Resurrection

The speaker is God. The time is before time was. The word is omnipotence. The result is the grandest of gifts. Darkness heard and vanished. “God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Reader, strive to imagine the scene, when this first voice called this first blessing into being. This world of full delights was then one huge mass of unarranged material. It had no form, and therefore it had no beauty. It was vacancy, and vacancy lacks all that pleases. It would have been cheerless, even if robed in cheering light. But impenetrable night shrouded the lifeless void.

This account of Jesus’ anointing provides a model of devotion and answers a challenge against devotion to him. If we continue in the noble line of Mary and Lazarus, we can be certain that others will see the truth of Jesus in our lives, and what was said of Lazarus will be said of us, too: “On account of him many … were … believing in Jesus” (John 12:11).

His soul is held by rage: and he advances to the tomb, in Calvin’s words again, “as a champion who prepares for conflict.” The raising of Lazarus thus becomes, not an isolated marvel, but — as indeed it is presented throughout the whole narrative (compare especially, verses 24-26) — a decisive instance and open symbol of Jesus’ conquest of death and hell.