The famous Christian writer C.S. Lewis once suggested that Lazarus was the first Christian martyr. Why did he make this unusual claim? His contention was that Lazarus had already gone through the experience of death when Jesus called him back to life. Lazarus would then need to go through the process of dying again at a later time. By being brought back to life, Lazarus was, Lewis suggested, the first disciple who was called upon to commit to dying for Christ.
This take by Lewis might seem a bit strange, but it points to a deeper reality. Our physical life in this world is not our final end. It is not the ultimate life we hope for. As is often the case in The Gospel of John, there are two layers of meaning in the discussion in the passage.
On the one hand, there is our physical life, which ends in death. At the time of Jesus, the Sadducees, the Israelite group that controlled the Temple, believed that physical death was the end and that there would be no afterlife.
But another school of thought, cultivated by the Pharisees, who were the leaders of the local synagogues, held a different perspective. They believed in the resurrection of the dead. After the death of the body, each person would enter into a sort of stasis until all the dead would be raised. Moreover, resurrection wasn't just for the good, but for evildoers as well. All would rise. The evil would rise to a new life of punishment. The good would rise to a blessed life, a perfected earthly paradise.
The Pharisees were on the right track. But what Jesus offers is much more. He invites us to become partakers of his own divine life. What he offers is not simply the continuation of human life in a perfected state, but divine life itself. When we are baptized into Christ, we start partaking of his divine life in our earthly life already. We increase our participation by orienting our lives on him, through our prayers, the sacraments, acts of love, and all the many elements of the practice of our faith.
When we die, even though our body dies, we are spiritually assumed into that full union with Christ, without losing our sense of individual identity. Then, at the end of the world, when the whole cosmos is remade, our body will be resurrected along with all the bodies of all people who have ever lived. Our soul will be united with our resurrected body and we will live eternally in Christ.
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The readings for the Fifth Suday of Lent, Cycle A, are:
Ez 37:12-14
Psalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
Rom 8:8-11
Jn 11:1-45
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: First Century Jewish Tomb by Zoltan Abraham (c) 2016.