Sunday 26th March 2023 - Fifth Sunday of Lent

Ezekiel 37:12-14/ Psalm 129(130)/ Romans 8:8-11/ John 11:1-45

Most of us will have experienced the grief that follows the loss of someone who has died. It is a natural and understandable feature of being human. The stronger our love for a person the harder we feel their loss when it comes. Although the readings today may appear to be about death they are in fact about life, life in Christ, the eternal life we hope for through the coming celebration of Easter, the life we have a share of because of our baptism. In baptism we die with Christ so that we can share in his resurrection. Our faith gives us the hope we have in the resurrection and causes us the mixed emotions we feel when someone close to us dies. We naturally feel the grief of loss, but we also experience the joy that our faith gives us in knowing that in death life is changed not ended. It is these mixing of emotions that we hear about in the readings today.

In the lead up to Easter the readings point us towards the true nature of Jesus. That he was truly human but was also God. He had all the feelings, the emotions, that we have but he also had power over sin and death. Through the death of his friend Lazarus Jesus displayed his human and divine nature. When Jesus received the message that his friend Lazarus was ill he did not rush to his side but deliberately delayed his departure. Jesus knew exactly what he was going to do stating that, ‘This sickness will end not in death but in God’s glory, and through it the Son of God will be glorified.’ Jesus was going to use this opportunity to further demonstrate who he truly is.

Having waited for two days Jesus told his disciples that he intended to go to Judea to visit Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. The disciples were concerned because the people in that district had wanted to kill Jesus and they misunderstood what Jesus was saying about Lazarus. They thought Jesus had said Lazarus was resting but he made it clear to them that he was dead.

On their arrival Jesus and the disciples found that Lazarus had been dead for four days and was buried in a tomb. Martha had left her home and set out to meet Jesus as he arrived. On meeting Jesus Martha said that if he had been there sooner her brother would not have died and that even now, she believed that Jesus could bring him back from the dead. When Martha confirmed her belief in the resurrection on the last day Jesus stated, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die’. Martha responded with her profession of faith saying, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.’

Mary joined Jesus and Martha together with a crowd of mourners. When Jesus saw Mary and the mourners crying, he also wept with them, and we are told that he spoke in great distress with a sigh that came ‘straight from his heart’. Although Jesus was God and was aware of what he was about to do he was also fully human and as such showed his empathy for Martha, Mary, and the mourners as he wept with them at the death of his friend Lazarus. A crowd of mourners joined Jesus as he made his way towards the tomb where Lazarus had been buried. There were murmurings among them questioning what Jesus could do. These doubts were put away when Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb four days after he had died. Notably Jesus said a prayer of thanks to God the Father before calling Lazarus out demonstrating his total faith and union with his heavenly Father.

Our faith lets us see beyond earthly death to our true and eternal life, a life that has already begun. Our transition between life and death comes in baptism when we are joined in the death of Christ so that we can also join in his resurrection. Physical death is merely a doorway along our journey to full emersion in the life we are created for. The Gospel passage today gives us assurance that we will also be called by Jesus to emerge from earthly death into the fulness of life with him which started at our baptism. As Paul wrote to the church in Rome, we should be living a spiritual life not distracted by an unspiritual worldly existence. Like Lazarus we need to emerge from a worldly life of death into a spiritual life freeing ourselves of the grave clothes of this world that bind our hands and feet and make us blind to God’s truth.

Jesus is our resurrection and our life; he is calling us to join him in the eternal life he has won for us.

God Bless Brendan.