FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT "A"

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT Cycle “A”

Ez 37, 12-14; Rom 8, 8-11; Jn 11, 1 – 45.

We have to face that unmentionable truth, the end game reality – namely, that death is part of life and every human being, no matter how wealthy, powerful or successful, will one day die. Every human being is, in a very real sense, living on borrowed time. Sickness, wars and human disasters simply flag up the harsh truth that human life is fragile, transient and fleeting. The prophet Isaiah was so right when he sang the lament: “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it (Is. 40, 6-7).

One day an atheistic professor was giving a lecture on today’s Gospel. He declared the account was “pure fiction”. He asked, “Why did Jesus say, ‘Lazarus, come forth ‘?  Why not simply, ‘Come forth!’”  A Christian who was sitting at the back answered the atheist, “If Jesus had not specified Lazarus, all the dead people in the cemetery would have come alive to meet their Lord.”  What about food and accommodation?  is what I ask.  So it’s good that one generation dies to make place for the next.

Jesus wanted to show by this miracle that He was the Lord of life, that the power of his own Resurrection was already operating in this miracle, and that he wanted to reward the kind hospitality of Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus. Jesus overnighted with this trio in their house where he could rest his heels and cool his fevered brow. He could unwind and have a good bath and meal. In the Bethany family Christ was indeed the honour Guest.

When Jesus received the messenger asking him to return to Bethany there was a price on his head. Yet he took the risk of moving out of the safety of the mountains and go to his friend’s side no matter the consequences to his own person. As the comedian Woody Allen said, “Showing up is two-thirds of life.” This beautiful gesture tells us about the character of Jesus. He is a friend in need, and clearly we can all expect the same consideration from him today.

The Lazarus story also tells us that the Saviour hated death with a passion. When he saw death he groaned from the pit of his stomach like the way your stomach turns when you see a badly mangled body. What Jesus reveals to us about God is that he is deeply upset when bad things happen to people, good or bad. Jesus is a God of life and not of death. He came to battle with death and conquer it.  Death was not part of God’s original blueprint for his sons and daughters; it was only Adam’s waywardness that brought is on us. In the meantime Jesus feels deeply the death of every one of his followers, he enters into the drama and pathos of it, and shares the pain of bereavement of relatives, even today.

Hidden deep within this episode of the raising of Lazarus is the further truth, that Jesus’ gift of life to Lazarus involved his own death, the offering of his own life.  Jesus had to be willing to risk and lose his own life. Love has its peculiar cost. Parents sacrifice their lives for their children’s good. The road to Bethany was for Jesus the first step on the way to Calvary.

Consider also the words of Jesus when Lazarus came up to the entrance of the tomb: “Unbind him, let him go free.” So Lazarus’ burial cloth, the wrapping of the shroud around him, was a sort of imprisonment. The closest parallel we can find in our own lives is the imprisonment of sin. When, in the sacrament of reconciliation, we hear the priest say, “I absolve you from your sins, that’s unbinding and freeing language he is using.

Jesus is the Lord of life and was set to ultimately engage our mortal enemies, sin, Satan and death in a titanic and cosmic struggle waged on the battlefield of Golgotha. This same Jesus encountered the death of his dear friend Lazarus. Lazarus had been dead in the grave for four days. His nearest and dearest, though still grieving would undoubtedly have accepted his death. However, Mary and Martha were women of remarkable and profound faith. They understood that Jesus had the power of life over death, and that, had he been there, he could have saved their brother. And even now they believed that he could still bring him back to life. Jesus was clearly very moved, weeping openly at their grief and loss. His promise to the grieving sisters and to every human being who believes in him is the same yesterday, today and forever.

“I am the Resurrection and the life; he who believes in me will live even if he has died. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” In 30 words Jesus emphasises that he is the Resurrection and the life. So why in the face of that information do we keep saying over the bodies of our loved ones, “Eternal rest be granted unto you. May you rest in peace?”  Would it not be more correct to take our clue from the Gospel and say, “Eternal life be granted unto you. May you live in peace.”  That way we wouldn’t think of heaven as a large dormitory for collecting eternal bed sores!

 Obviously Jesus thinks of heaven as a place where we live it up, go to party and look our best.

Finally Martha’s reply to Jesus that she knows that her brother will rise again shows that in common with the rest of us she pushes resurrection way into the future. Jesus will not have it and replies boldly, “I am the Resurrection and the life!” Resurrection now, today, not in the future.

 We can take the opportunity in these last weeks of Lent to examine our faith in times of loss and suffering, and our hope in the face of death. And if Jesus becomes the mainstay of our lives, we can experience resurrection and life in the here and now. After all, who really wants to wait?

Yet while we await Easter, can we not in our own way give life to fellow creatures by feeding a few poor people or at least by speaking words of lively encouragement? We can do it our way just as Jesus did it his.

 

 

PRAYER  [Alcuin of York, 735 - 804] {69 years}

Eternal Light, shine into our hearts,

eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil,

eternal Power, be our support,

eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance,

eternal Pity, have mercy upon us,

that with all our heart and mind and soul and strength

we may seek they face and be brought by thine infinite mercy

to thy holy presence, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.