Our Lord raised Lazarus from the dead to give a clear sign of His authority over life and death, of His divinity. Yet, if we take Lazarus as an image of a soul dead in sin, this miracle becomes a sign also of what Christ continues to do through the hands of His priests in the confessional.

First, Lazarus’s death provides a powerful symbol of what happens when we commit mortal sin. Just as the body dies when cut off from the source of life, so also our souls die when we cut ourselves off from God, the source of all life. Mortal sins are not just bad calls or lapses of judgment, but offenses against God’s friendship and love, a severing of the vital bond. When Martha insists that Lazarus has been dead four days, perhaps that should remind us of the definitive nature of spiritual death. The realization of this is the first step toward the confessional and forgiveness.

Next, our Lord teaches us about contrition: "Jesus wept" (Jn 11:35). His tears display not just sorrow for the loss of His friend, but sorrow also for sin, the ultimate cause of that death. Our Lord sees sin clearly, more clearly than we ever do. He sees clearly how His creature has rebelled, His image and likeness has been deformed, and the desire of His heart has forsaken Him. So He weeps. And in a sense He weeps every time we sin.

Now if God weeps over our sins, we should weep all the more. As St. Augustine observed, "Christ wept: let man weep for himself. For why did Christ weep but to teach men to weep?" Indeed, we try to do precisely this by cultivating contrition before confession. True, tears do not have to accompany our contrition. Nonetheless, our Lord’s example reminds us that we should not only be contrite, but also strive to deepen that contrition.

Yet our Lord did not weep without hope. He came to do more than weep over death; He came also to raise Lazarus from the dead. Nor, therefore, should our contrition be without hope. Just as the death of Lazarus is a symbol of our souls dead from sin, so also the raising of Lazarus is a symbol of how the sacrament of penance restores life to our dead souls.

Our Lord associates the raising of Lazarus with the glory of God: "Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?" (Jn 11:40). This too is a fitting way of understanding what happens in the confessional: God is glorified. Granted, we do not usually think of it that way. We think only that we are humbled. Yet God is glorified in our repentance, contrition and confession. As our Lord said on another occasion, "[T]here will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (Lk 15:10).

It is also significant that our Lord calls Lazarus by name. He calls us to repentance and forgiveness by name as well. Although universal, His is not a vague, general call to repentance, but a call to each of us — personally — to come out of the death of sin and into His life. Nor do we confess our sins in a general and generic way, but personally, to the Lord Himself as He is present to us in the priest.

When Lazarus died, they wrapped him, as was the custom, in burial cloths. When we sin, we in effect place chains around our souls, enslaving them to death. At Lazarus’s tomb our Lord commanded the crowd, "Untie him and let him go" (Jn 11:44). He had them "absolve" — set free or release — Lazarus from the cloths of death. Still now, daily in the confessional, His priests continue to do the same — to absolve us from our sins, to set us free and release us, saying, "The Lord has freed you from your sins. Go in peace."