The Gospel According to the Son

31

All the same, my conversation with Judas must have disturbed me more than I knew, for on the road to Jerusalem I became feverish. As I walked, my limbs ached. At night I had no rest that was without pain. And it was the same on the second morning.

By evening, still a full day's march from Jerusalem, we passed through Jericho and there a rich man named Zacchaeus wished to welcome me. Many were in the throng, however, and he was a small man; therefore he had climbed to the top of a sycamore so that we could see him.

I said: "Zacchaeus, come down. Tonight I will stay at your house."

He received me joyfully. Others said that it was not fitting that I should be the guest of the wealthiest publican in Jericho. But Zacchaeus said: "Lord, now that I know you, half of my goods I will give to the poor."

I was gladdened. For if a rich man could surrender half of his fortune because he believed in me, then there might be walls ready to fall in Jerusalem. I slept well that second night in the house of Zacchaeus.

Next morning as we set out, two sisters of my follower Lazarus came to meet us. I had dined with Lazarus in Capernaum, and he was a good man. Now his two sisters, Mary and Martha, had walked from his house in Bethany to find me, and they said, "Lord, Lazarus is sick, our Lazarus."

And by the way it was said, I knew that he had a sickness unto death.

They wept. As if I were brother to his illness, my fever came back; my night of rest was lost. I had to stay two nights more in Zacchaeus' house, and we were still a full day's march from Jerusalem. When I awoke on the fifth morning of our departure from Galilee, I was well in body but otherwise full of woe, and I said, "Lazarus is dead."

The apostle Thomas was simple, and often uttered what others thought. Now he said aloud, "Let us go to Jerusalem so we can die with him." There was much displeasure at Thomas' remark.

We walked all that day and into the evening before we came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived in a house an hour's walk from the walls of Jerusalem. And I could see many Jews on their way to his home. Indeed, his sister Martha came to meet me, and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

I was ready to agree. Nonetheless, I said, "Your brother shall rise again."

Then came Mary, the other sister, and she sat at my feet and was followed by others also weeping, and when they looked at me, I said, "Where have you laid him?"

"Lord, come and see."

How could I know whether God would grant me the power to return him to his sisters? Lazarus had been dead for two days.

Many Jews around me, friends of the dead man, seeing me in anguish, said, "Behold, how he loved Lazarus!"

They led me to a cave with a stone across the entrance. I said, "Take away the stone."

But Martha said: "Lord, who can speak now for his body?"

Yet at my sign they removed the rock from the entrance. I lifted my eyes and cried out, and my voice roared in my throat: "Father, let Lazarus come forth!"

Then I was silent. When the spirit left a man, all that was unclean in his spirit was loosed as well. So I waited for the odor to enter my nose. Indeed, I asked myself: "How can one raise a dead man from his tomb when all the evil of his past holds him down?"

The Lord must have heard me. I saw the face of Lazarus. I saw him stir.

Again I cried: "Lazarus, come forth." And I heard him answer.

"Oh, Yeshua," said Lazarus, "small creatures speak to me, and they say, 'You are not our master, Lazarus, but our wiping-cloth.' Thus speak the maggots."

I prayed for his misery to cease. And it was then that Lazarus rose in his tomb. I saw him come out of the mouth of the cave and take small steps toward me. These steps were small because he was bound in his winding sheet. His face was also covered. I said to his sisters, "Loosen him, but do not look at him."

Then, in the voice of a man who has dwelt in lands that others have not entered, Lazarus said, "The maggots have left me." His voice was like the small cry of a bird. Yet he was alive.

All who witnessed this fell back in wonder. I knew that the High Priest Caiaphas of the Great Temple, on hearing of this, would gather a council. For more than a few had seen Lazarus rise. So they knew that he stank of the grave. The Pharisees would call me a demon. Why not? I had the power to raise a man who had begun to rot.

I could hear the High Priest. He would declare: "If we leave this Jesus in peace, all Jews will go to him. The Romans will believe that we are in rebellion. Before it is over, the Romans will take all that we have."

I knew that the High Priest Caiaphas might even say, "Is it wrong for one man to die so that the rest will not perish? Is it wrong for this one man to die?"

That day I did not go to Jerusalem but slept in the house of Lazarus. In the morning when I said good-bye, he was weak and his spirit was low. I asked, "Do you believe?" and Lazarus said, "I am frightened of the things I saw when dead. Yet I try to believe." In his weakness, he still took my arm and said, "An angel came to me. All is not heavy."

I said to Lazarus: "Do not fear. You are well favored by the Lord." And to myself I prayed that I was telling the truth.