Sunday, March 26, 2023

 

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

26 MARCH 2023

 

          The Prophet Ezekiel addresses a people who have no hope.  They are as good as dead.  The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and their temple.  Now, they are in exile.  There is no hope that they will return to their homeland.  Ezekiel uses two images to describe their situation.  He compares them to a bunch of dried bones scattered in the desert.  But he says that God can bring these dry dead bones together, connect them with sinews, cover them with flesh, and breathe new life into them.  Today, he compares them to a dead body in a tomb.  He insists that God will open their graves and have them rise from them.  God fulfilled this promise when King Cyrus the Persian conquered the Babylonians and allowed God’s people to return home.

            When Jesus enters Bethany, his good friend Lazarus is in the same shape.  Lazarus has been dead for four days, and there is absolutely no hope for him.  Despite his love for Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, Jesus does not go to the home where they had provided hospitality to him.  Instead, Martha comes to him and chastises him.  That’s what we can do to good friends who let us down!  She tells him, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Mary also comes to Jesus and asks the same question.  However, there is a difference between Martha and Mary.  Martha is the practical person.  She just wants to know where the heck was he!  Mary is more contemplative.  Her question is deeper.  She asks, “Where are you when evil happens?”

            Jesus becomes perturbed and deeply troubled and asks the question, “Where have you laid him?”  In other words, Jesus signals that he goes with us to those most desperate situations and places.  He does not rescue us.  He accompanies us.  He walks with both Martha and Mary to the tomb and commands Lazarus to come out.  Lazarus comes out, bound with burial bands, with his face wrapped in a cloth.  He resuscitates Lazarus and gives him back to his sisters.  Lazarus must die again.  This miracle points to his own death and resurrection.

            It is tempting to believe that Jesus Christ will rescue us from all the terrible things in life as long as we give our lives over to him as disciples.  But today’s Gospel demonstrates that this is not true.  Faithful disciples are subject to the same difficult situations in life that everyone else endures.  But Jesus, who calls Lazarus from the tomb, dwells with us and knows our suffering. 

            Jesus is the Father’s Only Begotten Son, in whom he is well pleased.  However, that relationship will not protect him from the horrible fate that awaits him.  It will not protect him from a mock trial and a painful death.  But his Father will raise him from the dead.  He will emerge from the tomb.  Lazarus comes out bound in burial bands, because he will need them again.  When Jesus is raised from the dead, his burial bands will be laid carefully aside, along with the cloth that had wrapped his face.  He will never need them again.

            During this past year, our Elect have grown in faith, becoming more convinced that the Lord will stand by them in all of their trials.  Today, we pray the third Scrutiny over them at the 10:00 Mass.  We pray that whatever still entombs them will be taken away.  They are in the final two weeks of preparing to enter into the watery tomb with Christ to rise with him to new life.

            We join them in renewing our faith that the Lord dwells with us, even into the darkest of times, even into death itself.  Please come to the Lenten Penance Service on Tuesday.  Like the public Scrutiny, there is strength in numbers.  We can admit the times we have allowed sin to separate us from the love of God.  We will emerge one with the Lord from the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We will be unbound by our sins and ready to renew our baptismal promises and share already in the resurrection and the life that Jesus promises to Martha.

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