April 2023

The following is a possible framework for the Witnessing of the Word. It can be personalised or altered: its purpose is to serve as an example of how this Saying might be used primarily in the context of a Prayer Group, but it may be used by individuals too. It is not intended to be definitive.  In the context of a group: the periods of silence should be appropriate for your group - probably not less than 5 minutes, or more than 15 minutes. 

Saying for the month: ‘I am the resurrection and the life … everyone who believes in me will never die’ (John 11.25). 

In your time of contemplation, you may like to shorten this to ‘I am the resurrection and the life’.

To begin the exercise, first spend a short while in relaxation and preparing to be still; you may want to relax your way through your muscles or you may find it helpful to become aware of the sounds around you and then put them aside as you offer this time of prayer to God.

Say this introductory invitation to prayer, then keep a further minute or two of silence: 

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11.28).

Introduction to the first silence - a preparation for listening with the mind: 

‘I am the resurrection and the life … everyone who believes in me will never die’.

In chapter 11 John, and John alone, records the event of the raising of Lazarus.   It was this incident that led to the authorities taking decisive action against Jesus.   It is the sign that speaks most clearly about the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

The other Gospels record two raisings from the dead – in Mark 5 the raising of Jairus’ daughter – and in Luke 7 the raising of the widow’s son at Nain.  The fact that the dead are being raised was part of the answer that Jesus gave to questions asked by John the Baptist: Art thou he that should come?  It is perhaps just possible to argue that the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow were not really dead but only in a coma – but Lazarus …  By no stretch of the imagination could Lazarus be said to be merely in a coma or asleep.   He had been dead for days and his body was already in the process of corruption.  When the message that Lazarus is so ill reaches Jesus, he delays for a further two days.   

When Jesus finally arrives, Martha goes out to meet him, but Mary stays sitting in the house.  Martha says to Jesus If you had been here, my brother would not have died.  She has faith in Jesus, but at the same time there is a touch of anger in her voice.  Why was Jesus not there when he was so desperately needed?  She goes on to say that she knows that her brother will rise again.  Isn’t she just repeating the teaching she has learnt and followed, but is not receiving much comfort from it at this moment of grief?  Jesus says to her: I am the resurrection and the life.  This is the life-giving word in her grief.  The word resurrection (anastasis) can mean both to rise up and to raise up.  So at this miracle, Jesus is raising Lazarus up, but is at the same time foretelling his own resurrection.

And for Jesus there is a great deal of anguish and pain involved in this death, just as there will be in his own; he weeps, he is troubled in spirit, he cries out.  It is almost like the Garden of Gethsemane experience before the arrest of Jesus.   He knows that a very great deal is going to go out of him as he works, just as he knew power had gone from him when the woman with the haemorrhage was healed.

The miracle when it finally comes is the most dramatic of all.  Father I thank you that you have heard me … Father, I thank you… I make Eucharist.   Here is the very heart of the relationship between Jesus and his Father.   Here is the power that raises from death.   Then he shouts – actually ‘yells’ the command for Lazarus to come out.   He puts all his authority into the command – Lazarus !  his name – come !   come to me, come to the one who is the resurrection, be alive – out !  out of the tomb, out of the darkness, out of the decaying life of sin.

As always in John, as you read you have to be thinking and interpreting and listening on more than one level.  Did Lazarus really come out from the tomb and come alive again even though he was no only dead but also decaying?  I find that I do not need to worry about that.  It is the first and superficial level of understanding and not of great importance.  But beneath it there is an underlying matter of the greatest importance to us, because we have to move from ‘what it meant’ to ‘what it means’.

We take this Saying into our minds, allowing the saying to speak to us – 'I am the resurrection and the life … everyone who believes in me will never die'.

A time is now kept for silence of the mind – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.  The silence concludes with a short thanksgiving, and/or feel free to repeat the Saying.

The first silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you for the gift of your Word.

Introduction to the second silence - a preparation for listening with the heart:

‘I am the resurrection and the life … everyone who believes in me will never die’.

Now we take this word into our hearts, as we allow Jesus’ words to speak in us, to let it touch us and let it work more deeply upon our lives.

We dwell now for a moment, not so much on what happened – but rather on what it means.

I find its meaning for myself on two levels.  The first is to contrast the dead material within myself with the life of the resurrection that Jesus offers me.  That dead material could be sin and yet what is dead within us often seems beyond our control.  For example, we cannot control our fears, our anxiety, our worries, our anger.  We can become so gripped by these things that we can think of nothing else.

Just as Jesus healed the blind man John 9 and we interpret that for ourselves in our healing from spiritual blindness, so we can do the same with the raising of Lazarus.  There is often deep within us a kind of spiritual death, a spiritual lethargy; we sink to a depth we hardly care to admit to ourselves and certainly not to anyone else.  But the power of the risen life of Jesus can and does transform us.  

Lift up your hearts we hear at every Eucharist – and we are lifted, raised, transformed, brought alive.  Within us there is an ‘anastasis’, a resurrection.  The dead, decaying material within us is changed, sometimes in a flash, sometimes over time.  Jesus says to us I am the resurrection and the life.

The second level of understanding here has to do with our hope in a world beyond this one where broken things are mended, sad things turned into joy, things that are incomplete brought to a glorious conclusion and things that are dead and decaying brought to life with Him.  Death for us is not the end of things.   What Jesus says to us is that we are certainly on our way to death – there can be no escape for him, for Lazarus, for anyone, but we are also on our way to life.  Herein lies our ultimate purpose.  Jesus says to each one of us: I am the resurrection and the life.

What then do we have to do with such knowledge?   Open our spiritual ears to his words initially – open them in trust and hope.  Listen to the words.  Then allow the words to fade away and leave us with the idea, the concept, the trust that we have in God. We discover afresh a new relationship with the divine - life now has a richness that cannot die.  The resurrection is upon us and part of us.  Everything is made new – for us the new age has begun.

‘I am the resurrection and the life … everyone who believes in me will never die’.

A time is now kept for silence of the heart – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.

The second silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you that your Word is alive and within us.

Introduction to the time of intercession – taking God’s word outwards into the world. 

‘I am the resurrection and the life … everyone who believes in me will never die’.

Say the name of a person or a group of people, and after a short pause, repeat the saying. For example:

‘Alison and your family … "I am the resurrection and the life". 

As we allow the word to speak through us we might direct Jesus’ word towards those people and situations where there is suffering, hurt and an absence of joy and where abiding in Christ would bring comfort.  Conclude this time of intercession with words of thanksgiving: Father, we thank you that your Word has gone out through us to those for whom we pray.

The Conclusion

Feel free to use the Fellowship Prayer (below) or another closing prayer to conclude your time of contemplative prayer:

Loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your unsearchable riches which pour forth from you as light from the sun, in boundless profusion and generosity, whether received, ignored or rejected. And now we offer to you, in so far as we are able, as an emptiness to be filled with your divine fullness, ourselves, our souls and bodies; all that we are, all that we have and all that we do. Amen

You may wish to say the Grace together before departing.