The Resurrection of Lazarus

168:4.1On the way from Beth­any to Pella the apos­tles asked Je­sus many ques­tions, all of which the Mas­ter freely an­swered ex­cept those in­volv­ing the de­tails of the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead. Such prob­lems were be­yond the com­pre­hen­sion ca­pac­ity of his apos­tles; there­fore did the Mas­ter de­cline to dis­cuss these ques­tions with them. Since they had de­parted from Beth­any in se­cret, they were alone. Je­sus there­fore em­braced the op­por­tu­nity to say many things to the ten which he thought would pre­pare them for the try­ing days just ahead.

168:4.2The apos­tles were much stirred up in their minds and spent con­sid­er­able time dis­cussing their re­cent ex­pe­ri­ences as they were re­lated to prayer and its an­swer­ing. They all re­called Je­sus’ state­ment to the Beth­any mes­sen­ger at Phil­a­del­phia, when he said plainly, “This sick­ness is not re­ally to the death.” And yet, in spite of this prom­ise, Laz­a­rus ac­tu­ally died. All that day, again and again, they re­verted to the dis­cus­sion of this ques­tion of the an­swer to prayer.

168:4.3Je­sus’ an­swers to their many ques­tions may be sum­ma­rized as fol­lows:

168:4.41. Prayer is an ex­pres­sion of the fi­nite mind in an ef­fort to ap­proach the In­fi­nite. The mak­ing of a prayer must, there­fore, be lim­ited by the knowl­edge, wis­dom, and at­tri­butes of the fi­nite; like­wise must the an­swer be con­di­tioned by the vi­sion, aims, ide­als, and pre­rog­a­tives of the In­fi­nite. There never can be ob­served an un­bro­ken con­ti­nu­ity of ma­te­rial phe­nom­ena be­tween the mak­ing of a prayer and the re­cep­tion of the full spir­i­tual an­swer thereto.

168:4.52. When a prayer is ap­par­ently unan­swered, the de­lay of­ten be­to­kens a bet­ter an­swer, al­though one which is for some good rea­son greatly de­layed. When Je­sus said that Laz­a­rus’s sick­ness was re­ally not to the death, he had al­ready been dead eleven hours. No sin­cere prayer is de­nied an an­swer ex­cept when the su­pe­rior view­point of the spir­i­tual world has de­vised a bet­ter an­swer, an an­swer which meets the pe­ti­tion of the spirit of man as con­trasted with the prayer of the mere mind of man.

168:4.63. The prayers of time, when in­dited by the spirit and ex­pressed in faith, are of­ten so vast and all-en­com­pass­ing that they can be an­swered only in eter­nity; the fi­nite pe­ti­tion is some­times so fraught with the grasp of the In­fi­nite that the an­swer must long be post­poned to await the cre­ation of ad­e­quate ca­pac­ity for re­cep­tiv­ity; the prayer of faith may be so all-em­brac­ing that the an­swer can be re­ceived only on Par­a­dise.

168:4.74. The an­swers to the prayer of the mor­tal mind are of­ten of such a na­ture that they can be re­ceived and rec­og­nized only af­ter that same pray­ing mind has at­tained the im­mor­tal state. The prayer of the ma­te­rial be­ing can many times be an­swered only when such an in­di­vid­ual has pro­gressed to the spirit level.

168:4.85. The prayer of a God-know­ing per­son may be so dis­torted by ig­no­rance and so de­formed by su­per­sti­tion that the an­swer thereto would be highly un­de­sir­able. Then must the in­ter­ven­ing spirit be­ings so trans­late such a prayer that, when the an­swer ar­rives, the pe­ti­tioner wholly fails to rec­og­nize it as the an­swer to his prayer.

168:4.96. All true prayers are ad­dressed to spir­i­tual be­ings, and all such pe­ti­tions must be an­swered in spir­i­tual terms, and all such an­swers must con­sist in spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties. Spirit be­ings can­not be­stow ma­te­rial an­swers to the spirit pe­ti­tions of even ma­te­rial be­ings. Ma­te­rial be­ings can pray ef­fec­tively only when they “pray in the spirit.”

168:4.107. No prayer can hope for an an­swer un­less it is born of the spirit and nur­tured by faith. Your sin­cere faith im­plies that you have in ad­vance vir­tu­ally granted your prayer hear­ers the full right to an­swer your pe­ti­tions in ac­cor­dance with that su­preme wis­dom and that di­vine love which your faith de­picts as al­ways ac­tu­at­ing those be­ings to whom you pray.

168:4.118. The child is al­ways within his rights when he pre­sumes to pe­ti­tion the par­ent; and the par­ent is al­ways within his pa­ren­tal obli­ga­tions to the im­ma­ture child when his su­pe­rior wis­dom dic­tates that the an­swer to the child’s prayer be de­layed, mod­i­fied, seg­re­gated, tran­scended, or post­poned to an­other stage of spir­i­tual as­cen­sion.

168:4.129. Do not hes­i­tate to pray the prayers of spirit long­ing; doubt not that you shall re­ceive the an­swer to your pe­ti­tions. These an­swers will be on de­posit, await­ing your achieve­ment of those fu­ture spir­i­tual lev­els of ac­tual cos­mic at­tain­ment, on this world or on oth­ers, whereon it will be­come pos­si­ble for you to rec­og­nize and ap­pro­pri­ate the long-wait­ing an­swers to your ear­lier but ill-timed pe­ti­tions.

168:4.1310. All gen­uine spirit-born pe­ti­tions are cer­tain of an an­swer. Ask and you shall re­ceive. But you should re­mem­ber that you are pro­gres­sive crea­tures of time and space; there­fore must you con­stantly reckon with the time-space fac­tor in the ex­pe­ri­ence of your per­sonal re­cep­tion of the full an­swers to your man­i­fold prayers and pe­ti­tions.