Richard Beard: Lazarus Is Dead

Nor was anyone else as receptive at synagogue. Menachem had high hopes for both these boys, almost as high as they had for themselves. Between the two of them all ambitions seemed achievable. They spent long afternoons developing unchecked childish dreams: friends until the end of time, they’d wear golden sandals and have angels to buckle them.

‘What was the last thing he said to you?’

‘I can’t remember.’

Jesus had promised to visit them in Bethany. He never had.

‘What I dislike most is pretence of any kind. Including the kind they’re calling miracles. How do these unbelievable stories spread?’

‘I don’t know, I’m not involved.’ Lazarus could see that Isaiah was sceptical, and at that moment he wished he and Jesus had never met. ‘He was a small boy with scabs on his knees. Like the rest of us. He couldn’t even swim.’

‘God is not whimsical,’ Isaiah had said, and the massive columns of Solomon’s Porch appeared to support this opinion. ‘He doesn’t visit his chosen on earth to play games, to point his finger and pick out this one and then that one for the better portions of luck. You need to think clearly, Lazarus. Jesus is not universally liked.’

‘I know, I know . He creeps round those tiny villages. The stories aren’t remotely credible.’

‘And if he comes to Jerusalem?’

‘He wouldn’t last a minute, I promise you. He’s a provincial nobody. He has no idea how the world works.’

‘And you’d teach him a thing or two about Jerusalem, wouldn’t you, Lazarus? How to overprice sheep and hide their blemishes. The secret short cut to Lydia’s house. Are you trying to protect him?’

‘I haven’t seen him for years. But I’d advise him to trust no one.’

Lazarus had then registered what Isaiah was saying. How did he know about Lydia? He decided to carry on regardless, because his headache made him irritable. ‘Not even his disciples, not in Jerusalem. Trust no one here but me.’

‘Yes, Lazarus, talk to me about the disciples. You’re his friend. Explain how it is that you’re not included in the twelve.’

Lazarus had confessed to their childhood friendship out of vanity. Not long after, Jesus had selected his disciples.

‘I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.’ Mary was perfecting a wide-eyed look born of too much hope and not enough attention to housework.

‘He’s making me look stupid.’

‘Maybe he’ll pick you later.’ Jesus had chosen twelve, like the tribes. Lazarus was excluded, barely a friend of Jesus any more, and everyone now knew that and it hurt.

‘Some people say he’s the son of god,’ Mary added.

‘He’s the son of Mary. We grew up in the same house. You were there, remember?’

The disciples were practically strangers to Jesus. Also, they were incredibly slow. They needed every story repeated, every lesson explained with exemplary images from their simple peasant lives.

‘Fishermen,’ Lazarus said. ‘They carry around that smell. Rotting fish. In the webs between their fingers.’

Lazarus was more worthy as a friend and ally. After synagogue he and Jesus used to play David and Goliath. Lazarus was Goliath so Amos could be David while Jesus did both the armies. At the climax of an epic battle, involving whatever weapons came to hand, Lazarus could die quite brilliantly.

Death was always a shock to him, a slingshot out of nowhere right between the eyes. He stared blindly, appalled. His hands clasped his forehead, his body stiffened and revolved until, rigid, he keeled stone dead to the ground.

They sat together, knelt together, ate together. The other Nazareth children were dullards, or girls. Unlike Lazarus and Jesus, none of them could appreciate the living excitement of the scriptures: there was always one hero missing, the one yet to come.

‘Isn’t that right, Rabbi? The prophets know the story isn’t finished.’

‘They know the future is more interesting than the past,’ Menachem replied. ‘Even when the past is fascinating.’

The Rabbi was delighted by their application to the Torah. His eyesight was failing (glaucoma, trachoma, conjunctivitis), but he liked to bring his face close to theirs to feel whatever was exceptional about these two exiled boys from Bethlehem. He could never quite decide what it was.

Lazarus felt he was special. It was common knowledge that he’d been reprieved from the massacre of the innocents, and around the time of his birth a star had shone brightly in the sky. Lazarus could run faster and swim further and climb higher than any boy in Nazareth, and he knew by heart the heroes from scripture responsible for making yesterday become today.

He believed in heroism like he did in living forever. The great prophets of the bible were undeterred by obstacles. They rarely fell sick, but he was sure that sickness would barely intrude on their working day.

Lazarus, however, has not lived the life of a prophet. As a young man he left Nazareth to work as a sheep trader to the Temple, but somehow he has stalled as an overseer living with his sisters in a semi-rural village. He had expected more of himself. At the age of thirty-two he has mislaid his imagined greatness, but he still feels able to perform a great task. Only none has so far presented itself.

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A man destined to be a disciple would have stayed put in the slow sure village of Nazareth. He’d have trained as a stonemason like his father before him, married and had many children he’d apprentice in their turn as masons.

Lazarus had never been much of a follower, so his friendship with Jesus presupposes some other purpose. It was widely known at the time that they were friends, a fact reported in the Gospel of John. If nothing else, their friendship can clarify time lines in this decisive period of the Jesus story.

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus is active for about a year between his baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan and his death by crucifixion in Jerusalem. John lengthens this period to three years, but the respected biblical scholar E. P. Saunders, in The Historical Figure of Jesus (1993), supports the consensus that the earlier three gospels are probably correct.

I agree. Lazarus falls ill at the time of the first miracle at the wedding in Cana. Surely he wouldn’t have been made to suffer for three full years? Not if he was truly a friend, not if New Testament friendship is to mean anything. The illness of Lazarus therefore lasts about a year, from Passover to Passover, from the water-into-wine until his predetermined death ten days before the crucifixion of Jesus.

He has less than twelve months to live, and counting.

Over the next few weeks, after his inconclusive meeting with Isaiah, his illness makes itself known in the usual way: Lazarus has flu-like symptoms. He has a dry mouth, an ongoing headache and a general sense of fatigue. His teeth hurt.

Also, his eyes can water when he thinks kindly of other people. He finds himself feeling sorry for the poor defenceless lambs Faruq brings in from the desert, and for himself.

Obviously this can’t go on, so he makes a survey of his sins that need forgiving. There’s the Sabbath, which he doesn’t always respect, and the truth, which he doesn’t always tell. But business is business. There’s Lydia. He hasn’t married her when he promised he would, though not recently and never in the presence of witnesses. He shaves and he cuts his hair short, even though the Book of Leviticus clearly states (19: 27) ‘ Do not cut the hair of the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard .’

Lazarus brazenly flouts this scriptural law. We must imagine he is as careless with others, especially as disobeying biblical laws hasn’t done him any apparent harm. At thirty-two years old he is accepted and respected in his adoptive village of Bethany. He has profitable working relationships and his skilful trading has made him rich. Lazarus does not truly believe that an almighty god cares whether or not he shaves.