Many people are asking why I sometimes post under the pseudonym of Lazarus, so I thought your questions merited a small blog of explanation.
Most of you are familiar with the story of Lazarus in the scriptures. I am not referring to the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, which is also mentioned in the scriptures, but of Christ’s friend Lazarus from the Gospel according to St. John. The story is as follows :
In the Gospel of John (John 11:1) Lazarus, also called Lazarus of Bethany or Lazarus of the Four Days was a man who lived in the town of Bethany (“Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha”, John 11:1). The sisters are immediately identified: “Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.” So the sisters sent word to Jesus that the one he loved was ill. Jesus tarried where he was, and when he arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days, and Martha reproached him. (Jesus had only delayed his travel by two days, implying that even if he had set out immediately, Lazarus would have died.) When Jesus assured her that Lazarus would rise, she took his meaning for the resurrection on Judgment Day, to which he replied, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26 KJV). In the presence of a crowd of Jewish mourners, Jesus had the stone rolled away from the tomb and bade Lazarus to come out, and so he did, still wrapped in his grave-cloths. Jesus then called for his followers (friends and family alike) to remove the grave-cloths. The narrator claims many other Jews were convinced of Jesus’ divinity after visiting Lazarus, but says no more of the individual. The miracle, the longest coherent narrative in John aside from the Passion, is the climax of John’s “signs”. It explains the crowds seeking Jesus on Palm Sunday, and leads directly to the decision of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to kill Jesus.
So Lazarus, who was dead, was raised to walk in newness of life. Today’s Christians are also buried and raised to new life through Baptism. This is a great biblical story, and reason enough to call myself Lazarus, but this is actually not why I chose the Lazarus pseudonym.
I chose the name Lazarus from a poem. Not just any poem, though.
G.K. Chesterton is the greatest writer who ever lived. He was a master of rhetoric and paradox and the author of hundreds of books. He is responsible for the conversion of the great christian thinker C.S. Lewis. He was also a journalist, debater, artist, and poet. Why haven’t you heard of him? Good question. The answer is that you have not heard of him because he became a Catholic. I am working on a blog in his honor, I’ll tell you more there.
However, getting back to Lazarus, Chesterton wrote a poem entitled “The Convert” on the day that he joined the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The first time I read it I was nearly moved to tears. He sums up the journey to Rome as only he can. This poem is the reason that I am Lazarus; it reads as follows:
