Thinking about the ScripturesApril 6, 2014: The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Ezekiel 37:12-14: Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them … I will put my spirit in you that you may live. … I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.
Psalm 130: With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
Romans 8:8-11: If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised Christ from the dad will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.
John 11:1-45: Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. …
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Next Sunday is Palm Sunday!
Scripture Notes from the Sourcebook:
THE FIRST READING: The words of the prophet Ezekiel address an Israel in Exile. The “death” of their exiled status will end when the Lord raises them up and restores them to their homeland. They will love because God will put his Spirit in them. It is an image of re-creation.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM 129: It is because of the Lord’s mercy that we have received the fullness of redemption. Psalm 129 originates during the time of the Babylonian Exile. The psalmist describes his affliction and expresses his trust in the Lord’s deliverance.
SECOND READING: The motif of being enlivened by God’s Spirit is likewise heard in today’s Second Reading. “Flesh” is used here with reference to anything opposed to God. In Baptism, we have received the Spirit of God, which gives us life, eternal life. In the age to come, this same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will raise our mortal bodies also.
THE GOSPEL: John goes to great lengths to let us know that Lazarus, the beloved friend of Jesus, was really dead, all the more to heighten the extraordinary power of God at work in Jesus – power even over the realm of death. So would God’s glory be manifest. Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” even in this age. Today’s account of the Gospel account bids us to look at what is dead within us, perhaps even with a stench! We hear today Jesus’ command: Come forth from the tomb. Let yourself be untied so that you can go free.
PASTORAL REFLECTION: Jesus was human; a man with depth of emotions ranging from love to sadness, patience to anger. If our God could be honest about his emotions, develop friendships that stirred his heart, and could deal with disciples who just “couldn’t get it,” how much more are we called to do the same? Our human nature, while sinful, is full of great life and light if we walk in and with the Light of Jesus Christ. Who are your best friends for whom you would do anything? How can you be both aware of the depth and breadth of your emotions, yet conscious of controlling them if and when necessary? Today Jesus wept in love and was perturbed with impatience. Be conscious of all that is within you this week and how each moment brings you closer to the living God. -- 2014 Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons & Weekends
By the tender mercy of our God, the upon us,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
– Luke 1:78-78 (Canticle of Zachariah)
Gospel Commentary from the Irish Dominicans
Last Sunday's gospel reading was about light and darkness; today's is about life and death. We can expect a similar paradoxical treatment of them from John.
It was dangerous for Jesus to go to Judea again; the authorities were determined to seize him. When he decided nevertheless to go there, Thomas said, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." So Jesus faced death to give life to Lazarus. This is John showing us the meaning of Jesus' life, or applying the first brush-stroke in this scene.
An alternative (or more accurately, a disjunction) is not a paradox. Life or death is not yet paradox; the paradox is life in death. And that is what we are going to see in this scene. To make it quite clear that we are not dealing with the first but with the second, Lazarus has been unmistakably dead for four days.
A disjunction is easy to understand; it is the way of ordinary rational thinking: yes or no, right or wrong, good or bad…. It keeps the two elements carefully apart, it makes opposites and enemies of them. It has the appearance of being very clear and strong: if you talk, for example, about some people as “evil,” you expect nothing from them and you give them no quarter. Disjunctive language also looks scientific (computers are built on this principle). But in real life it is also quite fictional. Oscar Wilde once remarked, "In fiction, good people do good things and bad people do bad things; that's why we call it fiction." In reality, good people often do bad things and bad people good things. Any account of human affairs that sees only disjunction would be a handbook for war, or a work of fiction, but not a gospel of life.
We spend our life trying to avoid even the thought of death. When we do think about it we think thoughts like: "it will defeat me utterly, it will destroy everything I tried to do." The 'enemy', then, is not only out there; it is now the enemy within.
This is not the way a Christian thinks about death. The death of Christ shapes our consciousness of death. St Paul wrote that we are "baptised into his death" (Romans 6:3). The word 'baptised' means 'plunged'. "By baptism we have been buried with him into death." This is not running away from death and the thought of death. It seems more like running towards it. Why? Because "just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." The place of death is the place of resurrection. The resurrection is not an alternative to death; rather it is in death that resurrection is to be found. We are delivered from the crippling fear of death and of everything that reminds us of it. This frees us to live.
Life in death. Lazarus is every disciple.
--- Donagh O’Shea, for Today’s Good News, the website of the Dominicans of Ireland-________________________________________________________________________
I am praying again, Awesome One.
You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.
I’ve been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.
In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass…
I am a house gutted by fire…
I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide…
It’s here in all the pieces of my shame that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something,
to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart –
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments,
my life,
and you, God –
spend them however you want.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, the brother of Martha and Mary, was the one of whom the Jews said, "See how much he loved him." In their sight Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead.
Legends abound about the life of Lazarus after the death and resurrection of Jesus. He is supposed to have left a written account of what he saw in the next world before he was called back to life. Some say he followed Peter into Syria. Another story is that despite being put into a leaking boat by the Jews at Jaffa, he, his sisters and others landed safely in Cyprus. There he died peacefully after serving as bishop for 30 years.
A church was built in his honor in Constantinople and some of his reputed relics were transferred there in 890. A Western legend has the oarless boat arriving in Gaul. There he was bishop of Marseilles, was martyred after making a number of converts and was buried in a cave. His relics were transferred to the new cathedral in Autun in 1146.
It is certain there was early devotion to the saint. Around the year 390, the pilgrim lady Etheria talks of the procession that took place on the Saturday before Palm Sunday at the tomb where Lazarus had been raised from the dead. In the West, Passion Sunday was called Dominica de Lazaro, and Augustine tells us that in Africa the Gospel of the raising of Lazarus was read at the office of Palm Sunday.
Many people who have had a near-death experience report losing all fear of death. When Lazarus died a second time, perhaps he was without fear. He must have been sure that Jesus, the friend with whom he had shared many meals and conversations, would be waiting to raise him again. We don’t share Lazarus’ firsthand knowledge of returning from the grave. Nevertheless, we too have shared meals and conversations with Jesus, who waits to raise us, too. – AmericanCatholic.org
"The world, knowing how all our real investments are beyond the grave, might expect us to be less concerned than other people who go in for what is called Higher Thought and tell us that 'death doesn't matter'; but we 'are not high-minded', we follow One who stood and wept at the grave of Lazarus--not, surely, because He was grieved that Mary and Martha wept, and sorrowed for their lack of faith (though some thus interpret) but because death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in His eyes than in ours.
The nature which He had created as God, the nature which He had assumed as Man, lay there before Him in its ignominy; a foul smell, food for worms. Though He was to revive it a moment later, He wept at the shame...
Of all men we hope the most of death; yet nothing will reconcile us to--well, its unnaturalness. We know that we were not made for it; we know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder; and we know Who has defeated it. Because Our Lord is risen we know that on one level it is an enemy already disarmed; but because we know that the natural level also is God's creation we cannot cease to fight against the death which mars it, as against all other blemishes upon it, against pain and poverty, barbarism and ignorance. Because we love something else more than this world we love even this world better than those who know no other. – C.S. Lewis
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Lazarus was raised from the dead. That’s a pretty hard act to follow. I can talk about my faith, but I don’t have anything that dramatic to show for it.
But you do!
All of us were dead in our sins before Jesus became our savior.
Just as Lazarus was set free from the stinking grave clothes, so we have been set free from the stench of our sins and destructive behavior. All of us have a story to live and tell of Jesus and His love for us.
Lazarus was known as a friend of Jesus, even before his dramatic return from the dead. He seems to have been a respected member of his community—a nice person, with a good reputation. That’s important, as part of our witness. But what really drew people to him, and what brought them to salvation, was the witness of his changed life and his relationship with Jesus.
I’m sure that Lazarus was also eager to tell people about Jesus—it’s normal to talk about someone who has changed your life. The woman at the well who also had a dramatic encounter with Jesus couldn’t wait to tell everyone as she exclaimed, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” (John 4: 29).
Whether our witness is verbal or through our actions, may it be laced with love and a genuine caring for the other person, as a true reflection of God’s love for us.
(As Sherwood E. Wirt says): “Lighthouses don’t fire guns or ring bells to call attention to their light, they just shine.”
--raybentley.com
But was I the first martyr, who
Gave up no more than life, while you,
Already free among the dead,
Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed,
Surrendered what all other men
Irrevocably keep, and when
Your battered ship at anchor lay
Seemingly safe in the dark bay
No ripple stirs, obediently
Put out a second time to sea
Well knowing that your death (in vain
Died once) must all be died again?
--C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Reflection for April 6, 2014: The Raising of Lazarus
If you’ve ever lost a loved one – and I don’t know too many folks over the age of 30 who haven’t – you know pretty much how Mary and Martha felt, after they said what they thought was their final goodbye to their dear brother Lazarus. When someone you love dies, you feel almost as cold and gray and empty inside as the dead body itself – as if you’ve been buried deep in the grave of your sorrow with a great stone blocking your heart. A person can spend a long, long time lingering outside the tomb, waiting for Jesus to come and make everything better -- weeping like Mary and Martha did in the days after Lazarus died, and wanting to grab Jesus by the collar as soon as you see him and demand, “Where were you, Lord, when we needed you most?”
There are no easy roads in the journey through life. Either we die first, which is generally an unwelcome solution, or the people we love die first, which at times can seem worse. “Just have faith,” well-meaning folks often say after a death. But “faith” isn’t something you can just get from the closet as soon as you realize you’re low on it, like a package of fresh batteries or a new jar of peanut butter. Look at Mary and Martha, when their brother died. They actually knew Jesus in person -- ate with him, lived with him, sat at his feet and heard his teaching firsthand, from his own lips --- and they still had a terrible, rotten and absolutely heartbreaking time when Lazarus died. Jesus himself wept outside that tomb. It would appear that raising someone from the dead is even harder than it looks. And there’s no doubt about it: There are times when having faith in Resurrection is not very easy either.
The people of Jesus’ time were not sentimental about death. It was not cleaned up or prettified or painted over or hidden away to occur, unseen by most people, in sterile, brightly lit hospitals, as it is today. People generally died at home, and their families were usually with them when it happened. And they watched as that long last breath was taken and then reached out their own sad hands to close the eyes of their dear dead darling, and then they washed and prepared the body for burial, wrapping it in a shroud instead of dressing it up in fine clothes -- with no embalming other than a few simple spices, no silk-lined, heavy, watertight casket, no doctors and nurses or soft-voiced morticians to shield them from the stark reality of death. “Lord,” Martha told Jesus bluntly, “there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Today, when dying people are hooked up to all kinds of machinery and surrounded by professional caregivers, it is possible to be a little unsure about the exact moment of death. But in Jesus’ time, you didn’t debate the fine print of brain death vs. organ death. Dead was dead, and it was unmistakable; the body changes, irrevocably, shortly after the final heartbeat and that last ragged breath. And in first century Palestine, after days in the heat of the desert, there was no disguising this; everyone understood. There were no illusions, no uncertainty, no pretense; it was known that any dead body, no matter how loved, would begin to decay almost instantly, and in a very short time would start to stink. A traditional Jewish burial took place within 24 hours of death because the Torah says, "You shall bury him the same day ... His body should not remain all night" (Deuteronomy 21:23).
If you’ve ever been with someone at the moment of death, you know how unmistakable, how undeniable, the moment is – the difference between a person who still has the breath of life and a body that is now abandoned and empty. Each time I have been at a deathbed, I time been struck by the extraordinary change when the spirit leaves the body. It is a moment of complete and utter abandonment, followed by an unavoidable sense of absolute vacancy. Now you see it, now you don’t. And it is a solemn, indescribable moment – as if all the air has rushed out of, not just the dying body, but of the entire rest of the world – as if the universe pauses with you and takes a deep, slow, infinite sigh. You look into the eyes you knew so well, and now there is no one there to look back at you. The lights are off, the house is empty, the shades are drawn and the shutters hammered shut. The silence of the infinite rings in your heart. And you know, as you reach out to close those eyes, that nobody, now, will ever be at home in that body again.
Unless – until – the Creator of all comes to raise it to newborn life. Unless Jesus stands at the cave of the soul and calls out to us, as he called to Lazarus: “LAZARUS, COME FORTH!”
I am dwelling on the grim reality of death because so many religious skeptics have said that this miracle cannot have happened – that Lazarus couldn’t have been really dead, but was just in a coma or something like that, and Jesus somehow knew what was going on. But that’s not the way things would have happened in first-century Palestine, in a hot climate and a dirt-poor village, where the death had happened right before your eyes, and you washed and prepared the cold white body for burial. No matter how much your heart may have cried out against it, you could not deny the reality of what had happened: Lazarus was dead. And there was no way to gloss over that hard dark fact. As Martha said, “Lord, there will be a stench.” How much more real and down to earth and honest can you get?
And yet – and yet – for once in history, this death wasn’t quite the end. Jesus wept outside the tomb, sharing in the deep grief of his friends and troubled by the suffering everyone had endured. But then he gathered himself and straightened up and walked over to the tomb. People followed, wondering what he was thinking. He reached the tomb and paused and then said, “Take away the stone.” Everyone must have stared at him. There were so many religious prohibitions against touching a corpse in that culture; the bystanders would have horrified as well as confused and sad and exhausted. Martha just looked at him and in her practical, no-nonsense way reminded him of what had happened, as if somehow she thought that he’d forgotten -- “Lord,” she said, “there will be a stench,” no point in pretending otherwise -- but Jesus simply looked back at her through his bright dark solemn star-filled eyes, and he said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” Martha nodded, not trusting her voice; so he had said, so she believed, but what did it all really mean, at a moment like this? Still, she told the bystanders to go ahead, and move the huge stone. Nervously, hesitantly, perhaps exchanging puzzled glances, some of the stronger men slowly rolled away the stone. Thinking of that moment now, all the centuries later, I think that I can hear the rasping sound of the heavy stone being pushed aside, the grunting breaths of the guys who moved it, the sudden uncertain awestruck silence of the crowd. There were tears running down the faces of Martha and Mary, but their eyes were focused on Jesus, and they wondered, almost afraid to think it: Was it too late for a miracle?
And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
It was not too long after this that Jesus himself would lie in the tomb, undeniably dead – but this time no one from outside was there to roll away the stone. This time, no one from outside was needed: Jesus himself would come springing forth, erupting from the grave like a supernova, bursting with life. In the Easter Sunday Gospel from Luke, the angel asks a weeping and worried Mary: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Centuries later I stand beside her, staring in wonder at the tomb through my own tears, and I tell the angel, almost blurting it out: We look for our loved ones among the dead because we don’t know where else to look. Because it’s dark down here on earth, and O God, we’re lost, we’re lost. Because, faced with an empty tomb and a broken heart, we don’t know what to think. Because when our people are taken away, we never know where God puts them.
Christianity has always been about a whole lot more than just an empty tomb. Empty graves and missing bodies are good for detective stories and thrillers, but they haven’t much to do with faith in a living God. It isn’t the empty tomb that matters. It’s the fullness of everything that happened outside that empty tomb. It’s everyone who met Lazarus well after they knew he was dead and gone, yes -- but even more, it’s all those who ran into Jesus after his crucifixion, and found their lives changed forever -- transfigured in ways they could never describe and yet would never forget. Easter is not about the absence of Jesus’ body. No: It is about the presence of Jesus, alive, in the world today.
Here on earth, outside the tomb, it can be hard to accept. But sometimes a person sees more clearly with eyes washed clean by tears. The older I get, the more losses I experience, and the more I have to acknowledge that I’m also stamped somewhere with my own hidden, unknown but unavoidable “expiration date.” I sometimes laugh when I see stories in the news, the way you do almost every week, that breathlessly proclaim things like, “Eating seven servings of vegetables a day will prevent death!” No, it won’t, I say in reply. It might postpone death – and yes, we should all eat our vegetables! -- but nothing will prevent it. The death rate still stands at 100 percent, no matter how much kale you devour. We can’t prevent death. Even Lazarus had to die again – experience a final physical death, whatever that might mean. C.S. Lewis, who experienced some near-death stuff, always wondered if Lazarus resented having to go through it twice, if it was worth the trouble. I wonder, too, and I hope someday that I have the chance to ask him.
Every Lent, we come face to face with the mystery of life and death. Sometimes it is truly dark in this world – but sometimes it just seems dark to us, because we haven’t quite opened our eyes – because the light is so bright that our vision is dazzled, and we feel blind. And that is one of the things that Lent and Easter are really about: These six weeks give us a chance to lowly accustom our eyes to the ever more brilliant light – the light of Christ that shines in the darkness, and can never be overcome.
Here on earth, here in this life, the people we love who have died are still in the tomb, buried behind a wall of earth and time that we can’t see through. None of us are strong enough to roll away the stone. But Jesus is here, reminding us that, with his help, all things are possible. Sometimes what seems like a solid wall is really only a curtain — a veil with light behind it so bright that our mortal eyes can’t take it. As Mary Oliver says, and I often quote:
I will sing for the veil that never lifts.
I will sing for the veil that begins, once in a lifetime, maybe, to lift.
I will sing for the rent in the veil.
I will sing for what is in front of the veil, the floating light.
I will sing for what is behind the veil -- Light, light and more light.
As we enter the final days of Lent, may we learn to open our eyes to the light of God’s grace. In Jesus’ name. --- Diane Sylvain
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