• 1 Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
• 2 (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
• 3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.”
• 4 When Jesus heard that, he said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.”
• 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
• 6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.
• 7 Then after that saith he to his disciples, “Let us go into Judaea again.”
• 8 His disciples say unto him, “Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?”
• 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.
• 10 But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.”
• 11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.”
• 12 Then said his disciples, “Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.”
• 13 Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
• 14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.
• 15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.”
• 16 Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
• 17 Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.
• 18 Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:
• 19 And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.
• 20 Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.
• 21 Then said Martha unto Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
• 22 But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.”
• 23 Jesus saith unto her, “Thy brother shall rise again.”
• 24 Martha saith unto him, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
• 25 Jesus said unto her, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
• 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”
• 27 She saith unto him, “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”
• 28 And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee.”
• 29 As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him.
• 30 Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him.
• 31 The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, “She goeth unto the grave to weep there.”
• 32 Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”
• 33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
• 34 And said, “Where have ye laid him?” They said unto him, “Lord, come and see.”
• 35 Jesus wept.
• 36 Then said the Jews, “Behold how he loved him!”
• 37 And some of them said, “Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?”
• 38 Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
• 39 Jesus said, “Take ye away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.”
• 40 Jesus saith unto her, “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?”
• 41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
• 42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.”
• 43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.”
• 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
• 45 Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.

• 23And Jesus answered them, saying, ‘The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
• 24Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn [kernel] of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.
• 25He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.’

Observation: After the seed is committed to the earth, it seems to perish and die, as our Savior speaks (John 12:24): “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” The death of the corn in the earth is not a total death, but only the corruption or alteration of it: for if once the seminal life and virtue of it were quite extinguished, it could never put forth blade or ear without a miracle. Yet, because that alteration is a kind of death, therefore Christ here uses it as a fit illustration of the resurrection. And indeed there is nothing in nature more apt to illustrate that great mystery. What a fragrant, green and beautiful blade do we see spring up from a corrupted seed? How black, and moldy is that? How beautiful and verdant is this?

Application: Even thus shall the bodies of the saints arise in beauty and glory at the resurrection. They are sown in dishonor; they are raised in glory. They are sown natural bodies; they are raised spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15. 43, 44). The husbandman [or farmer] knows, that though the seed rot in the earth, yet it will rise again. And the believer knows, that though after his skin worms destroy his body, yet in his flesh he shall see God (Job 19. 25, &c.) and the resemblance betwixt the seed sown, and springing up; and the bodies of the Saints dying, and rising again, lies in these following particulars.

1. First, the seed is committed to the earth from whence it came, so is the body of a saint; earth it was, and to earth it is again resolved. Grace exempts not the body of the best man from seeing corruption (Rom. 8:10). Though Christ be in him, yet the body is dead; that is, sentenced to death because of sin …
2. Secondly, the seed is cast into the earth in hope (1 Cor. 9:10). Were there not a resurrection of it expected, the husbandman would never be willing to cast away his corn. The bodies of saints are also committed to the grave in hope (I Thes. 4:13, 14). But I would not have you to be ignorant brethren, concerning those which are asleep, as them which have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so also them which sleep in Jesus shall the Lord bring with him. This blessed hope of a resurrection, sweetens, not only the troubles of life, but the pangs of death.
3. Thirdly, the seed is cast into the earth seasonably, in its proper season. So are the bodies of the Saints (John 5: 26). Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, as a shock of corn cometh in, in its season. They always die in the fittest time, though sometimes they seem to die immaturately [too young?]. The time of their death was from all eternity pre-fixed by God, beyond which they cannot go, and short of which they cannot come.
4. The seed lies many days and nights under the clods, before it rise and appear again. Even so man lieth down, and riseth not again till the heavens be no more (Job 14:12). The days of darkness in the grave are many.
5. When the time is come for its shooting up, the earth that covered it can hide it no longer; it cannot keep it down a day more. It will find or make a way through the clods. So in that day when the great trump shall sound, bone shall come to his bone, and the graves shall not be able to hold them a minute longer. Both sea and earth must render the dead that are in them (Rev. 20:13).
6. When the seed appears above ground again, it appears much more fresh and orient [radiant] than when it was cast into the earth. God clothes it with such beauty, that it is not like to what it was before. Thus rise the bodies of saints, marvelously improved, beautified and perfected with spiritual qualities and rich endowments, in respect whereof they are called spiritual bodies (I Cor. 15:43), not properly, but analogically spiritual. For look as spirits subsist without food, raiment, sleep; know no lassitude, weariness or pain; so our bodies after the resurrection shall be above these necessities and distempers. For we shall be as the angels of God (Mat. 22:30). Yea, our vile bodies shall be changed, and made like unto Christ’s glorious body, which is the highest pitch, and ascent of glory and honor, that a human body is capable of (Phil. 3:21).

For as much as it has pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like to his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

A personage worthy of credit, that had travelled in diverse parts of Asia and Egypt, affirmed to many, that he had seen more than once in a certain place near unto Cairo (whither a number of people resort on a certain day in the month of March, for to be spectators of the resurrection of the flesh, as they say) of bodies deceased, showing and thrusting themselves as it were by little and little out of the ground. Not that they see them altogether, but now the hand, then the feet, sometimes half the body, which done, they in like manner hide themselves by little and little again in the ground. The rest not giving credit to such a marvel, and I for my part desiring to understand the truth of it, inquired of a kinsman and singular friend of mine, a gentleman as thoroughly accomplished in all virtues as may be—one that hath been brought up in great honors, and that is almost ignorant of nothing. He having traveled in the aforesaid countries with another gentleman, a great and familiar friend also of mine, named the Lord Alexander of Schullembourg, told me he had heard of [from] many, that this apparition was most certain, and that in Cairo and other places of Egypt, there was no question made of it. And the more to assure me, he showed me an Italian book, imprinted at Venice, containing diverse descriptions of voyages, made by the ambassadors of Venice into many parts of Asia and Africa, among the which one is entitled Viaggio de Messer Aluigi di Giouanni di Alessandria nelle Indie. Towards the end whereof I have extracted certain lines translated out of Italian into Latin (and now into English) as hereafter follows:

“On the 25. of March, in the year 1540, diverse Christians, accompanied with certain janissaries [Ottoman guards], went from Cairo to a little barren mountain, some half a mile off, designed in times past for burial of the dead, in the which place every year there usually assembles an incredible multitude of people, for to see the dead bodies there interred, as it were issuing out of their graves and sepulchers. This begins on Thursday, and continues till Saturday, when they vanish all away. Then may you see bodies wound in their sheets, after the ancient manner, but they are not seen standing upright, nor going, but only the arms or thighs, or some other part of the body, which you may touch. If you go a little way off, and come by and by again, you shall find that those arms, or other members, appear farther out of the ground. And the more you change place, the more do those motions appear diverse and greater. At that time, there are a number of pavilions pitched about the mountain, for both sick and whole, which repair thither in great troupes [and] firmly believe that whosoever washes himself on the Thursday night, with a certain water that runs in a marsh hard by, it is a sure remedy to recover and maintain health. But I have not seen that miracle. It is the report of the Venetian. Besides the which we have a Jacobin of Ulmes, named Felix, who hath traveled in those parts of the Levant, and hath published a Book in Dutch touching all that he hath seen in Palestine and Egypt. He makes the very same recital. As I have not undertaken to maintain this apparition to be miraculous, for to confound these superstitious idolaters of Egypt, and to show them that there is a resurrection and life to come, neither will I refute it, nor maintain it to be a satanical illusion, as many think, but will also leave it to the judgement of the reader, for to determine thereof as he shall think good.” (PH. Camerarius, Councilor of the Commonwealth of Nuremberg, in the 73. Chap. of his Historical Meditations).

I will add somewhat hereunto, for the content of the reader: Steven Duplais, a cunning goldsmith, and a man of an honest and pleasing conversation, being now some 45 years old, or thereabout, having traveled diverse countries of Turkey and Egypt, made me an ample discourse of the apparition before mentioned, some fifteen years since, affirming he had been spectator of it with Claude Rocard, an apothecary of Chablis in Champagne, and twelve other Christians, having for their truckman and guide a goldsmith of Ottranto in Apulia, called Alexander Maniotti.

He told me, moreover, that he (as the rest) had touched diverse members of those ressustitants [resuscitated or resurrected persons]. And as he was taking hold on the hair of a child’s head, a man of Cairo cried out, “Kali, Kali, antè matarasdè,” that is to say, “let it alone, let it alone, thou knowest not what thou dost.” Now forasmuch as I could not well persuade myself that there was any such matter as he told me of—though in diverse other reports conferred with that which is to be read in our modern authors, I had always found him simple and true—we continued a long time in this opposition of my ears to his eyes, until the year 1591, that having showed him the above-said observations of Doctor Camerarius: “Now you may see” (said he) “that I have told you no fables.” And many times since, we have talked of it with wonder and reverence of the divine wisdom. Furthermore, he told me thereupon that a Christian dwelling in Egypt had diverse times recounted unto him, upon talk of this apparition or resurrection, that he had learned of his grandfather and father, which their ancestors had reported, having received it from hand to hand time out of mind, that certain hundred years ago, divers Christians, men, women, and children, being assembled in that mountain, for to do some exercise of their religion, were environed [surrounded] and compassed about by a great number of their enemies, the little mountains being but of a small circuit, who cut them all in pieces, and having covered their bodies with earth, returned to Cairo. Ever since the which, this resurrection hath appeared the space of certain days before and after that of the massacre. Behold a summary of Steven Duplais’ discourse, by him confirmed and renewed in the end of April 1600, when I wrote this History, whereunto that can be nothing prejudicial, which is recited by Martin Baumgarten in his voyage to Egypt, made the year 1507, published by his successors, and imprinted at Nuremberg, in the year 1594. For in the eighteenth chapter of the first book, he says that these apparitions are made in a mosque of the Turks hard by Cairo. There is a fault in the copy: and it should say hillock or little mountain, not on the bank of Nilus, as Baumgarten writes, but half a mile off, as we have declared.