Fifth Sunday of Lent

What does God want to give to us?

That's a question that comes to my mind after hearing the incredibly rich readings the Church has given us as we continue into the last part of Lent.

All three of our readings are about death and life - and they are summed up and put on display in a concrete way in the story of Lazarus from the gospel of St. John.

This miracle (or sign, as St. John calls it) is the pinnacle of the amazing things that Jesus did throughout his ministry. In fact, the only miracle that's left in this gospel is Jesus' own resurrection.

That makes the raising of Lazarus important. It was this miracle that solidified the plan of Jesus' enemies to have him arrested and killed.

Jesus also treats this moment as something significant. When he hears that his friend Lazarus is sick, he deliberately waits. He doesn't go running to Bethany. It's almost as if he wants his friend to die. Explaining it to his disciples, he says, "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God."

When Jesus finally goes to Bethany, he meets his friends Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus. They both show a great deal of faith in Jesus - they knew that he could have saved their brother. However, they don't fully expect Jesus to be able to do anything now. He's been dead for four days.

That brings us to the dialogue Jesus has with Martha:

Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise.”
Martha said to him,
“I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus told her,
“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?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,

the one who is coming into the world.”

Jesus is saying something that is pivotal for Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, but also for us. With Jesus, death is no longer an obstacle.

All of us have had or will have an experience with death. We lose loved ones, we see it in the media, and, eventually, all of us will have to face it. But this isn't the way the world is supposed to be.

In his interactions in this story, twice John writes that Jesus was "perturbed" or "deeply troubled." When they are about to take Jesus to the place where Lazarus was buried, he even weeps.

In the face of death, Jesus, God living as a man, is disturbed. He weeps for his suffering friends - and we could say that he weeps for all of humanity who, because of sin, suffer in this life.

Death is a result of the break that happened between God and humanity. Sin cut us off from the source of life and the world has been broken ever since, plagued by this enemy that we could not defeat.

Then Jesus came. And he says to all of us, "I am the resurrection and the life …"

What Jesus offer us is nothing less than life itself.

All of us are Lazarus. All of us were dead in our sin, wrapped up, imprisoned. But Jesus came and, in our baptism, freed us from the death of sin. He gave us the new life of grace that can only come from God, so that even in the face of death, we know that there is more to the story. In the end, there is life.

Back in 1978, the cardinals were gathered in Rome to elect a new pope after John Paul I had suddenly died. The votes were starting to turn towards a Polish cardinal named Karol Wojtyla. Another cardinal who knew him and knew that the future pope loved the gospel of John turned to him and said: "Deus adest et vocat te?" This is a paraphrase of what was said to Mary when they told her that Jesus had arrived - "God is here and is calling you?"*

For Blessed John Paul II, it was a message that he was being called to a new ministry as the bishop of Rome, but it is true for us as well.

God is here and he is calling you and me. He is calling us to life. He is calling us to reject the ways of sin, the life of selfishness and pride that leads to nothing but death. He is calling us to live in the grace that was given to us in our baptism. He is calling us to accept the gift of Jesus Christ that we receive today in the Eucharist.

To use Jesus' own words: "Do you believe this?"

God is here and he gives us himself. What more could we possibly want?

The life he gives us allows us to live our lives and, even in the face of suffering and death, know that there is more. God is here and he is calling us to live with, in, and for him.


*This story is found in the excellent Lenten read, Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches by George Weigel.