5 ^th Sunday of Lent – A – March 29, 2020
 
Early on in my life as a priest I was called upon to perform a task that has remained in my memory and is something I do not wish to repeat.  I was asked to celebrate the funeral of a newborn baby.  The child had simply stopped breathing one night in his crib.  The death of a loved one is never an easy thing to face, but the death of one's newborn child is particularly devastating. 

These young parents discovered a cruel world in which innocent little babies are suddenly taken from their mother's arms, leaving us with so much confusion and unanswered questions.  Why does this happen?  Even worse, the death happened just after Easter when the warmth of springtime is breaking out around us, the flowers of the garden rising, the birds in the trees singing of new birth.  And yet, here we are placing a little white coffin into the ground.

As we celebrate the final Sunday before we enter Holy Week with Palm Sunday next weekend, we are invited to grapple with a mystery:  Why does God, whose love is so visible in healing touch, not prevent the death of his beloved children?  Let's look closely and scrutinize our Gospel this Sunday, so that we can perhaps come up with some answers to this mystery.  And maybe one day this might be helpful if we ever find ourselves in a position to comfort a friend whose life has been shattered by the death of a loved one.

The first point to scrutinize requires some background information.   Lazarus, together with his sisters Martha and Mary, are Jesus' best friends.  Jesus is seen visiting their home in Bethany, enjoying their company, good food, many laughs and much love.  He truly adores these friends.

But when Jesus is told that his friend is very seriously ill, you would expect him to drop everything and run to his side.  But, Jesus doesn't do this.  He remained in place for two days.  Rather insensitive, don’t you think?

When Jesus does finally arrive in Bethany, he finds that Lazarus is gone.  He's dead, and already buried.  Martha goes to Jesus and rightfully demands an explanation - "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!"  And, with these words, we are invited to first consider Jesus' delay.  Why couldn't he have rushed to Lazarus and break him free from his illness, just like he had done for so many others?  Why did he need to wait until Lazarus was dead and buried?

To accept what comes next, we need to see the extent of the power of death.  Jesus' delay allows death to run its course completely, from illness, to the stopping of heartbeat and the last gasp of breath, to the wake, to the funeral, to the procession to the tomb, to the sealing of the tomb, to the shock and emptiness of profound loss.  Death has now done its worst.  The end.

Then and only then is it right for Jesus to arrive.  Once death has shown us the extent of its power, Jesus comes to show us the limitlessness of His power.  What Martha and Mary and everyone else in the village will see in just a few moments is that Jesus has the final say where death is concerned; death is not the end.  Jesus is the end.  "I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end."

Our second point of scrutiny is this exchange between Martha and Jesus.  "Your brother will rise," says Jesus.  The reply:  "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day."  Then Jesus utters those immortal words:  "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?" 

For Martha, the resurrection was a far-off event to occur at the end of time, something that she and previous generations were planning to wait for.  But for Jesus, the word "life" means more than mere earthly existence.  It means eternal life with his Father, and he brings that far-off event called “eternal life” into the present.  Resurrection is not some distant, remote thing.  It starts now, it starts in Jesus' presence, and we experience the beginning of it here and now.  All who believe in Jesus are Resurrection People, because we have begun to live the first stages of eternal life right now, and we help others to live it as well.

Our third point to scrutinize:  "And Jesus wept."  These three words stand alone as the shortest verse in the Bible.  The Gospel writer is telling us to think about this:  The Son of God is crying.  He himself is experiencing the confusion, the unanswered questions, and the grief that we experience when someone we love dies.  We see Jesus at his lowest point as he empties his sorrow over the loss of his friend.

The raising of Lazarus is presented as both a physical raising and a spiritual raising.  It was physical in order to show the villagers in Bethany, as well as those reading this Gospel, the immense power that Jesus as Son of God has over the natural order of the world.  But, more importantly, the raising of Lazarus is presented to us as a spiritual act, to help us understand what is to come for us, and to get us thinking in terms of salvation and liberation.  Those burial bands Lazarus wears on his hands and feet, and the shroud over his face, are symbolic of all the other ways in which we are bound and enslaved in life.  Just as we saw the man born blind be liberated of his enslavement, and the sinful woman at the well be liberated of her enslavement, this event helps us know that we too can be liberated from whatever is tying us down, from whatever enslavement we are experiencing, if only we could just believe and do all that Jesus asks us to do.  If only we could just believe that our Eternal Life is a process that has begun right now.

And when that devastating moment comes when a friend or a family member suddenly loses one they love so dearly, we can be at their side to share their grief, but also be that gentle voice that shows them the way to transform that sadness into hope.  Show them that death is no longer the ultimate end of human life, that death is the transformation of our earthly existence into a form transferable to heaven; a Spiritual form.  "You are in the Spirit, and the Spirit dwells within you," Saint Paul tells us.

If we respect the mystery of death without being paralyzed by it, we learn that God is within us in Spirit, and He is trying to transform each of us into someone capable of fully enjoying the personal friendship of God.  "I will put my spirit in you that you may live," God tells us through the prophet Ezekiel.  And, through Jesus, He asks for a response: 

Do you believe this?