The Dead Shall Hear

St. John 5:22-30 contains Jesus' declaration "the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live."  This looks ahead to the raising of Lazarus, which, like this discourse, is reported only in St. John's Gospel.  The raising of Lazarus is a clear demonstration that resurrection and life, which come at the Last Day, are also here in the present-day, in Christ.  Indeed Christ himself is risen, the Firstfruits of them that sleep.  It is this knowledge that gives the faithful, as the collect for Misericordias Domini puts it, "perpetual gladness."   The sermon.