The Feast of St Lazarus: “And he that was dead came forth”.
What we know for certain of this saint is contained in chapter 11 of John’s gospel. Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus and brother to Mary and Martha, has died and been buried when Jesus arrives:
Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept.
Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.
The only other canonical mention of Lazarus lies in noting his presence at a feast on the day before Palm Sunday but later legends are rich in their stories of this remarkable individual. One account dealing with his life after the resurrection of Jesus has him and other Christians miraculously escaping persecution by being transported to southern France in a boat without sails or oars and in the company of Mary Magdalene. He is said to have preached in the port of Marseilles where he was made the town’s first bishop. Though he remained safe during the persecutions by Nero he was caught up later in the century in that ordained by the emperor Domitian. He was executed and his remains can be found in the cathedral of Autun.
Other stories, told in the East, say that Lazarus fled to Cyrus where he became the first bishop of Lanarca. His remains were said to be transferred to Constantinople but a church, still standing, was built over his (second) tomb. There are a number of sites in Bethany claiming to be the spot of his original four-day burial. It was widely believed that Lazarus, after his resurrection, never smiled, being grimly aware of the plight of souls in Hades. His feast is celebrated on a number of different dates in different parts of Christendom.