1There was a sick man named Lazarus who was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2It was the same Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was sick.
3So the sisters sent this message to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” 4On hearing this Jesus said, “This illness will not end in death; rather it is for God’s glory and the Son of God will be glorified through it.”
5It is a fact that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus; 6yet, after he heard of the illness of Lazarus, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7Only then did he say to his disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.” 8They replied, “Master, recently the Jews wanted to stone you. Are you going there again?”
9Jesus said to them, “Are not twelve working hours needed to complete a day? Those who walk in the daytime shall not stumble, for they see the light of this world. 10But those who walk at night stumble, for there is no light in them.”
11After that Jesus said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him.” 12The disciples replied, “Lord, a sick person who sleeps will recover.” 13But Jesus had referred to Lazarus’ death, while they thought that he had meant the repose of sleep. 14So Jesus said plainly, “Lazarus is dead 15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, for now you may believe. But let us go there, where he is.” 16Then Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go that we may die with him.”
17When Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. 18As Bethany is near Jerusalem, about two miles away, 19many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to offer consolation at their brother’s death.
20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him while Mary remained sitting in the house. 21And she said to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.”
24Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection, at the last day.” 25But Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection; whoever believes in me, though he die, shall live. 26Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27Martha then answered, “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”
28After that Martha went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The Master is here and is calling for you.” 29As soon as Mary heard this, she rose and went to him. 30Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.
31The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her, also came. When they saw her get up and go out, they followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep.
32As for Mary, when she came to the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews also who had come with her, he was moved in the depths of his spirit and troubled. 34Then he asked, “Where have you laid him?” They answered, “Lord, come and see.” 35And Jesus wept.
36The Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “If he could open the eyes of the blind man, could he not have kept this man from dying?”
38Jesus was deeply moved again and drew near to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across it. 39Jesus ordered, “Take the stone away.” Martha said to him, “Lord, by now he will smell, for this is the fourth day.” 40Jesus replied, “Have I not told you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41So they removed the stone. Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for you have heard me. 42I knew that you hear me always; but my prayer was for the sake of these people, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When Jesus had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
The plot to kill Jesus
45 ① Many of the Jews who had come with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw what he did; 46but some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47So the chief priests and the Pharisees called the Sanhedrin Council. They said, “What are we to do? For this man keeps on giving miraculous signs. 48If we let him go on like this, all the people will believe in him and, as a result of this, the Romans will come and sweep away our Holy Place and our nation.”
49Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all nor do you see clearly what you need. 50It is better to have one man die for the people than to let the whole nation be destroyed.”
51In saying this Caiaphas did not speak for himself, but being High Priest that year, he foretold as a prophet that Jesus would die for the nation, 52and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the scattered children of God. 53So, from that day on, they were determined to kill him.
54Because of this, Jesus no longer moved about freely among the Jews. He withdrew instead to the country near the wilderness and stayed with his disciples in a town called Ephraim.
55The Passover of the Jews was at hand and people from everywhere were coming to Jerusalem to purify themselves before the Passover. 56They looked for Jesus and as they stood in the Temple, they talked with one another, “What do you think? Will he come to the festival?” 57Meanwhile the chief priests and the elders had given orders that anyone who knew where he was should let them know so that they could arrest him.
- Jn 11,45 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Caiaphas' words were fulfilled but not in the sense he intended. Jesus was going to die to gather into one the scattered children of God (v. 52). The worldwide effect of Christ's resurrection is to unite all of humanity in renewed creation - as Jesus himself put it, when I'm lifted up from earth i shall draw all to myself (Jn 12:32). That is to say, the cross and resurrection are the source of communion and fraternity. The Church reunites believers of all races and cultures: we call it Catholic, that is, universal. This Church, however, is but a beginning and a sign of that which will be attained at the end of time, when the whole of humanity will be reunited in Christ (Rev 7). In our world, the oppression of rural and urban masses is perpetuated by preventing people from grouping together to discuss and understand their situation. This hidden violence opposes unity. Some current ideologies promote a struggle for liberation which attempts to unite people by targeting adversaries and continually deciding on whom to expel. There, too, the seed of violence (for both murder and exclusion are violence) gives birth to more oppressive societies. Christians should be the first to notice we are living in an exceptional century in which, for the first time, all peoples share the same history and must accept a common destiny, either willingly or by force. This awareness enables them to see and to indicate the goals of human effort. They must ponder all of human reality, and even international relationships, in the light of the Gospel and not waste all their energy in projects of aid for the poor.
