Word to the Wise
Sunday, April 10, 2011 - 5th Sunday of Lent - A
[Ezek 37:12-14; Rom 8:8-11; John 11:1-45 or 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45]Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise." Martha said to him, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
The Samaritan Woman, the Man Born Blind, and now Martha come to faith, step by step. However, in the case of Martha, there is a special poignance about her profession of faith because Jesus was particularly close to her, her sister and her brother, Lazarus. Now Lazarus is dead and Martha expresses disappointment that Jesus had not come in time to prevent that death! We know that Jesus delayed a couple of days after hearing that Lazarus was near death: "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified in it." The disciples are baffled by all this. They know only that it would be very risky to go where Lazarus lived. "Let us also go to die with him!"
Martha shows greater faith than the disciples, although she too at first misunderstands Jesus, just as the other disciples did. However, once Jesus identifies himself as "the resurrection and the life," she responds to his question by saying, "Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." Yet, even after this great profession of faith, Martha still wonders how Jesus is going to cope with the fact that Lazarus has been "dead" for four days. "Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?"
The raising of Lazarus from the dead is the most dramatic of all the other "signs" that Jesus works in the Gospel of John. But it is not the last and greatest sign. Early in the gospel, Jesus tells Nicodemus that it is when he (Jesus) is "lifted up" then all who believe will have eternal life. [John 3:14] That "lifting up" is ahead of us in Holy Week. The seeming contradictions in all of this (How can the Messiah die like a common criminal?) are a test of anyone's faith. Thomas proves that later on after the resurrection! (He is also the one who grumbles about going to Lazarus' tomb.) On the level of unbelief, the dramatic raising of Lazarus is the final straw for the opponents. The last act in the play will begin next weekend with Palm Sunday.
I deliberately left Jesus' question "unanswered" in the quote above, because this is the question to be taken into the events of Holy Week. It is not the raising of Lazarus that is at issue. It is the matter of "life" and Jesus' power to give it. I have to ask myself and everyone else, "Do you believe this?" AMEN
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