawning gulf fixed, so is there also a yawning distinction between suffering and sin.
- Søren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, The Joy of it – That We Suffer Only Once But Triumph Eternally. P. 108 Lowrie Translation 1961 Oxford University Press
- My friends, does God invite you? If He does, why don't you accept the invitation? If you want to come, just come along, and don't be talking about feeling. Do you think Lazarus had any feeling when Christ called him out of the sepulchre?
- Dwight L. Moody, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 245
- The symbols of the Gospel for the state of the sick soul are sick bodies; but because one body cannot be sick enough to express it well, several have been needed. Thus there are the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the paralytic, the dead Lazarus, the possessed. All this crowd is in the sick soul.
- It follows not because Jesus awakened Lazarus from death that therefore he also must have arisen from death.
- Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Fragments from Reimarus English 1879, p. 75
- This dogma had first to be shattered before men could once more go out in quest of the historical Jesus, before they could even grasp the thought of His existence. That the historic Jesus is something different from the Jesus Christ of the doctrine of the Two Natures seems to us now self-evident. We can, at the present day, scarcely imagine the long agony in which the historical view of the life of Jesus came to birth. And even when He was once more recalled to life. He was still, like Lazarus of old, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes — the grave-clothes of the dogma of the Dual Nature.
- Albert Schweitzer Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, literally "History of Life-of-Jesus Research", 1st edition, as translated by W. Montgomery (1910), p. 3
- I want a Bible in which Lazarus is dead and stubborn about it, rather than standing to attention at the beck and call of every passing Messiah.”
- Robert Charles Wilson, Axis (2007), pp. 126-127
Fiction
[edit]- (Archie finds out that his job has been spared)
Archie: What do you mean, 'Congratulations.' You don't have to congratulate me for nothing. See, there's nothing happening to me, you'd think I'm Lazarus rising from the bed.- All in the Family/Season 1, "Archie Is Worried About His Job" [1.10]
- Kane: And he cried in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" And Lazarus did arise from the grave...I have always believed that faith was measured in deeds, not words. And while many of my children worshiped my name, their deeds betrayed them.
- Perhaps they only looked for a Jesus to heal them, raise them Lazarus-like from the darkness.
- Roland, on the Slow Mutants. The Dark Tower (series), Vol. I: The Gunslinger
- Paul: What did you do?
Nate: Uh, what--what do you mean What, y-y-you don't believe in miracles?
Paul: The word "miracle" does not appear anywhere in the Old or New Testaments.
Nate: What about the wedding at Cana? Huh? What about Lazarus?
Paul: Please tell me you had nothing to do with this.
Nate: I had nothing to do with this.
Paul: Nate? You’re lying to me, right to my face. In church! There’s a fake miracle in my church.
Nate: Shhh.
- [After witnessing Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead]
Bar Amand: The Messiah has come! A man was dead but now he lives!
Uriah: I was crippled, and now I walk!
Old Aram: I was blind, and now I see!
Soldier: Who has done this?
Old Aram: The man called Jesus!
- Robert Ford: So our creatures have been misbehaving, and you haven't yet isolated the bug? That's so unlike you, Bernard. Unless, of course, you have and are simply embarrassed by the result.
Bernard Lowe: It's the code you added, sir. The reveries. It has some, uh...
Robert Ford: "Mistakes" is the word you're too embarrassed to use. You ought not to be. You're a product of a trillion of them. Evolution forged the entirety of sentient life on this planet using only one tool: the mistake.
Bernard Lowe: I flattered myself we were taking a more disciplined approach here. I suppose self-delusion is a gift of natural selection as well.
Robert Ford: Indeed it is. But, of course, we've managed to slip evolution's leash now, haven't we? We can cure any disease, keep even the weakest of us alive, and, you know, one fine day perhaps we shall even resurrect the dead. Call forth Lazarus from his cave. Do you know what that means? It means that we're done. That this is as good as we're going to get. It also means that you must indulge me the occasional mistake.
