Romans 8:6-11

A reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans.

To set the mind on the flesh is death,
but t set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God;
it does not submit to God's law -
indeed it cannot,

and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh;
you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ
does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you,
though the body is dead because of sin,
the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
he who raised Christ from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Gospel

John 11:1-45

Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.

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 2 days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to his 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 in the day?
If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble,
because he sees the light of this world.

But if any one walks in the night, he stumbles,
because the light is not in him."

Thus he spoke, and then he said to them,
"Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,
but I go to awake him out of sleep."

The disciples said to him,
"Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover."

Now Jesus had spoken of his death,
but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep.

Then Jesus told them plainly,
"Lazarus is dead;

and for your sake I am glad that I was not there,
so that you may believe.
But let us go to him."

Thomas, called the Twin,
said to his fellow disciples,
"Let us also go, that we may die with him."

Now when Jesus came,
he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Bethany was near Jerusalem,
about two miles off,

and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to console them concerning their brother.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him,
while Mary sat in the house.

Martha said to Jesus,
"Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you."

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Martha said to him,
"I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life;
he who believes in me,
though he die, yet shall he live,

and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this?"

She said to him,
"Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ,
the Son of God, he who is coming into the world."

When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary,
saying quietly,
"The Teacher is here and is calling for you."

And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.

Now Jesus had not yet come to the village,
but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her,
saw Mary rise quickly and go out,
they followed her, supposing
that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him,
fell at his feet, saying 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 deeply moved in spirit and troubled;

and he said, "Where have you laid him?"
They said to him, "Lord, come and see."

Jesus wept.

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, deeply moved again, came to the tomb;
it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

Jesus said, "Take away the stone."
Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him,
"Lord, by this time there will be an odour,
for he has been dead four days."

Jesus said to her,
"Did I not tell you that if you would believe
you would see the glory of God?"

So they took away the stone.
And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said,
"Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.

I knew that thou hearest me always,
but I have said this on account of the people standing by,
that they may believe that thou didst send 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 bandages,
and his face wrapped with a cloth.
Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary
and had seen what he did, believed in him.

Stephen

The Relics of St Lazarus now in Southern Cyprus. Photo's by H Platts

The story of Lazarus of Bethany is a wonderful mix of myth and elements of historical truth (as are so many stories in the bible).  The Gospel of John describes the raising from the dead of Lazarus.  Is this the same Lazarus of Judea who travelled to Kition in Cyprus (now modern day Larnaka)? He was certainly Bishop of Kition in the very early days of Christianity.   When Bishop Lazarus departed from life (possibly for the second time) his grave was forgotten for centuries.  It was found by Cypriot priests in AD890. To protect the saint's bones from invaders the remains were moved to Constantinople, and them moved to Marseilles by rampaging knights during the Fourth Crusade.