FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
13 MARCH 2016
When
Saint Paul writes to the Romans, he makes a distinction between being in the
flesh and being in the spirit. Those who
are in the flesh have not turned to Jesus Christ. They live their lives as if there is no
reality beyond what they can perceive with their senses. Those who live in the spirit are enlivened by
the powerful inner presence or “spirit” of the risen Christ.
We were
incorporated into the spirit of the risen Christ when we were baptized. When we entered that watery grave, we died in
the flesh with Christ. We became one
with Christ and began living the spirit of the risen Christ. That is why Jesus does not tell Martha and
Mary that he WILL be the resurrection and the life in some future time after
they are dead. He tells them that he IS
the resurrection and the life NOW.
This story
of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead can help us understand better the
central mystery of the Lord’s dying and rising.
Like Lazarus, every one of us will eventually have to die. Our faith does not make the reality of that
death any easier. Death brings strong
emotions. Both Martha and Mary voice
their anger at Jesus when he did not come when their brother was still
alive. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus
expresses the deepest emotion and anger at death. In his own agony in the Garden of Gethsemane,
Jesus will beg his Father to take away that dreadful cup of death. Death is the enemy. Death belongs to the prince of darkness.
But Jesus
defeated the power of death. That is why
we spend this Lent preparing to renew our faith in the Paschal Mystery at the
Sacred Paschal Triduum. Unlike Lazarus,
who had to die again, the risen Christ will never die. When we keep our baptismal promises by dying
to ourselves on a daily basis, we live in the spirit of the risen Christ. Because of his death and resurrection, we trust
that our common enemy has been defeated.
Death is not the end for us.
The real
danger for us is slipping back into the flesh.
We live in the flesh when we lose sight of the presence of the risen
Christ in our lives. We live in the
flesh when we put ourselves at the center of everything. We live in the flesh when we think that
power, riches, pleasure, privilege, or any of the many things that seem to give
meaning to our lives are at the heart of everything we do. When we backslide into living in the flesh,
we cannot please God, and we cause real pain to those we love the most.
That is why
this final Scrutiny at the 8:45 and 10:30 Masses is so important. We pray over the Elect one final time as they
prepare to drown their living in the flesh in the waters of Baptism and emerge
one in the spirit of the risen Christ at the Easter Vigil. The Scrutinies tell us that they do not
journey to the font as isolated individuals.
Their public journey challenges us to bring those times when we have
slipped back into living in the flesh to God’s mercy. Just as the Elect move in a public way to the
font, we move in a public way on Tuesday evening to the Lenten Penance Service. We bring our failures to one of the seventeen
priests who are instruments of the Lord’s mercy in the Sacrament of
Reconciliation. There is strength in
numbers as we encounter the same Lord who called Lazarus out of the darkness of
that tomb.
When
we make bad choices and turn away from Christ to live in the flesh, we
sometimes blame our failures on the fact that we are “human.” Actually, that is not quite true. The Book of Genesis is very clear that God
saw his creation of human beings as very good.
We turn from Christ, not because we are human, but because we are fallen
humans vulnerable to temptations from the prince of darkness. By taking on our humanity and dying for us,
Jesus has restored us to the Father and continues to restore us through the
Sacraments of the Church.
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