Jesus

by James Martin

  EARLY IN MY JESUIT life, I often thought about the person I wanted to become, the person I hoped to be one day. Most of us have an image, even if it is an unconscious one, of the person we are meant to be: our true self, our best self. For some time I had thought about that person: independent, confident, loving, charitable, and not concerned about people’s approval—in a word, free.

  During my annual retreat one year, I mentioned all this to my retreat director, who recommended that I pray with the story of the Raising of Lazarus.

  That evening, I had a revealing dream. I met my best self, whom I recognized instantly, in a dream that was so vivid, so beautiful, and so obvious that it woke me up. Now, I don’t put stock in every dream, but sometimes, as in Scripture, dreams can be a privileged place where our consciousness relaxes and God is able to show us something in a fresh way. In my dream, my best self, oddly, looked like me, but wasn’t me. My double seemed looser, easier, more relaxed; he even dressed in a more relaxed way!

  I knew the direction I needed to travel to become a better person. But I was afraid of letting things go—a need to be liked, a propensity to focus on the negative, a desire to control things. It is precisely those kinds of unhealthy patterns, unendurable yet seemingly ineradicable, that need to die, that need to be left in the tomb. From time to time, we need to ask, “What part of me needs to die?” For me, Lazarus’s tomb became the place to leave behind whatever I no longer needed, whatever kept me from new life. For another person, what needs to die may be entirely different—an attitude of pride, a constant desire to be right, an inability to forgive, an overly cynical attitude toward life, a hatred of a particular person, anything that keeps that person from a full life.

  As I prayed about Lazarus’s tomb, I also imagined hearing Jesus’s voice calling to other parts of me as well, those parts that desired new life, parts still open to the possibility of greater freedom. Some parts of us must die; other parts need to be revived. Some aspects of our lives are like dormant seeds, awaiting the sunshine of God’s life-giving word. Maybe I’ve closed myself off to new relationships. Or I’ve decided not to look for love in my family. Or I’ve given up on finding a church that will nourish me. Sometimes the dead parts of ourselves are not meant to be dead.

  But in order to experience new life, we have to listen for God—just as Lazarus did.

  Often it seems that those dead parts are completely beyond the reach of God. That’s probably how it seemed to Martha and Mary. Lazarus was dead. You can’t get any deader than being in a tomb for four days and beginning to stink.12 Many Jews of the time believed that the soul hovered around the body for three days, so Lazarus is meant to be seen in John’s Gospel as dead in every conceivable way.13

  But God’s word can awaken anything.

  On that retreat, I found it easy to imagine myself in the tomb—as Lazarus. Jesus placed his hand on the cold, dark, damp opening of the tomb and spoke to me in a whisper, the softest imaginable. It was a gentle sound, an inviting voice calling to the parts of me that wanted to live. In such tender ways does God speak to us.

  Sometimes, however, God needs to speak more loudly. That’s one way to look at Jesus’s speaking in a “loud voice” in the story. God may need to get our attention—in a very blunt comment from a friend that prevents us from doing something sinful, in an intense prayer experience that floods us with peace, in a Bible passage that hits us like a thunderclap, or in a homily that seems tailor-made for us—so that the dead parts of us can hear.

  Obviously, we don’t hear God physically speaking to us as Jesus did to Lazarus. A few of the saints reported hearing a physical voice in prayer—it’s called a “locution”—but this is exceedingly rare. Yet God calls to us in other ways and offers change in a variety of modes. Perhaps in your prayer you feel drawn to leading a more selfless life; perhaps when hearing a Bible passage read aloud you feel moved to be more generous; perhaps a conversation with a friend suddenly encourages you to think about forgiveness. God calls to us in whatever ways are needed to help us come forth from our tombs.

  The family and friends of Lazarus seem so dumbfounded that Jesus has to tell them what to do: “Unbind him, and let him go.” They don’t know what to do with the newly alive Lazarus, just as our friends and family may not know what to do with us after we have responded to God’s voice.

  Jesus’s final words in this story may hold another meaning too. “Unbind him, and let him go” is an invitation to all of us who are freed from old patterns and unhealthy behaviors. Untie him and let him be who he is meant to be. When I finished praying over the story years ago, that’s how I felt: free to go wherever Jesus would take me.

  BEFORE I COULD DO that, I had to confront my “stuckness.” Let’s consider some possible reasons that Martha is focused on the stench.

  Mary and Martha may be focused on the past, on the impossibility of anything changing, and so are not as open to seeing what might lie before them. Remember, they had presumably heard (if not actually seen) Jesus do incredible things. There are several stories of Jesus raising people from the dead in the Gospels—like the raising of Jairus’s daughter, recounted in all three of the Synoptic Gospels.14 Of all people, Martha and Mary would have known these stories. But they seemed focused on the status quo. “Look, Jesus,” they seem to be saying, “this is simply the way of the world.”

  Offered the opportunity to change, we often focus on the possible pitfalls. Offered possibility, we often focus on the impossibility. Martha is worried, as she was before when she complained about Mary not helping her, about something other than God.

  Or we may simply be afraid of the change. During that retreat I wondered, If I let go of some of these old habits, what will people think? Will they see me as trying to be something I’m not? Will I be able to live in a new way?

  Then I realized how foolish those fears were. Why focus on these things—people’s opinions, worries about the future, concerns about change? Suddenly I wanted to say to Martha, “You’re worried about the smell? Just look beside you: it’s Jesus! Surrender yourself to what he is about to do, and stop focusing on the smell.”

  But that may be unfair to Martha. I would have probably said the same thing, smelling the old and fearful of the new. Moreover, when Jesus asks Martha a direct question about her belief—“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”—Martha responds, clearly, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” Like most of us, Martha grapples with both faith (“Yes, I believe”) and doubt, or at least confusion (“There is a stench”).

  Jesus, however, fears nothing. So the stone is rolled away and something else astonishing happens, accompanying the miracle of Lazarus’s return from the dead. God sweeps away Martha’s worries and most likely her friends’ anxieties and replaces their despair with hope.

  “UNBIND HIM, AND LET him go,” says Jesus. It’s not only a spiritual message, but also a practical one, addressed to Martha and Mary, who were probably paralyzed with shock: “Take off his bandages.” Jesus is gently telling them how to help Lazarus.

  The image of Jesus inviting the removal of bandages had great resonance with me. During that retreat I was worried about leaving behind what Thomas Merton called the “false self,” the image that we want to present to the world, not the person who we are before God. The false self is the person we want others to see—on top of the situation, in control, cool. Merton uses the very image of bandages when talking about the false self in his book New Seeds of Contemplation:

  Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge and love, to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real. And I wind experiences around myself and cover myself with pleasures and glory like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world, as
if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface.15

  Once I realized how centered on the past I had been and how needlessly worried I was about stepping out of the tomb, I was ready to embrace new life. I wanted to leave the bandages of the false self in the tomb and step into the light.

  THAT DAY IN BETHANY, I peered into the dimly lit tomb and tentatively started my climb down the stairs. When I imagined this pilgrimage, I had expected that the Tomb of Lazarus, the site of Jesus’s greatest miracle, would be one of the most crowded of sites. But I was alone.

  Even lit, the narrow stone stairwell was dim. As I descended, my footsteps echoed against the damp walls. In a few seconds I was in a small chamber, where there was barely enough room to stand. Perhaps, I thought, this was the tomb. But on one side of the room, cut into the wall was a small opening near the ground, perhaps three feet wide by four feet high. This opening led into another chamber: the tomb. To enter I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl through the tight space.

  Standing up in the small, dark, grayish-green stone tomb, I wondered what it was like for Lazarus to hear Jesus’s voice. What must it have meant to decide to “come out”? Lazarus could have stayed behind. And who could blame him? How frightening it must have been to die (after his illness, knowing he would leave behind two unmarried sisters, crushed that his good friend Jesus had not visited). And frightening to live again. Change of any kind can be frightening.

  I knelt down again in the tomb and prayed out loud. No need to be embarrassed now. Who would hear me except God? I asked God to take away everything that kept me from becoming the person God wanted me to be. And I asked God for new life.

  My voice echoed in the dim stone chamber.

  Then I left the tomb.

  * * *

  THE RAISING OF LAZARUS

  John 11:1–44

  * * *

  Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

  Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

  When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

  When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt 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 came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

  Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 19

  Jerusalem

  “Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.”

  BEGINNING OUR PILGRIMAGE IN Jerusalem meant that the trip would start where Jesus’s earthly life ended. Before leaving the States I briefly considered avoiding the sites associated with Jesus’s Passion, death, and resurrection until after we visited Bethlehem, Nazareth, and all the sites in Galilee. In this way George and I might trace Jesus’s life in sequence. But as soon as Father Doan told me that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was just a few minutes away from our residence, there was no question of waiting. I could no more resist its pull than iron filings can resist a magnet.

  So around four o’clock on the first afternoon, George and I left our digs at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, swung open the iron gate that enclosed the Jesuit residence, turned left, and walked a mile downhill. After passing through the grounds of a tony apartment complex, we spied the magnificent cream-colored ramparts of the Old City.

  After dodging cars on a busy street, we strode up the steep hill to the imposing Jaffa Gate, one of the Old City’s eight entrances, which is flanked by two crenellated towers. As we climbed I understood why pilgrims were said to “go up” to Jerusalem. One of my favorite psalms came back to me:

  I was glad when they said to me,

  “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” . . .

  Jerusalem—built as a city

  that is bound firmly together.

  To it the tribes go up,

  the tribes of the Lord.1

  And I remembered a favorite line from Thomas Merton’s The Sign of Jonas, the journal of his first years in a Trappist monastery. After Merton complained about having to chant the psalms several times daily, his abbot offered the new monk some advice. “He said,” writes Merton, “I should think of Jesus going up to Jerusalem with all the pilgrims roaring psalms out of their dusty throats.”2

  Stepping onto the worn, almost glassy, paving stones of the Old City meant entering a jumble of places relating to the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. In these next t
hree chapters, we’ll look at the story of Jesus’s “Passion” (the term comes from the Greek paschō, to suffer or to experience) through the lens of a visit to several sites in the Old City, some of them separated by only a few steps.

  Before meditating on the last days in Jesus’s life, let me offer the briefest of overviews of the events that led to his crucifixion, starting the day before Palm Sunday and ending with Good Friday. At this point it won’t surprise the reader that the Gospels don’t always agree on all the events of Holy Week. But, overall, the accounts of Jesus’s last week follow the same general sequence.

  On Saturday, around the time of Passover, after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, he spends time with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus at their home in Bethany, just over the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem. That night Mary breaks open a jar of costly ointment and anoints Jesus as a sign of his impending death. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark place this scene in the home of “Simon the leper.”3 If that is accurate, it means that even as he neared death, Jesus was spending time with those on the margins.

  On Sunday, Jesus rides in triumph into Jerusalem, on a small colt that he has apparently instructed his disciples to reserve for him. Enthusiastic crowds blanket the streets of the holy city with their cloaks and with palm branches, the latter a traditional sign of celebration in Jewish circles and triumph in Roman ones. The colt is a sign as well, alluding to a passage from Zechariah, in which the “king” enters the city on just such an animal.4 At this time, the city would have been thronged with pilgrims for the holidays.

  The next day Jesus enters the Temple precinct and overturns the tables of the merchants, appalled by their doing business in “my Father’s House.” The Cleansing of the Temple, along with the Raising of Lazarus, is most likely a precipitating factor in his death.