Lent 5

Readings: Ez 37:12-14; Rm 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45

“Jesus wept.”
Lazarus has died, 
but it is not the thought 
of Lazarus in the tomb
that wakens weeping in Jesus;
it is the sight of Mary mourning,
grief-stricken at the death of her brother.
He weeps not for Lazarus,
for Jesus is the resurrection and the life
and knows that he will soon 
call forth Lazarus from the tomb.
He weeps with Mary and the others
so that he may meet them in their mourning.

Jesus wept.
He weeps because he is truly human—
like us in all things but sin—
and the truly human thing 
to do in the face of death
is to weep together.
The God who in the beginning
gathers the waters into oceans,
who in the waters of the Great Flood,
cleanses the earth,
who at the Red Sea parts the waters
to save his people,
who in the wilderness
brings forth water from the rock,
now draws tears from his human eyes
so to be like us in all things but sin—
not feigning sorrow,
not play-acting humanity, 
but knowing what only a human being can know:
the experience of human grief from the inside.

Jesus wept.
He is “perturbed and deeply troubled,”
because, though sinless,
he still bears the weight of sin,
and the weight of sin is sorrow.
He mourns at the tomb of Lazarus—
not as those who mourn without hope,
for he is himself the world’s hope,
the resurrection and the life—
but still he mourns.
He mourns the sheer fact of death,
“the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations,”
the sign of our exile from the God of life.
He mourns the decay of the flesh 
that God once formed from the dust
and breathed his own Spirit into.
He mourns to see God’s work undone.

Jesus wept.
He weeps because he does not want us 
to weep hopelessly without him.
Jesus stands outside the tomb of Lazarus,
but he knows the day is close at hand
when he will enter into his own tomb
so that the place of death 
might become the place of life.
He wants to dwell in us in our weeping,
to breathe his Spirit in us once again,
to give life to our mortal bodies.
And he wants us to dwell in him,
to be knit together as members of his body,
so that just as he knows our weeping,
we in turn may know his joy.

Jesus wept.
And in weeping he teaches us 
that while we are still journeying in this life
pain and sorrow and hardship remain,
even for those who have been reborn in Christ.
Indeed, for those of us who seek to follow Jesus,
in some sense our sorrow must grow greater, 
for we are called to imitate our Master
in making our own the suffering of the world.
The hunger of the poor,
the pain of the sick,
the fear of those afflicted by war,
the grief of those in mourning,
the uncertainty of the displaced,
the cravings of the addict,
the despair of the faithless,
innocent suffering,
guilty suffering,
all of this must touch our heart,
all of this is given us to bear
together as members of Christ’s body.

Our catechumens, who will be baptized at Easter,
come asking to become members of Christ’s body,
not so that they may leave all weeping behind,
as if being a follower of Jesus 
could magically remove the weight of mortal flesh.
They come so that they may weep within him,
so that they may mourn the world’s pain, 
not as those without hope,
but as those who have died through baptism
and have found in those waters
Christ who is resurrection and life.

This day we are bidden to pray 
for those who will soon be baptized.
We pray for them because the struggle 
to strip off your old self
and clothe yourself in Christ
is something none of us can do alone.
And we must pray for ourselves as well,
for we too are engaged in the daily battle
to live for Christ and not for ourselves,
to let his life grow within us
so that we, in some small way,
bring that life into our world’s 

places of death.
As we draw close to the Easter feast,
the feast of resurrection and life,
let us ask for the grace to mourn,
so that God in his mercy
might have mercy on us all.

Lent 5 (Third Scrutiny)

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

VIDEO

With the story of the raising of Lazarus,
we find ourselves arrived 
in our Lenten pilgrimage
at the edge of the mystery.
We find ourselves confronted 
with a final sign
pointing us toward 
our destination and our destiny:
the incomprehensible love of God
poured out into the world
in the cross and resurrection of Jesus,
and the promise of sharing 
in God’s own deathless life.
We find ourselves at the place 
where the one who is 
resurrection and life
stands at the place of death 
and cries, “come out!”

This is the time, 
this is the place
where the promise of God 
heard in our first reading
resounds once again in our ears:
“O my people, I will open your graves 
and have you rise from them 
and bring you back to the land of Israel.”
I will open your graves—
graves of sin,
graves of sorrow,
graves of doubt—
and bring you back to the land of promise.
In calling us to holiness and joy and trust,
Christ calls us not to some unknown destination
but back to our true homeland.
For we are made for holiness and for joy, 
we are made for trust and for life with God,
yet we, like the prodigal son,
have wandered from the Father’s house
and found ourselves in a land of exile,
found ourselves in a tomb of our own fashioning.
But now we stand in a time and in a place
where Jesus can be heard calling to us:
“come out!”

We celebrate today the third and final scrutiny
with those who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil.
These catechumens,
along with the candidates for reception
into the full communion of the Catholic Church,
have been journeying for many months:
studying the scriptures and traditions of the Church,
and learning the discipline of prayer,
journeying with each other
and journeying with Jesus
to this place and this time.
They each have a unique story 
of their journey:
they are young and old,
men and women,
with various occupations and interests;
some are complete newcomers to Christianity,
some have been coming to Mass for years
(in one case, for decades).
But it is the one Spirit of the Father 
who raised Jesus from the dead 
that has called them
to this place and time.

Despite what the name might suggest,
the scrutinies do not involve any sort of quiz,
where we examine our catechumens 
to see if they have learned 
enough about Catholicism
to be worthy to join our ranks.
Let’s be honest:
how well would most of us do
if we had to take such a quiz?
In any case, this is not a matter
of knowing a bunch of information,
but of knowing themselves
and knowing Jesus.

The scrutinies are an invitation,
not just to the catechumens but to all of us,
to look deep into our hearts—
hearts that have been hardened by sin,
hearts that have become tombs in which
holiness and joy and trust lie buried.
They are an invitation to listen in the silence
for the voice of Jesus
piercing though the stony walls 
of our hardened hearts,
calling to us, “Come out!”

Our tombs may be deep 
and their walls may be thick,
built of stones of sin and sorrow and doubt,
but it is the one who is himself 
resurrection and life
who calls to us.
Listen.
He is calling:
Lazarus, come out!
Tom, come out!
Lamar, come out!
Madison, come out!
Jackson, come out!
Shawn, come out!
All you who are sinful, 
sorrowful, 
doubtful,
come out!

Today we are standing with them 
at the edge of the mystery:
the mystery of Christ’s passing over
from death to life,
the mystery of our passing over
from death to life.
And in that mystery,
the call to come out 
becomes a call to come in.
Come out from the place of exile,
come into your true homeland;
come out from a life of shadows,
come into the clear light of eternity;
come out from the tomb 
of your own hardened heart,
come into a life 
of holiness and joy and trust.
Enter the wedding feast 
of the Lamb once slain
and now gloriously reigning,
the banquet of abundant life
that has been prepared for you
from before the foundation of the world.
Come out.
Come in.
Feast.
Rejoice.

Lent 5 (Third Sunday in Corona Time)

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

As we continue our great national experiment
in “social distancing” and “self-quarantining,”
some of us might be feeling
as if we know just a little
what it meant for Lazarus
to be confined in his tomb.
It not simply that we are entombed
within the walls of our homes
for most of the day;
it is the loss of the moments,
casual or calculated,
of embodied human contact
with which our days were formerly filled:
handshakes or hugs of greeting,
lunches with friends or colleagues,
friends visiting in our homes,
dinners out in crowded restaurants,
even face-to-face meetings to conduct business.
And for Christians, of course, there is the loss
of gathering for worship as a visible body,
shoulder to shoulder,
offering praise to the holy Trinity
and receiving into our bodies
the living flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus.

The tragedy of death is not simply
the cessation of biological functioning.
It is also the fracturing of human community,
the loss of bodily connection among people.
The poignancy of the loss of Lazarus
is conveyed in John’s Gospel
not by his dead body,
which lies hidden from sight,
but by the grief of his sisters,
who display for us the raw wound
of human connection torn apart by death.
We see it even in Jesus himself,
who weeps at Lazarus’s tomb
in witness to the devastation that death wreaks
upon the bonds of human love.
Even for those who believe,
as the Church’s liturgy for the dead proclaims,
that for Christ’s faithful “life is changed not ended,”
who believe that we are still united in love
with those who have entered into death’s mystery,
there is still the loss of that day-to-day contact
that lies at the heart of grief.
The resurrection that will restore to us
the embodied presence of the other
lives in us as hope, not as possession.

And so too during this time of pandemic:
even as we know that the lives of our friends and families
continue while we are separated from them,
even as we know that we can still communicate at a distance
and that this time of separation will one day end,
there is for now the loss of that ordinary embodied presence
in which our lives had once been immersed.
In some small way,
in this time of enclosure
we are tasting the loss that death brings,
the confinement and constriction of life,
the absence of embodied presence to others.

This past week the Church celebrated
the feast of the Annunciation,
which draws our attention
to another kind of enclosure
and another kind of embodied presence:
the Son of God coming to dwell
for nine months within Mary’s womb.
Unlike the tomb,
which cuts us off from bodily presence,
the womb is a place of most intimate presence
as the child develops within the mother’s body;
because of this intimacy
the womb is a place of life and growth,
not of death and decay.
And we might say that—
by way of anticipation in the raising of Lazarus,
and supremely and for all time
in his own rising from the dead—
Jesus transforms the tomb into a womb,
a place of death into the place
from which life springs forth.
What we celebrate at Easter,
and anticipate this Sunday in the story of Lazarus,
is precisely this transformation.

I suppose it might be a nice bit of symbolism
if we could, as some have suggested,
choose Easter as the date on which
we would end this experiment in confinement.
It would be nice if Easter Sunday could be the day
on which we emerged from our exile
to be restored to bodily presence with each other.
But to do this would not only be to foolishly ignore
the realities of this global pandemic,
it would also be to deny the ways in which
the risen Lord is already transforming
our time of confinement from tomb into womb.
To limit our contact with others for their sake
and the sake of the common good
is already to embody life in the midst of death.

I have been amazed at the level of concern and creativity
that people have shown in responding to this crisis,
from formerly technologically inept pastors
streaming messages of hope to their flocks
to people sewing protective masks at home
to support depleted hospital stores.
For the love of God poured into our hearts
cannot be confined by walls or held at a distance.
The grace of God can transform this time of confinement
through the same power by which Jesus called Lazarus forth.
Let grace grow in us as Christ grew within Mary’s womb
and let us be reborn by the power of Easter
to lives of greater faith, greater hope, and greater love.
And may God have mercy on us all.

Lent 5

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

Throughout the Sundays of Lent
we have listened in on conversations
that people have had with and about Jesus,
transformative conversations
that have opened eyes to the truth
of the good news that Jesus brings,
the truth of forgiveness and healing:
the disciples at the Mount of Transfiguration
witnessing his glory,
the woman at the well confronted
with the reality of her life,
the man born blind encountering
the light of the world.

But what of Lazarus, four-days-dead in the tomb?
What of the one with whom no conversation is possible,
cut off from the living by the veil of death?
Death would seem to be the final defeat of conversation,
putting us beyond the hope of transformation.
We may, for a while, continue a mental conversation,
an imagined dialogue,
with our loved ones who have died.
But do they ever say something that truly surprises us?
Do they ever change their mind in response to what we say?
Is there ever anything new
in our imagined conversations with the dead,
or do we simply hear the echo resounding in the halls of memory?
The truth is, death brings our conversations to an end.
Four days is a long time, his sister warns;
the body is likely to stink—
as if to drive home the finality of what has happened,
the impossibility of conversation.
The woman at the well and the man born blind
can be engaged in a conversation of conversion,
but for poor, dead Lazarus
there can be no transformative conversation with Jesus.

But Jesus does not come to converse with Lazarus
but to command him: “Lazarus, come out!”
His voice resounding at the entry to the tomb
is the Word that, in the beginning,
called all creation into being out of nothing,
the Word that is life and the light for the human race,
the Word that is with God and that is God.
This same Word now calls Lazarus forth
from the nothingness of death into the light of life.
Only this divine Word of command
can banish death, restore life,
and begin anew the conversation that death has cut short.
The truly great miracle here is not simply
that Lazarus is restored to life,
but rather that his dead ears can hear the voice of Jesus
calling him back into live-giving conversation
with the source of all life.

But this story of how the commanding voice of Jesus
can pierce the deafness of death,
and draw us back over the boundary of life,
is not simply a story of his victory over physical death.
For there is a spiritual death that is no less real,
that is no less destructive of our capacity
for engagement with God.
We can find ourselves entombed within the story of our life,
hemmed in by the choices we have made,
choices that have turned us from the God of life
and made us deaf to God’s voice,
choices that make us as unable to hear
as one who is dead and closed in a tomb.
The Church’s traditional term for this is “mortal sin”—
the sin that makes us dead to the life of grace God offers us.
This is best understood not as a really, really, really big sin—
the spiritual equivalent of a capital crime—
but rather as any action that takes us
out of the life-giving conversation with God,
that makes the ear of our heart dead to the voice of God.

Our readings this Lent have shown us
the transformative power
of entering into conversation with Jesus.
But our Gospel today shows us even more.
It shows us the power of Jesus,
the Word who brings light and life,
to call us back into communion with God
when sin and death have broken off the conversation.
The good news of today’s Gospel
is not simply that we have a hope beyond this life
(though that surely is good news),
nor simply that God can raise the dead to life
(though that surely is good news),
but that here, now, on this day,
when we feel cut off from God,
when we feel trapped by the choices we have made
and unable to move from where we are,
as Lazarus was to move from his tomb,
when we feel that God’s voice cannot reach us
because we are held bound in a kind of spiritual death,
when we feel that we cannot even utter a word of prayer
to ask God to give us life again,
the voice of Jesus,
the Word that in the beginning
commanded light and life,
can still call us forth from death.
No choice you have made,
no path you have taken,
no situation in which you are entombed
can silence the commanding voice of Jesus
calling you back into conversation with him,
no sin,
no sorrow,
no deafness or death
can keep that voice
from resounding in your ears.
Come out,
come out
from all that holds you bound,
Let the Spirit of the one.
who raised Jesus from the dead
dwell in you
and give you life.

Lent 5

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

Throughout Lent,
we have journeyed with Jesus through a series of encounters:
into the Wilderness, to encounter Satan;
to the Mountain of Transfiguration, to encounter Moses and Elijah;
to a well in Samaria, to encounter the much-married Samaritan woman;
to Jerusalem, to encounter the man who was born blind.
And in today’s Gospel, we journey to the village of Bethany
where Jesus encounters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus.
But even more, today he encounters death, grief, and sin.
And this is fitting on this last Sunday before we enter Holy Week.
For in the raising of Lazarus, we see a foreshadowing
of the great combat between life and death
that is the drama of Holy Week;
we see the encounter between death
and the one who is himself resurrection and life.

In the Gospel of John, it is this story,
even more than in the Passion story,
that allows us to see the humanity of Jesus:
we are told of the love that he has
for Mary and Martha and Lazarus;
we are told how in the face of Lazarus’s death
he is “perturbed and deeply troubled”;
and when he is taken to Lazarus’s tomb
we are told, “Jesus wept.”
It is in this story, perhaps more than any other in the Bible,
that we see Jesus’ solidarity with us,
who ourselves must encounter death.
We will all, of course, encounter death when our own life ends.
But that is not what I would like to focus on today,
for our encounter with death is not only at our ending;
in the midst of our lives we already encounter death.

We encounter it in the loss of family members and friends,
the loss of the presence of those whom we love.
In today’s Gospel Jesus encounters death
in the grief of Martha and of Mary,
and also in his own grief, in his own weeping.
Martha and Mary believed, and Jesus knew with divine certainty,
that death was not the last word for Lazarus:
“whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live.”
But this did not stop their grief or tears.
They still felt the pain of loss. 
And so too in our own encounters with death and loss;
our faith does not prevent us from feeling grief.
No matter how firmly or feebly we may believe
that Jesus is himself resurrection and life
and that he shares his risen life with us,
we still find ourselves longing for one more conversation,
one more goodnight kiss,
even one more frustrating argument
with the loved ones whom death has taken from us.
Those whose faith in eternal life is most certain
still long for the time to be shortened
until the day of death's final defeat.

Our encounter with death in the midst of our lives
is not, however, limited to physical death.
We encounter death also in the experience of sin,
the spiritual death that separates us from God and our neighbor
as surely as physical death separates us from those whom we love.
This separation ought to grieve us as much as, if not more than,
the separation of physical death.
There is a long Christian tradition of interpreting the story of Lazarus
not simply as a story of a mighty miracle worked by Jesus
but also as an allegory of God’s power to triumph over human sin.
Lazarus laid in the tomb represents humanity,
entombed in spiritual death;
Jesus’ crying in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out”
shows us God’s desire that we confess our sins,
bringing them out into the light of day;
Jesus’ command that Lazarus be untied
is a symbol of our being freed from the bondage of sin:
we who were dead in sin become alive to righteousness
through him who is himself resurrection and life
and are freed from the bondage of our separation from God.

In our grief and in our sin,
even in the midst of life, we are in death.
To whom can we turn for comfort?
We turn to the one who loves us,
to the one who weeps over our dying,
to the one who opens our graves,
and who calls to us in a loud voice: “come out!
Come out from the tomb of death!
Come out from the tomb of grief!
Come out from the tomb of sin!
Come out and be unbound,
for I am the resurrection and the life.
‘I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.’”