Fifth Sunday of Lent

We have just heard a story of a death in the family.  It was a sudden death, and devastating to the surviving family members.  The grief of the two sisters of Lazarus cannot be avoided – nor their anger: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  The impact that a death in the family brings is worth thinking about.

Jesus cries twice in the Scripture that we know of – once over Jerusalem and here at Lazarus’s death.  He cries in the face of a death in a family that he loved.  He cries because he has lost his friend.  But perhaps there is another reason he cries.  Jesus is moved to tears because he sees the power of death over the living, and how it effects their relationship with him.  In this story the power of death blocks everyone from coming to full faith in Jesus.

From the very beginning, the focus of those who surround Jesus is on death – not on coming to belief, but on death embracing all of them.  The purpose of this event is to lead to faith, but the disciples do not understand.  We see this in Thomas’ response: “Let us also go to die with him.”

No one in this story comes to full belief, and especially not Martha.  Martha’s conversation with Jesus starts with a rebuke.  “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Martha has only been able to go so far on the way to faith.  Mary goes further.  It looks like Mary has it right – she trusts in Jesus.  But then she is pulled back in the grief of the moment; she goes back to weeping.  And the Jews with her are weeping. 

Here we see the power of death over the living.  There is not one person who is not taken up in grief.  There is no one who trusts in Jesus as the resurrection and the life.  Not the disciples, not Martha, not Mary, not the Jews… no one.  The power of death overwhelms them all.

Death continues to be the greatest threat to faith – to our trusting God.  The power of death is omnipresent in our own day: the endless series of deaths in Syria and the Middle East; the power of death in our own country, as we turn more and more to military power and defense spending to bring peace to the world.  In the face of death, Jesus continues to proclaim: “I am the resurrection and the life.”  And then to ask us who gather around the table, “Do you believe this?”

Lent is a season that allows us to linger at the various graves that life has set before us: the death that ends a life, that severs a relationship, that strangles a spirit.  Lent calls us to look at death and then to look into the face of the One who says, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  At the end of Lent, we are invited to answer his question, “Do you believe this?”

And in the meantime, we continue to do our Lenten preparation: to fast, to pray, and to reach out in generosity and care toward those in need.  To this end, today, we receive the bread of life and the chalice of salvation – to renew our life in Christ, to continue our transformation into an Easter community and new life.

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor