VIII. The Lazarus Miracle

Let us look upon the whole occurrence as though it were an initiation. Lazarus is loved by Jesus (John XI, 36). No ordinary affection can be meant by this, for it would be contrary to the spirit of St. John’s Gospel, in which Jesus is the Word. Jesus loved Lazarus because he found him ripe for the awakening of the Word within him. Jesus had relations with the family at Bethany. This only means that Jesus had made everything ready in that family for the final act of the drama, the raising of Lazarus. The latter was a disciple of Jesus, such a one that Jesus could be quite sure that in him the awakening would be consummated, The final act in a drama of awakening consisted in a symbolical action, unveiling the spirit. The person involved in it had not only to understand the Words, “Die and become!” He had to fulfil them himself by a spiritually real action. His earthly part, of which in the spirit of the Mysteries his higher being must be ashamed, had to be put away. The earthly must die a symbolic real death. The putting of his body into a somnambulic sleep for three days can only be denoted as an outer event in comparison with the greatness of the transformation taking place in him. An incomparably more momentous spiritual event corresponded to it. But this very process was the experience which divides the life of the mystic into two parts. One who does not know from experience the higher significance of such acts cannot understand them. They can only be suggested by means of a comparison.