After the offertory prayer, the priest offers a prayer called the Eucharistic preface. You know the one. The priest standing at the altar prepared with the gifts of bread and wine, prays, the lord be with you, and you respond “and with your spirit”, lift up your hearts, we lift them up to the Lord, let us give thanks to the Lord our God, it is right and just.
And the prayer that follows that little dialogue is called the Eucharistic preface, the preface to the Eucharistic prayer. And normally, the Eucharistic preface is unique to the season—there are eucharistic prefaces for ordinary time, and advent, and lent, nuptial masses, and funerals. But there are a few Eucharistic prefaces that can be used only once a year, on a particular Sunday or feast.
Well, the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent are such days. And if you remember from the last two weeks, and as you’ll hear later in this mass, the beautiful Eucharistic prefaces correspond to the Lenten Gospels readings.
So, two weeks ago, when we heard the Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well, the Eucharistic Preface referenced that reading. Listen again to the beautiful preface. “For when Jesus asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink , he had already created the gift of faith within her; and so ardently did he thirst for her faith, that he kindled in her the fire of divine love.” So many profound theological insights packed into one simple prayer. Jesus thirsts for our faith, and even before we come to faith, God is at work, kindling in our hearts, love for God. This certainly makes us think of the catechumens, in whom God has been at work there whole lives to bring them here, to bring them to faith.
Then last week, when heard the Gospel of Jesus commanding the man born blind to go down into the pool of Bethesda to be healed. And then the Eucharistic Preface spoke of those waters by which we are healed of darkness and spiritual blindness. Listen to last week’s preface. It goes: “By the mystery of the Incarnation, Christ has led the human race that walked in darkness into the radiance of the faith and has brought those born in slavery to ancient sin through the waters of regeneration to make them God’s adopted children.”
Again, notice the connection with the Gospel and the rich and profound theological insights the Eucharistic Preface brings to mind. Like the man born blind, the human race without Christ walks in darkness, but sight is restored, it is regenerated through baptism, when we are made adopted children of God. Restored relationship with God brings healing, brings spiritual sight.
In our Gospel for this fifth Sunday of Lent, we just heard the raising of Lazarus. And we are given the third of these special Eucharistic prefaces which correspond to the Lenten Gospel. Listen to these words: “For as true man, [Jesus] wept for Lazarus his friend and as eternal God raised him from the tomb, just as, taking pity on the human race, he leads us by sacred mysteries to new life.”
Again, how beautiful and theologically rich! We are given this reminder that Jesus was truly human. He wept. He had a heart that experienced human emotion. Sadness. Grief at the death of friend. He knows what it is like to grieve like we grieve. God, who is infinite and inaccessible light, took on human flesh and experienced pain, emotional and physical.
And this is an important truth for us to ponder as we near holy week. Next week, as we read the Lord’s passion, we keep in mind, that Jesus’ suffering isn’t just for show, it wasn’t theater, he was moved by real love to undergo real suffering for us, the weight and penalty of every sin which warranted eternal separation from God, the venial and mortal of our lives, out of love for us.
But then, the Eucharistic preface, after reminding us of Jesus’ real humanity, then reminds us of Jesus’ real divinity. As a human like us, he wept, then as God, he raised the dead.
Resurrection. It is the natural course of dead things to stay dead. Forever. To die and rot. That’s natural. Dead things and dead people cannot come back to life on their own. We only come back to life by the power of God. Science and medical technology can resuscitate things that aren’t really fully dead yet. Only “mostly dead” to quote the classic film. But once fully dead, a person or an animal is dead, beyond science and medical technology. Death is an absolute limit to our human capabilities. Lazarus was dead. He was rotting. There was stench.
And as eternal God, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. No religious leader, in any world religion, at any time, in human history, raised anyone from the dead, save Jesus. Because every religious leader, of any world religion, at any time, save one, was merely human. Even the Jewish prophets, through whom God worked a lot of marvelous things, never raised anyone from the dead.
Why follow Jesus Christ? Why seek baptism and faithfulness to him? The promise of being raised from the dead is a pretty and living forever in God’s kingdom of peace is a pretty good reason. And it’s not just an empty promise. The promise of some delusional cult leader. Jesus shows us what God is capable of, what God longs to do. He’s done it before. And at Easter, we celebrate that Jesus Himself was raised from the dead. No other religious leader can make that claim either.
Resurrection: it’s really the ultimate argument against anyone who says all religions are the same. No. They aren’t. Show me a member of another religion who not only raised the dead but also rose from the dead. And then maybe we’ll talk.
But again, this beautiful reading and eucharistic preface about resurrection prepares us for Holy Week. Death doesn’t get the last word. And so as people of faith we willingly follow the Lord all the way to the cross. Because we know that the cross isn’t the end of the story.
But it really makes you wonder, doesn’t it, why Peter and the other apostles fled in fear. They had witnessed the raising of Lazarus. They had been given this glimpse into who Jesus is. What were they afraid of? Well, we know that too, don’t we. Because, even though we’ve been baptized, and we have faith in the resurrection, we still flee from suffering for the kingdom; we flee into myriad sins because sin is the old comfort zone, the ingrained habit, the weakness of man that has yet to be brought to God to be healed.
But that’s why the last part of that Eucharistic preface is so important: God, taking pity on us, leads us by the sacred mysteries to new life. Yes we are sinners. Yes, we are works in progress. And we recognize that as sinners we are being led to eternal life. And we so return week after week to the sacred mysteries, to the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is our pledge of eternal life. Christ promises that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood shall be raised on the last day. The Eucharist is the remedy for mortality, as our dear Patron St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote nearly 2000 years ago. Ignatius writes, “Assemble yourselves together in common; breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but live forever in Jesus Christ.”
By these sacred mysteries, may we be strengthened in faith and love, healed of sin and selfishness, and live in firm and unshakeable hope in the resurrection through Christ for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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