How has the experience of the death of one you have loved affected your own faith journey?

 

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT  A  2023

 

 

 

In today’s Gospel of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the account is grounded in the human heartache of death..  Mary said to Jesus:  “Load, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he was deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”  So they said to him, “Sir, come and see.”  And Jesus wept.

 

Confronted by the searing loss that physical death brings, Jesus himself begins to weep.  Jesus feels the cold sting of a loved one laid in a tomb.  Jesus wept because he felt our pain, shared our pain.  Yes, Jesus was God.  But Yes, Jesus was also fully human; and, as such, know the profound grief of the death of one we love.

 

This Gospel account describes love among friends -- Jesus with Martha and Mary.  The account portrays the profound grief that comes with the death of one we love.  Isn’t it true that in the mystery of life, the first kiss given to the one we love has the potential of being the source of our tears.  We mourn deeply because we love deeply.

 

In our parish community this past week, we grieved over the death of three long-time faith filled parishioners – Charity Chinelly, Elly Fermoil, and Marge Salmon.  Their deaths spoke to me of the meaning of today’s Gospel in the Raising of Lazarus.  While the raising of Lazarus is a story of human heartache, it is also an account of the divine power of the resurrection.  Death is a painful reality in our lives, but it is not the final word.  Jesus is our final word.  We are transformed in death into our sharing in the fullness of the Risen Life of Jesus.

 

The Gospel is a story of faith.  The Lazarus account illustrates the deepening of faith that comes through an experience of death.  Whether the death of a loved one or one’s own death, it is the moment where one realizes that all depends on God.

 

Jesus can and does bring Lazarus back to earthly life.  This is an incredible miracle.  But we are called to believe in something even more profound.  We are called to believe in a resurrection that transforms, a resurrection that is lasting.  Jesus is the life we are seeking.  True faith has to include a belief in Jesus as the source of unending life.

 

In the stories from the evangelist John, there is a constant double level of language.  Those who talk to Jesus speak to him on what is important to them on the physical level, while Jesus tries to lead them to a spiritual level of meaning.  By inserting these Gospel stories in the liturgy, the Church reminds us that Jesus is still struggling to get us to see deeper spiritual realities.   With the raising of Lazarus, Jesus is not simply renewing a life that ends in a grave, but offering a life whereby one does not die at all.

 

In our Lenten Gospels, the symbols of water, sight and new life are symbols closely associated with Christian baptism; and so, the stories centered on them lead us to reflect on our baptismal faith.  In the account of the Samaritan woman, Jesus wasn’t just speaking of physical water, but of the water that springs up to eternal life.  With the healing of the blind man, Jesus leads us to a spiritual sightedness.  And the Lazarus story illustrates the deepening of faith that comes through an experience of death.  Jesus tells the Lazarus story in such a way that we are led to a deeper understanding of Lazarus’ death.

 

 

 

This Gospel is both a Lenten and an Easter Gospel.  This Gospel of the raising of Lazarus anticipates the Resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus says to Martha:  I am the resurrection and the life.  It is a Gospel about the non-finality of death.  Divine love is more powerful than death.  Jesus entered into the worst of human conditions – the experience of death – and invited us to be transformed by hope.

 

This Gospel is also a Lenten Gospel.  The story of Lazarus is the story of all of us.  The word Lazarus means that God helps.  We all live in Bethany.  In its root meaning, Bethany is the house of the afflicted.  This Gospel is the story of everyone because in our pain we seek the help of God.  As with Martha and Mary and Lazarus, sometimes it is God doesn’t deal with our pain as quickly as we would like.  Jesus delays.  Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is stench because he has been dead four days.  The Lenten journey is about dealing with the stench of the human condition – our own stench.   We need to deal with the stench of our sinfulness and the sinfulness of the world.  As you recall the Ash Wednesday mantra that was given to us, we are to turn away from sin and to be faithful to the Gospel.  

 

 

 

 

In this Lenten time of spiritual renewal, from whatever tombs we dare to emerge from in our Lenten journey, may our faith community welcome us and accompany us on the road out of the darkness and into the light of the Risen Lord.

 

Now is the time and place for leaving behind whatever threatens to entomb us and to keep us from Christ. 

 

In our journey of faith, there are many challenges we face that test our trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Such was the experience of the blind man in last Sunday’s Gospel.  Who of us has not faced hardships and brokenness in life that has left us feeling very vulnerable and a bit insecure?  Facing death often constitutes a unique challenge to faith.  The experience of death is perhaps the darkest of our dark valleys.  Death will never be easy.  A prayerful question for us all to reflect upon is:  How has the experience of the death of one you have loved affected your own faith journey?

 

Have a Blessed Day.