Page 324 - Mystic Pathways through the Bible

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318 Mystic pathways through the bible
Divine identity. There He received the message from Mary and Martha, two sisters of Lazarus and devotees of Jesus, that Lazarus was sick and near death. When Jesus arrived four days later, however, Lazarus had already died and his body had been placed in a tomb. Intending to reveal the glory of God operating through Him, Jesus removed the rock at the entrance to the tomb and prayed to His heavenly father: “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the bene t of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When He had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” To the astonishment of many who had assembled to see this miracle, the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Lazarus is symbolic of the human soul caught in the clutches of death. Attachment, hatred, pride, egoism, greed, craving, fear, sorrow and grief—all these are the clutches of death. Ignorance is the sickness that deprives the soul of the Truth that it is essentially immortal. This ignorance drives the soul to a state of “death”—to reincarnate again and again, life after life. When the soul is unable to discover this hidden Truth and release itself from the bondage of the world-process, it is, as it were, dead. The Divine