There is a big difference between understanding Jesus as miracle worker and believing Him to be the Christ, Son of the living God. The first flows from the second but it does not do so necessarily. It’s important to note that Jesus’ attitude to His own miracles is ambivalent at best. Jesus would still be the Christ even if performed no miracles! The greatest miracle of all, of course, is His resurrection.
The Lord understood the spectacle His miracles made. He knew the curiosity they generated. He knew that based on stories of what He had done making the rounds that many sought Him out not for salvation, not forgiveness of their sins, not life everlasting, but to see a magic show or to have some material need met.
After feeding 5,000 on the far side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus went back across to Capernaum. The crowd followed Him. It’s easy to forget that the Bread of Life Discourse begins with the Lord chiding the crowd: “I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”1 Keep in mind that “a sign” points to something beyond itself.
Towards the end of our Gospel today, the inspired author tells us explicitly that the large crowd gathered around the house in Bethany not only because Jesus was there, “but also to see Lazarus.”2 Who wouldn’t want to see someone who had been dead for four days and then, by simple command, was brought back to life?
In our age, we would be more prone to launch a scientific investigation into the physics and biology of someone who was dead coming back to life. What is missed by looking either through the lens of magic or science is the genuinely metaphysical aspect.
Even if it was possible to explain how this might’ve happened or prove that such a thing is, in fact, possible, the question “Why?” is ignored. Understanding how doesn't necessarily tell you why. For what purpose did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? So “that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”3
Jesus did this to demonstrate exactly what He said to Martha on the dusty road leading to Bethany: “I am the resurrection and the life.”4 Raising Lazarus was but a preview of what was to come. Lazarus, after being raised from the dead, died again. Hence, what he experienced was more a resuscitation than resurrection. Of course, it is no less stunning for that. He was dead and brought back to life!
Although it appears in the following chapter, this scene in which Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with oil and then dries them with her hair, is referenced at the beginning of the pericope about the Lord raising Lazarus from the dead. In a parenthetical statement, the author notes: “Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.”5 This reinforces the significance of Mary's humble act.
The significance of Mary’s anointing Jesus is a recognition that He is Messiah, whom the Bethany siblings believed Him to be. Messiah means “anointed one.” It also pointed to Jesus’ own death, and pointing forward to His death. Jesus’ rebuke of Judas Iscariot indicates both these things.
What this means is that to have Jesus is to have everything. The only concise definition of eternal life that we find in all Sacred Scripture is also found in Saint John’s Gospel: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”6
At the Great Paschal Vigil you, too, will witness the miracle of the dead being brought to life. It is the miracle of baptism. Just like in Jesus’ day, you must have eyes to see. As a sacrament, baptism, too, is a sign.
As Catholics, we say that a sacrament is an “efficacious sign.” We designate them as such because sacraments, while certainly pointing beyond themselves, don’t merely signify something, or stand in for, something that is absent. A sacrament “actually makes present what it signifies.”7
1 John 6:26.↩
2 John 12:9.↩
3 John 11:4.↩
4 John 11:25.↩
5 John 11:2.↩
6 John 17:3.↩
7 USCCB. Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, 32. 2009.↩
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