On the three persons whom the Lord raised

28 August 2024

Sermon 82 by St Augustine of Hippo

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All who hear about them and believe are moved by the miracles of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus; but some in one way, others in another. Some, you see, are amazed at his bodily miracles, and have no idea of observing a greater kind. Others, though, hear about the miracles performed on bodies, and now have a greater admiration for those performed on souls. The Lord himself says, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so too the Son gives life to whom he will.” (John 5:21) Not, of course, that the Son gives life to some, the Father to others; but the Father and the Son give it to the same people, because the Father does everything through the Son.

So no one who is a Christian should doubt that even today the dead are raised. But all of us have eyes with which we can see the dead rise in the way the son of this widow rose, as we have just been told in the gospel. Not all, however, have the wherewithal to see those who are dead in the heart rise again; to see that, you need to have already risen in the heart yourself. There is more to raising up someone to live for ever, than to raising up someone who will only die again.

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His widowed mother rejoiced over that young man brought back to life. About people daily restored to life in the spirit their mother the Church rejoices. He was dead in the body, they in the mind. His death was visible, and visibly lamented; theirs being invisible was neither investigated, nor even noticed. The One Who knew the dead investigated; He alone knew the dead Who was able to make them come alive.

After all, unless the Lord had come to raise the dead, the apostle would not have said, “Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shed his light upon you.” (Eph 5:14) You hear about someone asleep when he says, “Awake, you that sleep, but you understand someone dead when you hear “and arise from the dead”. Those who are dead in the visible sense are often said to be asleep. And obviously, for him who can rouse them they are all asleep. I mean, for you or me, someone dead is dead, and they don’t wake up however much you punch or pinch them, or even pull them to pieces. But for Christ, that young man to whom he said. “Arise” was only asleep; and so he arose straightaway. No one rouses a person asleep in bed as easily as Christ does someone asleep in a tomb.

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Now we find that three dead people were visibly brought back to life by the Lord, thousands invisibly. In fact, who know how many he visibly brought back to life? I mean, not everything he did was written down. That’s what John says: “Many other things Jesus did, which if they were written down, I think the whole world would not be able to contain the books.” (Jn 21:25) So then, many many others were certainly restored to life than were recorded. Our Lord Jesus Christ, you see, wanted the things he did materially to be also understood spiritually. I mean, he wasn’t just performing miracles for the sake of miracles; he did them so that what he did should be marvellous to those who saw them, true to those who understood them.

It’s like people seeing the letters in a beautifully written codex and unable to read; they are indeed full of praise for the copyist’s hand and the beauty of the letters; but they haven’t the slightest idea what those letters mean, what they have to say; they are admiring with their eyes, ignorant in their minds. Others, though, both praise the scribe’s artistry and grasp the meaning — namely those who are able not only to see what is available to all, but also to read, which those who haven’t learned how to can’t do. In the same way those who saw Christ’s miracles, and didn’t understand what they meant, and what they suggested somehow or other to those who did understand, were only astonished that such things could happen. But others were both astonished at the things that happened and enriched by understanding what they meant. That’s the group we should belong to in the school of Christ.

I mean, if you say that the only reason Christ performed miracles was simply in order that there should be miracles, then you are capable of saying that He didn’t even know it wasn’t the right season for fruit, when he went looking for figs on that tree. You see, it wasn’t the season for fruit, as the evangelist says in so many words; and yet Jesus, feeling hungry, went looking for fruit on the tree. Was Christ ignorant of what any country bumpkin knew? Did the tree’s Creator not know what the gardener of the tree knew perfectly well? So when He felt hungry and went looking for fruit on the tree, He indicated that he was hungry for one thing and looking for something else; and He found the tree with no fruit and full of leaves; and He cursed it and it withered. What had the tree done in not providing fruit? How was the tree to blame for its unfruitfulness? But there are people who are unable, by their own will, to bear fruit. Their sterility is a fault, seeing that their fruitfulness is a matter of their will. So there were the Jews, who had the words of the law and didn’t have its deeds — full of leaves and bearing no fruit.

I’ve said this simply to persuade you that the reason our Lord Jesus Christ performed miracles was to signify something by these miracles, so that in addition to the fact that they were wonderful, and tremendous, and divine, we should also learn something from them.

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So let’s see what He wanted us to learn from the three dead people he restored to life. He restored to life the dead daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, who was very ill when He was sent for to come and deliver her from that illness. And as He was on the way, the news came she had died; and as if there were no further reason why he should be put to trouble, the father was told, The girl is dead; why still trouble the Master? He carried on all the same, and said to the girl’s father, “Do not be afraid, only believe.” He comes to the house, and finds preparations for the normal funeral obsequies already under way, and says to them, “Do not weep, for the girl is not dead, but asleep.” (Mk 5:35–39) He was telling the truth; she was asleep— but for Him by whom she could be woken up. He did wake her up, and restored her alive to her parents.

He also woke up this young man, the widow’s son, about whom I have just now been reminded I must speak to your graces whatever he is pleased to inspire me with. You have just heard how he was woken up. The Lord was approaching a town, and here was a dead man being carried out of the gate. He was moved with pity because the widowed mother, now deprived of her only son, was weeping, and He did what you heard, saying, “Young man, I say to you, get up. The dead man got up, began to speak; and he restored him to his mother.” (Lk 7:12–15)

He also roused Lazarus from the tomb.There too, when the disciple she was talking to heard Lazarus was sick (and He loved him), he said, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep.” They thought he meant the wholesome sleep of a sick man. If he ‘s asleep, Lord, they said, he is out of danger. He answered, I tell you, now speaking plainly, our friend Lazarus is dead.” (Jn 11:11–14) Both things he said were true: “For you he’s dead, for Me he’s asleep.”

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These three sorts of dead persons are three sorts of sinners, whom today too Christ is still restoring to life. You see, that daughter of the ruler of the synagogue was dead inside the house; she hadn’t yet been carried out in public from the privacy of the house’s four walls. It was there inside that she was woken up and restored alive to her parents. This young man, though, was no longer in the house, but all the same he was not yet in the grave; he had been carried out of doors, but not yet committed to the ground. Just as the Lord roused the dead girl who hadn’t yet been carried out, so he roused the dead man who had been carried out but not yet buried. There remained a third thing for him to do: to raise up also one who had been buried; and this he did with Lazarus.

So then, there are some people who have sin inside in their hearts, but don’t yet have it in actual deed. Someone or other is moved by some lust. After all, the Lord Himself says, “whoever sees a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Mt 5:28) He hasn’t yet approached her physically, he has consented in his heart. He has a dead man inside, he hasn’t yet carried him out. And as often happens, as we know, people experience this sort of thing in themselves every day; sometimes when they’ve heard the word of God, as though the Lord were saying, “Arise”, they condemn their having consented to some wickedness, they breathe again to salvation and justice. The dead person rises again inside the house, the heart revives in the privacy of its own thoughts. This resurrection of a dead soul takes place inside, within the recesses of conscience, as though within the four walls of the house.

Others, after consenting to the wicked thought, proceed to put it into practice, like people carrying out the dead man, with the result that what was previously kept private now appears in public. But we don’t, surely, have to despair of these people who have proceeded to some sinful act. Wasn’t that young man told, I say to you, get up? Wasn’t he too given back to his mother? So in the same way those too who have already committed the sin, if they happen to have been admonished and stirred by a word of truth, can rise again at the voice of Christ, and be restored alive to their mother. They have been able to step out into a sinful action, they have not been able to perish forever.

But people, who by doing what is wrong also tie themselves up in evil habits, become defenders of their own evil deeds. They get angry when they are reproved to the extent that the men of Sodom, for example, once said to the just man who was reproving them for their depraved and wicked intentions, “You came here to live, not to give us laws.” (Gen 19:9) So habituated were they to their unspeakable vileness, that now wickedness set the standards of justice, and it was the person who forbade it rather than the one who perpetrated it that was reproved. Such people, weighed down by malignant habit, are as it were not only dead but buried. But what must I say, brothers and sisters? Not only buried, but as was said about Lazarus, “He’s already stinking”. That massive stone placed against the tomb, that is the hard force of habit which weighs on the soul and doesn’t allow it either to rise or even to breathe.

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It also says, “He is four days dead.” (Jn 11:39) And indeed, to this state of habit or addiction I am speaking of, the soul comes by four stages. First, you see, there is the tingle of pleasure in the heart; second, consent; third, the deed; and fourth, addiction, habit. There are some people, to be sure, who so firmly push unlawful things away from their thoughts, they don’t even find any pleasure in them. There are others who find them pleasant, but don’t consent; here death is not finalised, but somehow or other initiated. Add consent to pleasure; that is already a death sentence. From consent they proceed to action, action turns into habitual addiction, and the case looks so desperate that one says, He is four days dead, he is already stinking.

So the Lord came, and for Him of course everything is easy; and yet He showed you a certain sense of difficulty. He groaned in spirit, He showed that loud shouts of censure and disapproval are required for people who have become hardened in bad habits. And yet at the voice of the Lord raised in a shout, the bonds of necessity were ruptured. The Lord, you see, can even set the four days’ dead free from their evil habits, because even this four days dead man was only sleeping for Christ who wished to revive him.

But what did he say? Notice the special way of reviving employed here; he came forth from the tomb alive — and was unable to walk. And the Lord said to the disciples, “Unbind him and let him go.” (Jn 11:44). He Himself raised the dead man, they released the bound man. Notice that there is something which belongs exclusively to the sovereignty of God raising the dead. Somebody addicted to an evil habit is rebuked by being told a home truth. How many there are who are rebuked and don’t listen! So who’s acting inside with the person who does listen? Who is it breathing in the breath of life inwardly? Who is it driving out the hidden death, bestowing the hidden life? Isn’t it the case that after the expressions of disapproval and the tongue-lashings people are left to their own thoughts, and begin to think over what a bad life they are leading, and what an appalling addiction they are held down by? Then, being thoroughly displeased with themselves, they decide to change their manner of life. Such people have risen again; being displeased with what they used to be, they have come back to life. But while reviving like this, they still can’t walk. These are the bonds of the guilt they have incurred. So there is a need for the person who has come back to life to be unbound, absolved, and allowed to walk. This is the office he gave to the disciples when he told them, “What you unbind on earth has been unbound also in heaven.” (Mt 18:18)

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So then, dearly beloved, let us listen to all this in such a way that those who are alive may go on living, those who are dead may come back to life. If it’s a case of the sin still being harboured in the heart and not having emerged into actual deed, let the dead person arise privately inside the house of conscience. If it’s a case of actually having committed what you intended, even so there is no need to despair. As a dead person you didn’t rise indoors, so rise then when you have been carried out. Repent of what you have done, come to life straight away; don’t go down into the depths of the grave, don’t receive on top of you the dead weight of a habit or addiction. But perhaps I am already speaking to some who are already weighed down by the hard stone of their habits, already hard pressed by the dead weight of custom, already four days dead and stinking. These mustn’t despair either; the dead are buried deep, but Christ is high up. He knows how to heave aside the huge loads of earth with a shout, he knows how to restore inwardly to life through his own presence, how to hand over to his disciples for unbinding. Let such people too repent. I mean, when Lazarus had been revived after being four days dead, no stench of death remained in him once he was alive again.

So then, those who are alive, let them stay alive. But any who are dead, in whichever of these three kinds of death they find themselves, let them take steps, now, to rise again with all speed.