Despite distractions provided by the carpet bombings of Trump’s Epstein War in Iran, the genocide in Gaza continues.
For the past two years it has confronted us with images almost too painful to watch. Entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Hospitals destroyed. Families digging through shattered concrete searching for loved ones.
Human-rights organizations report that thousands remain buried beneath collapsed buildings—men, women, and children entombed by the violence of heartless slaughter.
The irony is difficult to miss. The state carrying out this devastation identifies itself as the homeland of the “People of God,” heirs to the biblical tradition that again and again insists that God’s special concern is for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.
Yet today the land of the prophets has become the site of mass graves of those very categories of victims buried under concrete and dust. In such a moment the Gospel summons we hear today presses itself upon us with frightening relevance: “Lazarus, come forth.” What could such words addressed to the dead possibly mean when so many lie buried under the rubble of war?
For an answer, consider the story’s details. They are a command to resist empire – Rome’s then and the condominium represented by Israel and the United States today.
Today’s Gospel
Today’s Gospel—the raising of Lazarus—may appear at first to be simply a miracle story. Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the tomb after four days of death. But the narrative is much more than a display of supernatural power. In the Gospel according to John, the raising of Lazarus is the turning point that seals Jesus’ fate.
Notice what happens immediately after the miracle. The authorities in Jerusalem convene an emergency meeting. Their concern is not theological but political: “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy our place and our nation.” In other words, belief in Jesus is ipso facto inimical to empire.
Here’s why.
Jerusalem at the time was a colonial city under Roman occupation. Imperial troops controlled the land. Local elites—both political and religious—had learned to maintain their own authority by cooperating with that imperial system. They managed the Temple economy, collected taxes, and preserved order on Rome’s behalf. In return they enjoyed prestige, wealth, and protection.
Religion and empire were joined at the hip.
Jesus and the entire prophetic tradition he embodied contradicted that juncture. It’s as simple as that.
Israel’s Prophets (Including Jesus)
The prophets of Israel had seen this arrangement many times before.
Again and again, they warned that the covenant was never meant to enrich the powerful — much less gentile imperialists. The law of Moses insisted that society must protect those with the least power: the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien. Those four groups appear constantly in the Hebrew Scriptures because they represent people who cannot defend themselves.
Whenever rulers forgot them, the prophets spoke.
Amos for example thundered against those who “sell the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals.” Isaiah condemned leaders who accumulated land while the poor lost everything. Jeremiah denounced kings who built luxurious palaces through forced labor.
Those prophets were not enemies of their nation. They were faithful Israelites calling their society back to its founding vision. But because their words threatened the powerful, they were treated as dangerous troublemakers – in today’s terms, as “anti-Semites.”
Jesus stands squarely in that prophetic line.
Like the prophets before him, Jesus’ ministry constantly returns to the same themes: good news for the poor, release for captives, healing for the broken. He heals without payment, eats with social outcasts, and proclaims a God who prefers mercy to sacrifice. In him the ancient prophetic voice speaks again.
The raising of Lazarus becomes the moment when that voice can no longer be tolerated.
Why? Because Lazarus is more than a man returning to life. He represents what happens when those who have been buried—socially, politically, economically—begin to rise again. When the forgotten begin to breathe, when the oppressed stand up, when those written off as dead reclaim their dignity—systems built on injustice begin to tremble.
“Anti-Semitism” Weaponized
Throughout history, whenever prophetic voices expose injustice, the powerful rarely answer the criticism itself. Instead, they attack the critic. Jeremiah was accused of weakening the nation in time of war. Amos was expelled from the royal sanctuary because his preaching threatened the ruling class. Jesus himself is now declared a threat to public order.
From that day forward, the Gospel tells us, they decide to kill him.
We see similar dynamics in our own time. Criticism of violence, occupation, or injustice—particularly when directed toward the policies of the Israeli state—is often dismissed with the charge of “anti-Semitism.” The term properly refers to hatred of Jews as a people, and such hatred is sometimes real. But when the accusation is used to silence moral criticism of Zionist genocide, it becomes something else entirely: a political shield protecting power from accountability.
The prophetic tradition refuses such shields.
Its loyalty is never to rulers, governments, or empires. Its loyalty is to the God of justice who demands protection for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.
And that brings us back to the question with which we began.
The Threat of Resurrection
What does “Lazarus, come forth!” mean in a world where thousands lie buried beneath the rubble of Gaza – and Tehran?
It cannot simply mean a miraculous resuscitation of individuals. The Gospel is pointing toward something larger. The command is addressed to all who have been buried by systems of domination—those crushed by war, poverty, and political violence. It is a summons to life, dignity, and resistance against the forces that entomb human beings.
That is why the miracle becomes so dangerous.
Because once the dead begin to rise, the powerful begin to panic.
In fact, the irony deepens as the Gospel story continues. Not only do the authorities decide to kill Jesus. Later we are told they also plan to kill Lazarus himself—because his very existence is evidence that something new has begun.
Life is breaking out of the tomb.
Conclusion
The story of Lazarus therefore prepares us for what lies ahead. The conflict between prophetic truth and imperial power will soon reach its climax.
The cross was Rome’s instrument for eliminating those who threaten the system.But the Gospel insists that even the cross cannot bury the truth forever.
Because once the dead begin to rise, it becomes impossible to keep them in their graves.
Our call on this Fifth Sunday of Lent is clear: don’t allow yourself to be gaslit or intimidated. Recognize the burial of the innocent for the genocide it is. Name it.
Don’t be intimidated by weaponized charges of “anti-Semitism.”
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