Word to the Wise
Sunday, March 26, 2023 - 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-45,47]"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 said to 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?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." [John]
For sheer drama, it would be hard to beat the event and story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. On the level of events, it was the last straw for Jesus' adversaries. [cf John 11:45-55]. They were going to get rid of him. On the level of story and meaning, the evangelist John gives us the words quoted above. The dialogue is in a familiar pattern. Martha greets Jesus as someone who can do wonders with the help of God. Jesus replies on a different level. Martha shows her ignorance of his true identity by asserting a faith that most Jews professed in regard to resurrection on the last day. Jesus corrects her by saying that HE is the resurrection and faith in him means eternal life NOW and in the life to come. [cf the dialogues with Nicodemus (ch. 3) and the Samaritan woman (ch 4)]. Martha then makes her wonderful profession of faith [cf. the apostle Thomas (20:24-29).
The principal purpose of Lent is not just to remind us of the necessity to do penance but, even more, to prepare us to celebrate Jesus as the resurrection and the life and to profess our faith in him just as Martha does. I have said here before that one way to sum up the entire Gospel According to John is the statement: Jesus is the one whom God has sent. In short, God has "sent" God's own "self" and not a mere mortal!! It is faith in Jesus as the source of all life that can enable us to face and understand not just the death of our loved ones, but our own death, which becomes simply an event in the life of faith. Lazarus would "die" again one day, but he would, like us, continue to live forever. Jesus asks Martha, "Do you believe this?" Do we respond like Martha did? "Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." AMEN