Sunday reflections - FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Ezekiel 37: 12-14; Romans 8: 8-11, John 11: 1-45

(Rev. Dr. Francis Perry Azah)

Today, in the first reading, God pictures the exile of the Israelites from their homeland to Babylon as living in bondage to sin. The reading describes the Prophet Ezekiel's contemplation of a valley of dry bones. The dry bones represented the people of Israel, brought low by their own sins. Before God could raise them, they had to face the reality of what they had done. Looking at the First Reading, we can see that Ezekiel’s prophecy is a metaphor for how Israel’s God might restore life to a lifeless, defeated people. Ezekiel ministered as a prophet before, during, and after the destruction of Jerusalem, its temple, and all of Judea by the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar II. The destruction was total. The Jewish people themselves had all their zest for life beaten out of them.

They were reduced to slaves, which reminded them of their ancestors’ servitude in Egypt nearly a thousand years before. They were being transported from their own holy land, God’s land, to a foreign land dedicated to pagan gods and goddesses. They wondered how they could survive there. How could they believe that? How could they maintain their covenant with their God there? Did their covenant still hold between God and them? It seemed to them that their God had abandoned them to a cruel and destructive pagan power. Their collective “spirit” was gone. Their life as a political nation ended.

They were metaphorically dead, even if they still breathed and worked and existed. Mere existence was not the same thing as genuine life! God’s prophets had warned them, but they turned a deaf ear to all remonstrance and warnings. When the foretold calamity fell, they turned to Yahweh, but it was too late. However, when they had done their penance in Babylon, Yahweh came to their aid once more and brought them back to Judah and Jerusalem, where they eventually rebuilt the city and their temple and where they remained until the promised Messiah came.

The Gospel reading tells us how, in Jesus Christ, the life-giver, the hopelessness of death is overcome. In the reading, death is used to describe either the absence of life through physical death or through spiritual death. The Good News today is that Jesus gives life to all who are dead physically or spiritually. This way, he restores hope to believers.   For most of us, death is about the worst thing we can imagine for ourselves and for those we love. The thought of it is enough to make us freak out. But by raising Lazarus from the dead and by his own resurrection, Jesus tells us that in him, death is not an end but a transition to eternal life. As he puts it, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jon 14:6).

Resurrection awaits believers, and the sign that we will be raised is that the Spirit who raised Jesus lives in us (Rom 8:11). This is what we celebrate in Lent: that in his death, our death is destroyed, and in his resurrection, our eternal life is assured. This fact gives hope and makes life meaningful. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead physically, in his body. He had been dead for four days. Jesus had previously raised the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8:41-42, 49-56) and the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), and in the Old Testament, Elijah and Elisha raised people from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:17-37). But nowhere is there an instance of someone being raised from the dead after four days, and this is the crowning miracle of Jesus’ ministry. In fact, in John’s Gospel, it becomes the main reason leading to Jesus’ death. (John 11:45-53) If Jesus can restore a body that had been in the tomb for four days and had begun to decompose, he can certainly mend the brokenness and wounds of our lives.

Jesus calls forth Lazarus from the tomb, and Lazarus lives again. He does this, he says, so that they will see “the glory of God.” He prepares his disciples and friends, and he prepares us also, for what is to come. He makes known that he is the resurrection and the life, and that life is available not just on the last day but now, a life in the Spirit, life abundantly, and that is what it means to believe in Jesus. There will be no break in the life that comes from being united to God. In the present, in everyday life, not just in the presence of Jesus but even when he has risen to the right hand of his Father, those who believe in him will experience the fullness of life.

As we move forward to the Passion and Triduum, let us affirm and hold fast to this truth. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. His death and resurrection have united us to God in a bond that cannot be broken. Because he lives, we also have life abundantly. Let us this week reflect on our own deaths, our own transgressions, our own fears, yet see them surrounded and crammed by the light of the Good News of the resurrection that Christ provides for us. By really looking at ourselves and the ways we need to improve, and by reaching out to others, we can approach this resurrection day with less fear and trembling, and with the hope that all those who witnessed the resurrection of Lazarus felt on that day. May God bless you as we continue our journey of faith in this last week before Holy Week.