Join me today to meet the saint whom Jesus called a friend.
Name: Eliezer, Eleazar, Lazarus
Status: Saint
Life: c. 1 - 33 AD, 33 AD - c. 63 AD
Feast: December 17
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Lazarus and his two sisters were running for their lives. They had been targets for some time. Even back before the fateful Passover of 33 AD, the priests and elders who had power in the Roman province of Judea had identified Lazarus as a potential problem.
Now of course, Lazarus was merely a proxy for the real problem, Jesus of Nazareth. But sometimes it was easier to deal with the proxy first. A plot had been hatched to capture or perhaps assassinate Lazarus. Then the plan had been discarded, as Jesus began to act in ways that made it clear He would have to be dealt with first. As Caiaphas, the chief priest, pointed out to the others, what Jesus was doing, no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how many people liked it, sooner or later would draw the attention of Rome. Caiaphas said he was prepared to make a hard call, a sacrifice of sorts, which was what leaders had to do. Caiaphas was going to make sure that Jesus died, for the good of the people.
And Jesus had died, crucified by the Romans. But things had not gone as Caiaphas expected. The death of Jesus had been terrible, marked with earthquakes and darkness and the rending of the temple curtain. And then, three days later, the stone sealing Jesus’ tomb had begun to move, and Jesus had emerged from the tomb, passing the centurion Longinus and the terrified guards who were keeping watch.
Now the followers of Jesus were saying that, in a way, Caiaphas had been right. This had been a sacrifice, although not the one Caiaphas had imagined. One had died for the sake of many, although this was a sacrifice, and an atonement, that would shake the foundations of the world.
But some people still saw things the way Caiaphas did. They disagreed when the followers of Jesus argued that, in Him, prophecies had been fulfilled, and the people of God now included many gentile believers. Tensions built up between the two groups. And then those who denied Jesus found a leader, a young man who had come South from Tarsus in the South of modern Turkey. This young man had the determination and the grit to do the violent things that needed to be done, if the followers of Jesus were to be brought back into line. His name was Saul.
Saul was there when things boiled over with Stephen, the deacon, a worker of wonders. Stephen was accused of blasphemy on trumped up charges. The real problem was that he was a vocal Christian. Saul coordinated the stoning of Stephen, first of the martyrs.
Saul continued to put his energy into persecution, and it was perhaps inevitable that he would eventually make his way down the list of names until he came to Lazarus. When Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, realized that they were targets, they gathered what they could, and hurried West. They were trying to make it to the seaport at Jaffa - and they did.
Unfortunately for them, Saul got there first.
One advantage of the practice of stoning was that when everyone in the village threw stones, it meant that no one had to live with the knowledge that he had thrown the fatal stone. At the port of Jaffa, so tradition has it, Saul worked out a similar plan. Mary and Martha and Lazarus had been hoping to escape by sea? Well, Saul would help them. He and the others found a small boat with nothing to sail or steer it, with no supplies, clearly inadequate for a serious sea voyage. They bundled the three Christians into the boat and pushed it out to sea. The South wind carried the boat North and out of sight. The sharks would eat well, and another name was crossed off Saul’s list.
What a difference a few years could make.
Only a few years earlier, Lazarus and his sisters had been successful, respected citizens of a town called Bethany, though now it is named for Lazarus, Al-Eizariya. Even back then, Bethany was pretty much a suburb of the city of Jerusalem, on the Eastern side of the city. We don’t know much about Lazarus and his family, but we can guess from certain details - such as the story of the valuable perfume - that they were wealthy. Somehow, Lazarus, Mary and Martha had encountered the strange travelling teacher, Jesus of Nazareth.
Back then, Jesus had grown fond of the three siblings. He had come to their house for dinner. That story gives us a glimpse of the sisters in action, behaving in very different ways. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, learning. Martha tries to make the visit as good as it can be, working and overseeing the household servants. Eventually, Martha gets angry that she is doing all the work and Mary isn’t. Jesus gently comforts Martha - but tells her that Mary has made the better choice.
It’s hard not to detect symbolism in the story of Martha and Mary. Perhaps Martha represents the life of action, in unfavourable contrast with Mary and the contemplative life. But the story also shows two fundamentally different sorts of people. And in between these two sisters is the much more elusive figure of their brother, Lazarus.
What made Jesus single out Lazarus of Bethany as a friend? What would it take to become a friend of Christ? The Church Fathers asked this question, and noticed at least one significant detail. Lazarus in the gospel story is unmarried. Perhaps chastity was part of what made Our Lord call Lazarus friend.
By 33 AD, Jesus had drawn the attention of the priests and elders, and Jerusalem had become a dangerous place for Jesus to be. Even coming to Bethany, on the outskirts of the city, was a risk. People wondered whether Jesus would come to the city for Passover, though those sympathetic to Him generally thought that it would be wisest to stay away from Jerusalem and let things blow over.
And then Lazarus got extremely sick.
Mary and Martha knew that Jesus had healed the sick before. But they also understood that in asking Jesus to come to them, they were asking Him to take a huge risk. So they sent Jesus a message, not asking for anything but simply giving him the news:
‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ (John 11:3)
Maybe, just maybe, they must have hoped, Jesus could sneak into Bethany, heal Lazarus, and get out again before anything bad happened.
Instead, Jesus waited. In Bethany, Lazarus died. The sisters quickly organized the funeral. They were wealthy and influential people, and there were many mourners to invite. Besides, they had to move quickly: it would not be long before Lazarus’ body began to decay in the warm Spring weather. And that was when Jesus set out down the road to Bethany. Thomas - Doubting Thomas, as we remember him, though he would also become Saint Thomas, the man who would carry the good news into distant India - grumbled that they were all going to get themselves killed.
Mary and Martha heard that Jesus was coming, and assumed there had been a miscommunication. Lazarus was now dead. There was no longer any need for Jesus to take the risk of being so close to Jerusalem. Martha, always the practical one, went out to deliver the message. That encounter frames one of the most powerful conversations in the New Testament.
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!’ (John 11:23-27)
And then, after this conversation, things begin to happen quickly.
Jesus and his disciples arrive at the funeral feast, where mourners are comforting Mary. When Jesus insists that He wants to see Lazarus, this crowd of mourners come along to gawk. A huge crowd follows Jesus to the tomb. Seeing the place where Lazarus is entombed, Jesus is deeply moved, and weeps. The evangelist does not tell us whether Jesus is weeping for Lazarus, or perhaps for Lazarus’ human condition, among the lost and dying heirs of Adam and Eve. Instead, the evangelist shifts the perspective to the crowd of gawkers who whisper: ‘See how he loved him!’ (John 11:36)
Jesus commands that the tomb be opened. There is a strong smell of decay. Then Jesus calls Lazarus, and the man who has been dead for four days gets up, all tangled up in his shroud, and walks out of the tomb.
Lazarus had already been a well-known person. The fact that he had been raised from the dead after four days made him even more famous. Soon after the miracle, Jesus came to visit Lazarus, Mary and Martha. It would be fascinating to know the conversation that passed between the man who had been among the dead and the One who called him back to life. But all we know is that Mary was so deeply grateful that she poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, and that the chief priests and elders marked Lazarus down on their list as part of the problem.
But Jesus, as it would turn out, was going into the storm, not away from it. Soon afterward, Jesus rode into Jerusalem to be hailed as king, then crucified. After His resurrection, as the followers of Jesus began to come together in the Church, with Saul as one of their leading enemies, Lazarus became a target once again, and he and his sisters made their escape from Bethany.
And so it was that Saul and the others caught up with Mary, Martha and Lazarus at the port of Jaffa, and put them out to sea to die.
But they did not die.
The South wind kept blowing, and the little boat bobbed along the sea toward the North, until it washed up on the shore of an island: Cyprus. Mary, Martha and Lazarus began to make their homes in this new place, settling in Kition, modern Larnaca, on the Southeast of the island. They lived quietly, bringing the good news to those around them. And so things remained for almost ten years, until a figure from the past appeared on the island of Cyprus.
It was Saul. Although these days, he was better known by his Latin name, Paul. Paul had experienced a vision which had blinded him, and when his sight was restored he saw everything in a new way. He no longer wanted to persecute the Christians, he wanted to join them. Soon Paul became one of the most energetic leaders of the Early Church. Now, passing through Cyprus, to preach the good news, Paul met Lazarus for the second time. In their first encounter, Paul had tried to kill him. This time, Paul consecrated Lazarus as Bishop of Kition.
Even at this stage of his life, we only have a few details about Lazarus, and most of his life remains in shadow. One tradition has it that the people of Kition found him somber, that he rarely laughed or smiled. It’s an interesting detail, especially since the other famous citizen of Kition, a man who lived centuries before, was Zeno, the founder of the philosophical school of Stoicism. The Stoics too were famously without emotion, and people thought that the Stoics taught you how to harden your heart, although that wasn’t true. Zeno’s idea was that wisdom would rewire your thinking. The wise man recognizes that only virtue matters, and every other consideration simply fades to irrelevance. Perhaps Paul began thinking about Zeno as he passed through Kition, for he would quote one of Zeno’s students in his sermon on the Areopagus.
And maybe that Stoic idea of a change of perspective can help us understand the change that had occurred in Lazarus. Many pagans imagined that, as Homer sang, the dead yearn for life, for one more day of pleasure in the sun. Lazarus had died, and returned with his mind still set on what came next. Earthly things seemed to fade into irrelevance for him. In one story, preserved by people of the city, Bishop Lazarus saw a poor man trying to steal a clay pot in the market. Perhaps the thief and the angry potter were brought before the bishop. The bishop who hardly ever smiled shocked everyone by laughing, and then he said “clay steals clay.” It was a very philosophical thing to say, and perhaps a challenge to the thief and the potter too to be more than clay, to have lives more meaningful than that of an empty clay pot.
Tradition also contains another story about Bishop Lazarus, which is that he and his sisters were visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary, travelling with Saint John, the disciple to whom Jesus had entrusted her care. Tradition has it that they set out to visit Lazarus, Mary and Martha, but only arrived at Cyprus on the return journey. Headed out, the ship containing Mary and John was blown wildly off course, riding the storm past the island and up toward Greece. The ship ended up on a peninsula that jutted out from the mainland, and Mary and John were said to have disembarked to walk and pray in its quiet beauty. The place rose into the mountain that was called Athos, and this would not prove to be Mary’s last visit.
On Cyprus, years passed. Tradition has it that Lazarus would live there for thirty years before dying for the second time.
As Christianity spread across the world, the story of Lazarus was told again and again. Lazarus the bishop would become tangled up with a character in one of Jesus’ parables, Lazarus the beggar. The bishop and the beggar together became inspirations for those who felt themselves close to death, especially those afflicted with the terrible disease of leprosy. To them, Lazarus served as a reminder that another life beckons even while the clay of our bodies crumbles away. It was a hope that could call even dying men to heroism, as when the leper knights of the Order of Lazarus rode to the defence of the Holy Land. In time, the crusaders would bring relics of Saint Lazarus to France, and even transplant his story from Kition to Marseilles. But the people of Kition knew that the tomb of Lazarus was in their city, bearing a short inscription that is, perhaps, the highest praise a man might hope to receive:
Lazarus of the four days, friend of Christ.
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The painting at the top stopped me in my tracks. Incredible.
Fascinating backstory to Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. Thanks for putting this together.