A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John
When Martha heard that Jesus had come
she went to meet him.
Mary remained sitting in the house.
Martha said to Jesus,
‘If you had been here, my brother Lazarus would not have died,
but I know that, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.’
‘Your brother’ said Jesus to her ‘will rise again.’
Martha said,
‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’
Jesus said:
‘I am the resurrection and the life.
If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live,
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?’
‘Yes, Lord,’ she said
‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who was to come into this world.’
The Gospel of the Lord
Whatever our personal situation:
recent events have brought life and death rather more into focus.
One way or another, we have probably all become more tuned-in to mortality:
maybe our own, maybe that of others.
That turns our thoughts to what really matters to us.
Life, death, and what really matters
are exactly what today’s meeting with Jesus in the gospel addresses.
Chapter 11 of John’s gospel is the calling of Lazarus from the grave to life.
This is the final sign of Jesus’ identity and mission that John recounts,
and it leads straight into the events of Holy Week.
The part of the gospel I read (Jn) is the heart of the narrative.
That might seem like an odd thing to say,
since the passage didn’t include the calling of Lazarus into life, but it is true.
Jesus’s words connect the action, calling Lazarus to life,
to Jesus’ identity, and what he does for us.
Jesus says:
I am the resurrection and the life.
If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live,
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
‘Life’ here is ‘new life’, life in Christ.
Life that reaches through death, life, in its deepest sense,
new life, comes from trust in Jesus:
walking with him, wherever that leads.
Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem,
to what looks like a meaningless, unnecessary death, but isn’t.
It is a death that brings life, new life, resurrection life:
resurrection life, here and now, to all who trust in him.
The pain of death is not abolished:
Jesus wept with grief at Lazarus’ death and Martha and Mary’s loss,
and he, and those around him, suffered greatly in his dying.
The pain of death is not abolished:
rather, life in Christ changes our perspective on it, changes how we live with it.
In Jesus, God joins to our human condition and raises it up into his life.
With Martha we express our trust, saying:
Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God.
Yes, Lord, you are the resurrection and the life.