Fyodor Dostoevsky was a famous and talented author who was born in 1821 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and died in 1881. At 27, he became involved in a group of authors who got together regularly to discuss ideas. The ideas they discussed were considered treason. They were all arrested and imprisoned.
At Peter and Paul Fortress, Dostoevsky and his book club were sentenced to execution by firing squad. This was actually a mock execution but they didn’t know that. They were brought out, told they were going to be executed, taken to the spot, blindfolded, their crimes read out, the command was given, and the rifles were raised. Then, at the last moment, the execution was stopped and their sentence changed to four years hard labour in prison in Siberia and then four years in exile. Dostoyevsky writes a lot about this; how life was given back to him, how he had thought he was seconds away from being executed.
He was put in chains, put in a sleigh, as it was winter, and travelled to Siberia. He suffered with severe frostbite and for the rest of his life would have scars from the chains. As he was going into the prison, he was given a little New Testament. So, the only thing he had to read for four years was this New Testament. He read it over and over, especially the gospel of John, especially the story of Lazarus.
He came to believe in Jesus and, in his writings, he compares himself to Lazarus having a chance to live again. All his novels after that contain in some form, his Christian faith. Richard Harries notes that “He wrote that his faith had come ‘through a furnace of doubt’ and was focused on a deep attraction to the person of Jesus Christ.” “He entered deeply into the atheism of his age” so that, as Malcolm Jones has written, “in reading Dostoevskii we are in the presence of a genius wrestling with the problems of rethinking Christianity in the modern age.”
His most famous novel is ‘Crime and Punishment’, a novel written in 1866. People say that ‘Crime and Punishment’ is a poor translation and that the title would be better translated ‘Crime and Consequences’.
The novel centres around the main character – a young man – named Raskolnikov who is a young intelligent, college student, very poor, and living in St. Petersburg. He is an atheist who believes that ‘exceptional men’ are beyond good and evil. Normal laws of morality do not apply to such men. He gives the example of Napoleon; a man who killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, but is regarded a great man because he’s exceptional. Ordinary laws of morality didn’t apply to him. Raskolnikov believes he is an exceptional man and, to prove it, murders two old woman who are sisters. Obviously, he is a very lost young man.
Most of the novel is spent inside his head, as he is “locked up in a mental prison”. Ultimately, though, it’s a book about redemption. In the end, Raskolnikov - the murderer, the atheist, the man who convinced himself that he was beyond good and evil – finds redemption. He finds redemption in a young woman named Sonya, who has been forced into prostitution through poverty and to provide for two orphaned children. She is like Mary Magdalene, having found redemption and meaning in Christ.
In one of the most moving scenes, which is actually “the turning point in the book”, the two are together. Raskolnikov has not confessed his crime to Sonya, but will later. She has a bible laying on her table. Raskolnikov picks up the bible and asks, “Where is the part about Lazarus?” She flips to it and reads him the story of the raising of Lazarus, tears streaming down her face as she reads. Afterwards, he says “Do you believe this?” She replies, “With all my heart.” He’s not asking if she believes in the story, what he’s really asking is: “Do you believe there’s redemption for someone like me, a murderer?”
The closing sentence of this scene reads as follows:
Sonya says “That’s all about the raising of Lazarus.” she whispered. The candle was flickering out and the battered candlestick casting a dim light in this destitute room upon the murderer and the harlot strangely come together over the reading of the eternal book.
They are two lost souls on the road to redemption reading about the raising of Lazarus.
Eventually, Raskolnikov confesses his crime to Sonya; that he’s murdered the two older women. One of these women was Sonya’s close friend, Lizaveta. In fact, it was Lizaveta who gave the bible to Sonya. Sonya’s response to Raskolnikov is, “What have you done to yourself?” and she cries. She gives him her cross, which was also given her by Lizaveta, and urges him to confess in public and give himself up for arrest and punishment. Eventually, he wears her cross, goes to the police and confesses. He is convicted and sent to Siberia to prison. Sonya travels with him, to be near him and to visit him in prison. She is a picture of Christ, who doesn’t forsake him.
The closing paragraphs of the book read as follows:
Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took the book out. It belonged to Sonya, it was the same one from which she had read to him about the raising of Lazarus. At the beginning, he had thought she would hound him with religion, forever talking about the Gospels and forcing books on him. But to his great amazement, she never once spoke of it, never once even offered him the New Testament. He had to ask her for it himself.
He had not even opened it yet. Nor did he open it now, but a thought flashed in his mind: “Can her convictions be mine?
Here begins a new account, the account of a man’s gradual renewal, the account of his gradual regeneration, his gradual transition from one world to another. It might make the subject of a new story—but our present story is ended.
So, the “reading of the Lazarus story to Raskolnikov and the wearing of the cross bear fruit as the novel proceeds.” “Raskolnikov’s state is effectively death; and the significance of Christ’s command to Lazarus, ‘Come forth!’ is obvious.” That is what happens to Raskolnikov as the novel proceeds. “The divine words addressed to Lazarus – ‘Come forth’ – have been heard” and Raskolnikov stumbles out of the death of his mental tomb.
Dostoyevsky who became a Christian because of the New Testament, especially the story of Lazarus, then wrote a book about a murderer finding redemption through the New Testament and the story of Lazarus. Neither Dostoevsky or Raskolnikov die physically, but their experiences lead them to a place where they see themselves as having been given new life in Christ. Their old story ends and a new story begins. That is what the story of Lazarus promises; when we’re scared and feel defeated – caught up in our despair, sorrow, anger, guilt, or shame, Jesus comes and brings redemption into our stories. That is what the story of Lazarus is about and that is how we regain balance after trauma, grief, imprisonment, shame, guilt or whatever. Dostoevsky knew this in his own life and described it in depth in the story of Raskolnikov.
I wonder whether you have ever been locked in a mental prison and how you got free.
I wonder what Jesus’ words to Lazarus, ‘Come forth’, mean for you.
I wonder whether there is a story in your life which needs to end, so another can begin.
(Adapted from David Eiffert, ‘The God who bleeds 8: Lazarus and Dostoevsky’ - https://gospelanchor.org/the-god-who-bleeds-8-lazarus-and-dostoyevsky/; with additional quotes from Richard Harries’ ‘Haunted By Christ’ and Rowan Williams’ ‘Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction’)
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Joseph Arthur - Dear Lord.
