We must be very grateful to Father James Martin, whose other writings I also know and appreciate, for this new book of his dedicated to what he calls “the greatest miracle of Jesus”: the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. There are several reasons to be grateful to him, closely related to how he has written this brilliant, exciting, and never-predictable text.
Firstly, Father James lets the biblical text speak: he examines it with the eyes and study of different authors who have thoroughly analyzed this biblical page, capturing its various aspects, its different accents, and its different interpretations. But this study is always “loving”, never distant or coldly scientific: it is the view of someone who is in love with what the Word of God is, the story of the acts of the Son of God, Jesus. Reading all the arguments and examinations of biblical scholars that Father Martin relates has made me question to what extent we are capable of approaching Scripture with the “hunger” of someone who knows that this word is truly and effectively the Word of God.
Having God “speak” should make us shudder in our seats every day. Because the Bible is the food we need to face our lives, it represents the “love letter” that God has been sending for centuries to men and women of all times and places. Keeping the Word, loving the Bible, carrying it with us every day with a small Gospel in our pocket, maybe even looking for it on our cell phone when we have an important meeting, a delicate appointment, a moment of desperation… all this will make us give ourselves realizes to what extent Scripture is a living body, an open book, a palpitating testimony of a God who is not dead and buried in the dusty shelves of history, but who walks with us always, also today. Also for you, who now open this book intrigued by the story of a story that so many know, but that few have understood in its deep and complete meaning.
Furthermore, in these pages we see a truth of Christianity that is always current and fruitful: the Gospel is eternal and concrete, it concerns both our interior life and history and daily life. Jesus not only spoke of eternal life, he gave it. He did not limit himself to saying “I am the resurrection”, but he also raised Lazarus, who had been dead for three days, from the dead. The Christian faith is the ever-present understanding of the eternal and the contingent, of heaven and earth, of the divine and the human. Never one without the other. If it were only “earthly”, what would distinguish it from a good philosophy, from a structured ideology, from an articulated thought that remains just that, from a theory that remains alien to time and history? And if Christianity were only about the “after”, only about eternity, it would be a betrayal of the choice that God made, once and for all, committing himself to all humanity. The Lord did not incarnate as a pretension, but chose to enter human history so that the history of men would be configured as the Kingdom of God, the time and place in which peace germinates, hope and love are substantiated gives life.
Lazarus, finally, is all of us. Father Martín, in this aspect adhered to the Ignatian tradition, makes us identify with the story of this friend of Jesus. We, too, are his friends, we too are, sometimes, “dead” because of our sin, our shortcomings and infidelities, the discouragement that discourages us and crushes our soul. But Jesus is not afraid to reach out to us, even when we “stink” like a dead person buried for three days. No, Jesus is not afraid of our death or our sin. He only stops before the closed door of our heart, that door that only opens from within and that we double-lock when we think that God can no longer forgive us. And, on the other hand, reading James Martin’s detailed analysis, one touches on the deep meaning of Jesus’ gesture before a dead man who is “dead”, who gives off a bad smell, a metaphor for the interior putrefaction that sin generates in our souls. Jesus is not afraid to approach the sinner, any sinner, even the most fearless and brazen.He only has one concern: that no one gets lost, that no one misses the opportunity to feel the loving embrace of his Father. An American writer, who died in 2023, left an admirable description of what “the work of God” is. Cormac McCarthy, novelist, had one of his characters speak this way in one of his books: He said he believed in God, although he doubted the human claim to know God’s thoughts. But a God incapable of forgiving would not even be God. Yes, indeed it is: God’s job is to forgive.
Finally, the pages of Father James Martin reminded me of a phrase from an Italian biblical scholar, Alberto Maggi, who, speaking of the text of the miracle of Lazarus, commented: «With this miracle Jesus taught us not so much that the dead are resurrected, but rather that the living do not die! What a beautiful definition full of paradoxes! Of course the dead rise, but how true it is to remind us that we, the living, do not die! Certainly, death comes, death affects us, not only ours, but above all that of our loved ones and family, that of all people: how much death we see around us, unjust and painful, because it is caused by wars, by violence and by the prevarication of Cain over Abel. But man and woman are destined for eternity.
We all are. We are a semi-line, to use a geometric image: we have a starting point, our human birth, but our life is dedicated to infinity. Yes, to infinity. And what Scripture calls “eternal life” is that life that awaits us after death and that we can already touch here when we live it not in the selfishness that saddens us, but in the love that expands our hearts. We are made for eternity Lazaro, thanks to these pages of Father Martín, is our friend. And his resurrection reminds us and testifies to it.
Vatican City, March 11, 2024
