5th Sunday of Lent 2020
Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45
I recall being summoned some years ago to a death bed. Shortly after my arrival and my administering of the Sacrament of the Sick, the lady died peacefully, surrounded by her family, and I began the prayers for the dead, which included part of today’s Gospel. When I read Jesus’ words to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though they die, they shall live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die—do you believe this?”, the whole family shouted “YES!”
Faith in the resurrection, faith in Jesus as the resurrection; this is the heart of today’s readings. During the exile of the Jewish people to Babylon, God’s promise to Ezekiel entailed a metaphorical raising of the dead from their graves. The exile was a form of living death: it was from this that the Lord promised to raise them, restoring them to the land of Israel. In and through Jesus, the metaphor became reality as He literally raised Lazarus from the dead, as the foretaste, sign, and promise of His own resurrection, in which we shall share in the fullness of time.
For the author of the Fourth Gospel, all the miracles are signs, and the raising of Lazarus is no exception. It was not the equivalent of Jesus’ resurrection—Lazarus would die again—but it was a sign that Our Lord’s resurrection would happen, not for Himself only, but for us.
Notice who it is who provokes Jesus’s words about resurrection. It is Martha, the bustling, hustling sister who, along with her sister Mary, displays the same characteristics as on the occasion of Our Lord’s visit to their house, as described by St. Luke. On that occasion, Martha was gently rebuked for her excessive busyness: it is Mary who has chosen the better part by listening to the Lord. This time it seems fair to say that the more active sister has chosen the better part. She is the one who engages with Jesus, who draws out His prophetic words about resurrection, and who professes her faith: both reflection and action have their appropriate time and place.
Something else emerges from this account: namely, the humanity of Jesus. Edakrusen ho Iesous—Jesus wept—is said to be the shortest sentence in the New Testament. I do not know whether that is so, but certainly those words, and those which surround them and which speak of His distress and heartfelt sighs, demonstrate the depth of His compassion and His capacity for grief.
Why was He so distressed? He has already indicated what He plans to do. If He knows that He is about to raise Lazarus to life, why is He now so moved by the grief of the sisters?
As Pascal wrote, “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know” and he goes on to say “God felt by the heart, not by the reason.” Again, it is the deep humanity of Jesus which is displayed here: even the Son of God could be overwhelmed by emotions which defied strict logic.
Once He has spoken to both sisters, Jesus proceeds to the tomb, and after a prayer to His Father he calls to the dead man: “Lazarus, come out!” It is striking that when Lazarus emerges from the tomb, he is still bound by the grave cloths; he still needs to hear Jesus’ command “Unbind him. Let him go free.” He needs the help of others to liberate him completely.
This is in sharp contrast to Jesus’ own resurrection, when Jesus freed Himself from both grave cloths and tomb, something which Lazarus was unable to accomplish. (Incidentally, Our Lord even left the grave cloths folded—clearly His mother had brought Him up well.) As an exercise in imaginative prayer, you might like to put yourself in the place of Lazarus, entombed in the dark, hearing the Lord’s voice calling you “-------- come out!”
As you emerge, you hear His second command “Unbind him/her. Let him/her go free” and as you feel helping hands stripping away those things which still hold you captive, you might reflect on what those things may be. Let them be taken from you, as you progress further along the road to sharing in the resurrection and the life which is Jesus, the risen Lord.
