A Lenten Reality Check

Homily: 5^th Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

          My brothers and sisters, today’s gospel reading provides us with a little “Lenten reality check”, of sorts.  Perhaps we’ve been doing well in our Lenten practices—and perhaps we feel that we have made great progress in restoring our relationship with God in preparation for celebrating Easter.  If so, that’s great!  God created us to be in relationship with him so that he might share his life of unity, peace, and joy with his creation and so your work to restore your relationship with him—especially if that has already taken the form of making a good confession sometime in the last four weeks—is surely in conformance with his will for your life.  The “reality check” that today’s Gospel reading provides us, however, is a reminder that friendship with God is no guarantee of protection from calamity, suffering, or pain.

          Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were close friends of Jesus.  The Gospel tells us that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”.  Because of this close friendship, the three of them had come to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah and they put their faith in his ability to heal even mortal sicknesses.  And so, when Lazarus fell ill, Martha quickly sent word to Jesus, hoping that he’d come to save her brother from this illness.  Jesus didn’t come right away, however, and Lazarus died.  In fact, by the time Jesus had arrived, Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

          Because of this, Martha and Mary both confront Jesus, saying: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  They are hurt because Jesus did not appear to respond as quickly as they, because of their friendship, expected that he would.  Jesus, in spite of already knowing what he was going to do, nonetheless displays the fullness of his humanity when, confronted by the sorrow being experienced by these sisters whom he dearly loved, he himself weeps.  It’s a touching moment that we would do well to consider any time that we experience a loss in our own lives.  But let’s imagine for a moment that the story ended there: Jesus weeping while Lazarus remains dead in the grave.  If that were the case, he’d be a great teacher, prophet, consoler, and even, perhaps, friend, but he wouldn’t be God.

          Thus, when we hear Jesus tell Martha plainly, “I am the resurrection and the life”, we hear something different.  With these words, Jesus is telling her that it isn’t just his belief that Lazarus will rise, but rather it is his concrete knowledge of who he is and of what he is capable.  Friendship with God, she discovers, is not divine protection from pain, suffering, or even death, but rather a guarantee that, in that pain, suffering, and even death, God will be with us.  When Jesus weeps, we see the most touching, but telling evidence that he, indeed, is with us, in the fullness of our humanity.  When he calls Lazarus from the grave, however, we see the still greater evidence that not only is Jesus with us—the great teacher, prophet, consoler, and friend—but that Jesus is, indeed, God: and that, in Jesus, God himself is truly with us.

          Thus, in Jesus, the words of the prophet Ezekiel have been fulfilled.  When Jesus called Lazarus from the grave he brought new light to the rebirth foreshadowed in his promise to bring back his chosen people from exile.  Those people thought themselves dead because they had lost the land from which they took their identity.  Thus, when the Lord “brought them back to the land of Israel”, they truly felt reborn.  Little did they know, however, that one day God himself would take on human nature and walk among them and would, literally, open the graves of the dead and have the dead rise from them.  Notice that the ancient Israelites were not prevented from experiencing exile because of their friendship with him.  Rather, it was because of their friendship that they were eventually restored to their land and given “new life”.  So it is now that our friendship with God will be no guarantee that we will not experience sadness, difficulty, or pain, but rather a promise that God will lift us from that sadness, difficulty, or pain, if we remain faithful to our friendship with him.

          This is the promise that those who are preparing to receive the Easter Sacraments are hoping to receive.  They acknowledge that they have been dead in their sin and they acknowledge that it is only through friendship with God, obtained by making a definitive act of faith in Jesus, that they will be freed from this death to walk in newness of life.  This final scrutiny invites them to acknowledge this truth and to pray for the grace to persevere in their commitment to leave sin in the past.  Finally, it invites us to support them with our prayers.

          My brothers and sisters, the scrutiny is a reminder to each of us that sin, especially mortal sin, separates us from God and our friendship with him.  If we have not yet turned from our sin this Lent, then we must begin this necessary work today because God—even though he never gives up on us—will not save us from death—that is, eternal death—if we do not first seek to be reconciled to him.  It also reminds us, however, that friendship with him is no guarantee that we will be spared pain, suffering, or even death in this world.  It is, rather, a guarantee that we will never be abandoned to eternal death: a promise which the raising of Lazarus—and, more poignantly, Jesus’ own resurrection—demonstrates for us.

          And so, as we draw close to the Lord around this altar, let us ask for the strength of faith to trust in the victory over death won for us by Jesus—and, thus, to place all of our hope in him, like Martha and Mary did—so that we, too, along with our elect, will be ready to receive the grace of new life: the new and glorious life in Jesus that we receive under sacramental signs, here in this Holy Eucharist.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – April 1^st & 2^nd, 2017

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

          Scrutinies complete!  I became so excited about completing the 5th Sunday of Lent that I forgot to post my homily here.  Is it possible that Lent is busier this year than it was last?  I don't know, but God's grace is so abundant and even though we have a million things to do (I think I mean that literally) before the Triduum begins, I can't help but be excited for this graces that he is pouring on the Elect from our parish.  Please pray for these 12 men and women, boys and girls, who will receive the gift of new life in Christ in just 12 days!

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Homily: 5^th Sunday of Lent – Cycle A

          I for one am continually impressed by the incredible technological advancements that human beings have made, especially when we see how they have been applied for the good and well-being of human persons, such as is done in the medical sciences.  I am amazed to fathom the complexity of treatments that now exist to treat even our most difficult illnesses.  The precision and accuracy with which medical professionals attack diseases such as cancer is truly a thing of wonder.  Even still, the fact that such advanced medicine doesn’t relieve everyone reveals how much farther yet we have to go.

          One of the downsides of these great technological advances is that we tend to put our hope completely in science.  As a result, it seems that many of us have become afflicted with a peculiarly modern disease known as “doubt”.  When one becomes afflicted with doubt, he or she comes to stand on the principle that “if you can’t prove it scientifically, then it’s probably not reliable.”  In other words, “don’t believe it if you can’t see it.”  Now, the core tenets of Christian faith (you know, those things that we profess in the Creed?) are undetectable by our senses and so, for those afflicted with doubt, faith seems to be “fuzzy” and therefore “unreliable”.

          In the Letter to the Hebrews in the Bible, however, faith is defined as “the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  Did you hear that?  Faith, it says, is evidence!  Thus, according to this, faith is not fuzzy at all, but rather it is evidence that there can be (and, in fact, there is) something beyond our ability to detect it with science.  Given this, it seems like the doubt that we are afflicted with these days is not so much a doubt of the objects of faith—that is, those things that we believe in—but rather a doubt of our own human ability to know that there is something true and real beyond our ability to detect it.

          The truth that ancient peoples weren’t as afflicted with this condition is seen in our readings today.  In our first reading, the prophet Ezekiel is speaking to the Israelite people during the Exile.  For the ancient Israelites, being taken from their land was tantamount to saying “your God doesn’t exist!”  Thus, the words of the prophet were for them a thing of great hope.  The word of the Lord that Ezekiel speaks today is a description of the proof—that is, the empirical evidence—that God will give his people so that they will know that he is the Lord: “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord…”  But the assurance that he gives them is a call to know that he is Lord now: “I have promised,” he said, “and I will do it…”  “Have faith,” in other words, “and know that I am Lord now.”

          Saint Martha, of course, had great faith and so she could say “I know…” multiple times in our Gospel reading today.  First, we see that she had faith in Jesus’ power to save a person from death, for she said to Jesus “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  In other words, “I know he would still be alive if you had gotten here before he died.”  Second, we see that she also had faith in the resurrection: for after Jesus assured her that her brother would rise, she said “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.”  But what she didn’t yet have faith in was Jesus’ command over death itself.  Jesus, therefore, assures her “I am the resurrection and the life…”—in other words, “I am Lord of the resurrection and so can make it happen whenever I wish.”  Martha, perhaps shocked by this statement, but nonetheless moved by faith, then confesses to know Jesus’ divine power to bring life, even after death: “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe [that is, I have come to know] that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”  For this confession of faith, she (along with her sister) saw the glory of God when her brother, at Jesus’ command, rose from the dead.

          Thus, we see today the culmination of these last three weeks.  In the story of the Woman at the Well, we saw how Jesus possesses a supernatural knowledge of the Samaritan woman’s life.  In the story of the Man Born Blind, we saw how Jesus possesses power over physical infirmities.  And now today, in the story of the Raising of Lazarus, we see that Jesus even possesses power over death itself.

          It is in this context that we also culminate the scrutinies for the Elect who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil.  This Sunday we will invite them to scrutinize their lives to see how, because of sin, they have, in reality, been dead; and, thus, to leave their sinful lives behind because Jesus is calling them out of their graves to be unbound from the burial cloths of death and set free to a new life in him through baptism.  Faith—which has brought them to this point—is the evidence that assures them that new life awaits them on the other side of the baptismal font.

          As we travel with our brothers and sisters through this time of preparation, we too are called to scrutinize our own lives to see how sin has left us bound, once again, by the burial cloths of death and the darkness of the grave; and to see how Jesus never ceases to call us out of these graves to live once again unbound from sin.  By faith we know that God never tires of saving us from these bonds of death—our sins—and so we boldly approach him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation so as to be renewed in the grace of our own baptisms.

          My brothers and sisters, this great promise of a life freed from the bonds of death is a promise that has already been fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  Let us, then, be courageous and face our death with faith in Jesus’ power to give us life, even after we’ve died; so that, on Easter Sunday, we might say, like in that great hymn, “What joy the blessed assurance gives, I know that my Redeemer lives!”

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – April 5^th & 6^th, 2014