Lazarus is Dead (18 page)

Priests knock him down. He gets back up. They spit between his eyes, into his nose. Temple guards beat him with short sticks, taking slices out of his forehead, and they hang him from a roof-beam by chains.

Then they hand him over to the Romans, who punish him for alleged sedition. In an outside courtyard, Jesus is chained to the base of a column. Two soldiers select canes with the correct amount of bend, as they would for anyone who threatened a popular uprising. They each in turn take a two-step run-up and lash Jesus forehand, backhand, forehand. They start with his back and buttocks, then move on to the backs of his thighs. Then his face. They open up wounds and then cane the open wounds.

The
flagellum
. In
The Passion of the Christ
the strands of leather have scraps of iron tied to the ends. The iron clutches into the muscle, and at each lash the whip has to be ripped clear of the body, pulling with it a scatter of flesh. The soldiers strike crossways and lengthways. They exhaust themselves and flail at his head.

Jesus collapses at the base of the pillar, and slides in his own fresh blood. This is no place for the son of god, or for not the son of god.

The soldiers reach down for him. He is below them, in the pit of a personal hell. Jesus has started to die.

 

‘Lazarus, wake up!'

Mary is shaking him by the shoulder. Friday morning has dawned and he shades his eyes with his hand.

‘What? What is it?'

Mary tells him everything she knows. The trial in the house of Caiaphas, the transfer to the Praetorium, the Romans, the death sentence.

‘No,' Cassius says. He too is blinking sleep from his eyes. ‘This is wrong. I did not recommend this.'

‘We came here to save him,' Lazarus says. He recognises instantly that his task of great importance has arrived.

‘Wait,' Martha says. ‘Stay here. We don't have all the facts.'

For Martha there is always danger, and Lazarus has heard and ignored her from his earliest childhood. Everything is dangerous because of death. If it weren't for death, nothing would be frightening, or not unbearably so. Don't go there, because you might die there. Don't do that because you might die doing it. As if he can stay where he is and do nothing and never die.

‘You're too late,' Cassius says. ‘Resurrection was a step too far. Bread and loaves, yes. Walking on water, maybe. When he brought you back to life that was the blasphemy. Nobody wants to believe it, not your priests, not my superiors.'

‘So we'll deny the resurrection,' Lazarus says. ‘We'll buy him some time.'

Lazarus will swear on his mother's life they'd been planning it together for years, a plot between friends with each of them fully prepared. But that isn't true. Poc. The truth flickers and threatens to light up. He came back to life. Jesus has divine powers.

‘There is another way,' Cassius says. ‘Announce that you're the messiah. You, not him. Then they might set him free.'

‘Because I came back to life? You said resurrection was unbelievable.'

‘Not necessarily. Not if you're sensitive to the authorities. You have to trust me. That's the only way you're going to save him.'

‘Jesus is the messiah,' Mary says. ‘Anything else is a lie.'

‘Where are you going? Come back,' Cassius says. ‘Are you going to follow my plan?'

‘I'm going to save the saviour.'

 

The Irish poet W. B. Yeats, in his short play
Calvary
(1920), has Lazarus confront Jesus on the route to his execution at Golgotha. Yeats decides that this moment, of all moments, is when Lazarus should call Jesus to account.

The likelihood of this possibility depends on how close Lazarus can get to his friend. In Jerusalem, the crucifixion is Friday's major event, a blunt demonstration of life's talent for letting Judaea down. Miracles are followed by death. Healings and the resurrection of Lazarus and the hope of the life to come are all ended by death.

Jerusalem is livid with disappointment. People shout ‘King of the Jews' and ‘Messiah' and ‘Lazarus'. They mock every mistake that Jesus has made.

‘A death for a death! Jesus for Lazarus!'

To restore the order of the universe, one of the two has to die. Lazarus has understood the nature of the exchange, but his impact on what happens next will depend on his position in the crowd.

Look again at the pictures. There he is in the lower left corner of a Tintoretto, or a triptych of the Delft school. The truth survives in these records of inspiration, with a poorly shaven man conspicuous amongst the witnesses. He is trapped four or five deep in the mob, unable to approach any closer.

But Yeats is essentially correct, despite his poetic embellishment. Lazarus is involved. With a surge of self-importance, he believes that he, Lazarus of Nazareth, can justify his friendship with Jesus by saving him from crucifixion.

 

 

The execution of Jesus, which takes place in Jerusalem at some point between 30 and 33
CE
, is an accepted historical fact. It is described by Josephus (37–100
CE
) in his
Jewish Antiquities
(18:63–4), and confirmed by the Roman writer Tacitus (56–117
CE
) in the
Annals
(15:44). The crucifixion is mentioned by Lucian of Samosata (125–180
CE
) and by the Syrian philosopher Mara Bar-Serapion (dates unknown).

It also features as a key event in the gospels of the New Testament (65–100
CE
) and in every record of early Christian­ity. Despite this extensive coverage, however, none of the sources provides a fixed procedure for Roman crucifixions in Jerusalem. There is no precision about the exact manner in which Jesus was attached to the cross, or the shape of the cross, or whether ropes were used in addition to nails.

Archaeologically, only one relevant artefact has been recovered from crucifixions in early Palestine. In 1968 the physical anthropologist Nicu Haas recovered the remains of a crucified man from a first-century burial cave in north Jerusalem. If these remains are representative, then the evidence worth noting is a right heel bone split by a four-and-a-half inch iron spike. Nothing comparable has been found before or since.

The spike, or nail, remains in the bone because no one could pull it out. The practice at the time, or so it is widely believed, was to reuse nails, but this one has twisted at the point into a fishhook barb. The spike has gone through the bone and blunted itself against a knot in the vertical piece of wood used for the crucifixion.

The wood remnants on the point of the nail are identified as olive. It seems unlikely, given the logistical demands and the expense, that hardwood beams would have been imported to Palestine solely for crucifixion. In the absence of suitable wood for crosses, easier and cheaper to nail offenders into the native olive trees.

One last point, to ensure the picture is clear. The nail goes into the rounded heel bone at right angles to the foot, and not into the bones at the front. This suggests the feet were placed either side of a thinnish piece of wood, with a separate nail for each heel. Mature olive trees have trunks of a suitable width. As for the hands, the dig produced no evidence of bones from the arm or wrist pierced with similar spikes.

In first-century Judaea, outside the city of Jerusalem, the olive trees on Golgotha are stripped of leaves. Many are gouged in the trunk a short distance above the ground, the bark encrusted with blood turned brown. The Romans reuse their nails, and they reuse the trees.

There are smaller stains in the side branches above head height, because a mature olive tree can be reused for a crucifixion three or four times. If the branches are kindly placed.

 

A soldier steps between Lazarus and Jesus.

He is wearing full military uniform in the late morning heat. The dented metal, the leather kilt, the sweat, everything about him says he'd prefer to be in Syria for a straight fight against Parthians. He holds his lance diagonally across his chest, and shoves Lazarus back.

Jesus is surrounded by a knot of soldiers, his hands bound, his head bleeding. He is learning his lesson from Lazarus, dying in the open in front of witnesses, a verifiable public death.

Out of the Gennath Gate, up the hill. It is the sick who most stubbornly insist on hurting him. The unhealed and the unbelievers spit on him, and with palm leaves they slice at his upper arms, at his thighs and his face. The Roman soldiers kick him when he stumbles.

Lazarus catches glimpses of his friend's face, plainly terrified as he tries to protect himself. His disciples, among so many others, have abandoned him. Only his friend Lazarus can help him now.

 

Cassius had seen his first crucifixion at the Flavian amphitheatre in Rome. The victim had been an adult male lion. He remembers the skin tight over the white belly, and the hideously stretched tendons in the legs. It was somehow worse than watching a man on the cross, although lions, he noted at the time, did not last as long as men.

According to Paul in one of his letters, the crucifixion of Jesus
‘disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it'
(Colossians 2:15).

There may be some truth in this.

Cassius, for example, regrets that crucifixion is considered any kind of solution. His own proposal of a client messiah would be more effective at keeping the peace. But the crucifixion, like the resurrection of Lazarus, is happening nevertheless, and the death of Jesus may have its uses. A messiah does not get executed like a common criminal, nailed into the nearest olive tree. Messiahs escape death, and they escape the Antonia Fortress. They are protected by god from the lethal Sicarii.

Crucifixion is ugly and deplorable, but in this instance the fault lies with the regional god. All religions should be true, so claiming to be the one true god is as aggressive a manoeuvre as a divinity can make. Look down now on Jesus. Look at the results. Divine arrogance will not be tolerated, not by other gods, not by the Roman empire.

 

It is midday. The sky darkens to the colour of bad meat, silver and purple.

Jesus is hoisted off the ground, and his arms sized against branches. This tree has been used before. One of his arms is angled backwards and lashed to a branch so that his shoulder has to twist, the other is crooked and slightly higher. Two other condemned men go on either side, one in front and the other about level.

The Romans have no interest in aesthetics, or symmetry, as long as the arms are above the head to maximise the pain. The feet, too, must be clear of the ground. Jesus will die with his blackened toes inches from the earth and salvation.

Only the heels are nailed. One four-and-a-half inch spike on either side. The scratch of splintered bone is audible above the heavy thud of the mallet. A woman shrieks, and can't stop herself. She goes on and on.

 

Lazarus feels no particular compassion.

Death is a big episode, but it is not the end. It is, after all, only death, however spectacular. Death is not the climax it used to be, not for Lazarus.

The clouds close in—
‘When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land'
(Mark 15:33), and this is when Lazarus is certain. There is a god and he is watching, providing the ideal weather for two boys from Nazareth, clouds blocking the sun that otherwise would blind them to handholds as they climb.

Lazarus watches Jesus. He observes the strain on his body, toes flexing for solid ground, head dropped low on his chest.

Look at me. Look up and look at me. He wills Jesus to obey. Believe in me, and take strength from me.

Jesus looks up.

In the absence of compassion Lazarus is calm, confident about what he needs to do. He projects his thoughts through and beyond the eyes of Jesus, and there inside his friend's skull he recognises his own death, a brain crying out for an instant and then another instant more of life.

I cannot die, Jesus thinks, with my thoughts and memories and feelings. I have seen things and done things that other people will never see and do.

So has everyone else, Lazarus reminds him. We all die.

Look at me. Lazarus is not giving up. Look, here I am, standing on the shore. I will not intervene, but everything will turn out fine. Every time Jesus raises his chin from his chest his eyes search out Lazarus.

You're nearly there, Lazarus thinks. Come on, it's easy.

Death is nothing and there is nothing to fear.

This is what Lazarus is for.

 

The hours that follow are described in the gospels. Jesus suffers. At some point a sponge soaked in sour wine is lifted to his lips on a stick. This is cruel or kind, designed to mock him or to give him strength: no one can remember.

Many in the crowd would have been hoping for better entertainment.
‘Let the messiah, the king of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe'
(Mark 15:32). They note the sudden storm-clouds, the reputation of Jesus, and the presence of Lazarus. They assume there's a good chance of seeing a spectacular reversal, and with luck even a miracle.

Jesus takes three hours to die, which for a crucifixion is neither mercifully short nor proof of abnormal endurance. It is an average, ordinary life expectancy when a body is mistreated in this way.

The influence of Lazarus is evident to the end and beyond. When Jesus stops breathing, the soldiers have orders to confirm his death.
‘But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus's side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water'
(John 19:33–34).

Jesus continues to improve on the death of Lazarus. Crucifixion, then the spear to make sure. No one will ever doubt that he died.

‘Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up the spirit'
(John 19:30).