March 26, 2023 (Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A)
Today we hear two different stories about resurrection. Both reveal the type of love and compassion that God has for all His people.
The First Reading is from the book of the prophet Ezekiel (Eze. 37:12-14) who prophesied during the time of the Babylonian captivity. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Ezekiel, and he had a vision of the Israelites both in captivity and in Judah. They were living a life of slavery and despair, thinking death would be a more appropriate condition.
Ezekiel envisioned a large expanse, a valley. The floor of the valley was so dense with human bones that it was described as full of bones. The people represented by these bones were not only dead; they were also disgraced. In the thinking of ancient Israel (and the ancient Near East), an unburied corpse with exposed remains was a shocking disgrace to the dead.
God promised to fill the dry bones with breath. He promised to bring flesh upon those bones and cover them with skin. God would make the once dead, dry bones live. This was a work of revival. This was not the creation of life from nothing, nor was it a permanent resurrection. Rather, it was the restoration of life to something that had been long dead.
This was God’s declaration. He remembers His promise from long ago. The bones could never create life within themselves. As the word of the LORD was proclaimed over them, they received God’s promise of life. Their life would be marked by breath living once again in these bones. Then they could return to their homeland to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple and once again live the life promised to them by God two millennium prior.
The vision of Ezekiel is metaphorical. These bones are not being resurrected for the final judgment at the end of time. Rather they represent the enslaved and oppressed being restored to escape captivity and rebuild their lives. The purpose is so that the Israelites will know that theirs is the one, true God and that they must give up their sinfulness and return to Him as the Lord of Israel. The Lord declares, “My dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations shall know that I, the LORD, made Israel holy, by putting my sanctuary among them forever” (Eze. 37:27-28).
In the Gospel for today (Jn 11:1-45) the Lord uses a restoration to life to reveal his identity as the Messiah. Jesus is traveling with his disciples, and he hears word that his dear friend Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, is gravely ill. However, Jesus does not immediately rush to Lazarus, but rather he waits two days knowing that Lazarus will die in that time period. Then he will be able to return Lazarus to life and create a miraculous sign for his disciples and the other Jews present. Jesus pronounces, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (Jn. 11:4).
When Jesus announces his intention to return to Judea to see Lazarus his disciples fear for him because they know that the Jews there are seeking to destroy him. But Jesus will not be swayed. He makes his intention known to his disciples, “Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him” (Jn. 11:15).
Meanwhile Martha and Mary are surrounded by family and friends offering condolences. Lazarus has been dead for four days. When Martha hears that Jesus is coming, she runs out to meet him. She exclaims, “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” (Jn. 11:21). Martha has already come to the understanding of the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, and she believes him when he reassures her that Lazarus will live again.
But Martha confuses this to mean that Lazarus will be raised at the end of time when all people will be resurrected for the final judgment. Jesus corrects her thinking and reassures her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live” (Jn. 11:25). Jesus knows that the raising of Lazarus that he is about to perform will be a positive sign for all of the many Jews who are present but yet do not know his identity.
When Martha’s sister, Mary comes out to meet Jesus, she reprimands him saying if Jesus had been there earlier her brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her and the other Jews weeping he becomes “perturbed and deeply troubled” due to their lack of belief. He begins to weep also, and they mistake his tears for grief. But actually, Jesus weeps because of the danger that the gift of his unconditional love will never be understood or accepted. But when Jesus finally calls Lazarus from the tomb after invoking the Father, we are told “Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him” (Jn. 11:45).
Jesus has been successful. He has made the action of God visible in the lives of all who have witnessed the event. And he has revealed himself to be the resurrection and the life, and the Son of the Father.
There are times when all people have doubts over the presence and magnitude of the Lord’s love for us. We can become despondent and despair over what we feel is the lack of God’s presence when we most need Him. Like the enslaved Israelites, or Martha and Mary and the other Jews we lose sight of the fact that Jesus, the One sent by God, is always present. And through the power of Holy Spirit, even after we die and our spirits live on, we will still have the final resurrection to look forward to, when we’ll be joined to our heavenly bodies to live with Jesus through eternity.
