5th Sunday of Lent 2021 - Jesus raises the dead to new life

Two weeks ago we heard the story of the woman at the well.  She encountered the Lord Jesus, who said to her, “I will give you living water, which alone can satisfy”.  She represents all of us, all thirsting for God. Jesus invites all people of all time to drink deeply of the living waters of God through Him.

Last week we heard of the man born blind.  Again, he is all of us, born in the blindness of sin.  We desire to do good and avoid evil, but it’s not always easy to see clearly. Sometimes our egos, our sinful attachments are so great, they blind us to seeing how God wants us to live rightly. Jesus says to the man born blind and to all of us, “I am the light of the world.”  If you want to see rightly, let the light of my life and my teachings enlighten you. 

These stories in John’s Gospel move toward a sort of crescendo. I am living water which quenches thirst. I am the light by which you see. And today Jesus speaks the greatest of the “I am” statements.  He says, “I am the resurrection and the life” without which you are not fully alive nor will you experience the life of the resurrection. 

What is our God interested in?  Life!  One of my favorite quotations from the early Church fathers is from St. Ireneus of Lyons, who said, Gloria Dei Homo Vivens, “the glory of God is Man fully alive.”  Jesus himself said, I came that they might have life, and have it to abundance. Christ died, that we may live, free from sin, full of divine life.  

God’s glory, what gives God happiness, is that we are fully alive.  Conversely, what saddens the heart of God is when we continue to allow death to reign in us at any level, physically, emotionally, spiritually.  

God speaking through in Ezekiel in the first reading says, “I will open your graves and have you rise from them.”  He’s not just speaking of our final resting place here.  Whatever grave you are in: perhaps an inability to forgive someone, perhaps a jealousy, an inability to grieve the loss of a loved one, or an addiction, or habitual sin, whatever is limiting your life.  Think of laying in a grave, there is no place to move, you are constricted, unable to move, tied up, and God says, from your graves, I will have you rise up.”  God wants life for us.  Jesus , the incarnate Word of God speaks this truth, “I AM the resurrection and the life.”  We are made to have His life in us.

There are three people raised from the dead, given to life, by Jesus in the Gospels.  The first one is the daughter of Jairus. Remember the little girl who died in her home when Jesus was on the way to heal her?  The daughter of Jairus. The second is the son of the widow of Naim.  Jesus sees the widow weeping as they brought out the body of her son, and Jesus is moved to raise him from the dead.  The third is of course, Lazarus.

St. Augustine offered a reflection on these three raisings.  Augustine says these three raisings stand for three types of spiritual death from which we can be raised by Jesus’ love and mercy.

Because Jairus’ daughter dies in her house, St. Augustine says that her death symbolizes the sort of spiritual death that remains locked up in us, the sort of sins that poisons us from the inside: the resentments, the old grudges.  They aren’t necessarily expressed in words or actions, they just sort of fester within us, poisoning our thoughts, isolating us from others 

The soul suffering from this sort of spiritual death might say, “Lord, I’m a good person, I don’t do a lot of evil things, so I must be fine”.  All the while there is anger and resentment and impatience stewing within. In this persons life you’ll see some broken, unmended relationships, and a lot of missed opportunities to go out in the life of the Spirit. Jesus raises the daughter of Jairus, dead in her house, , just as he wants to heal us from all of our interior sinful attitudes to increase in us the life of generosity and compassion.

Secondly, the son of the widow of Naim.  He had died and was being carried outside the house to the cemetery. St. Augustine says, the widow’s son symbolizes that spiritual death, that sin, that comes out from the heart and the mind and has begun to express itself in action.  Anger, resentment, impatience expressed in words and actions and gestures.  Jesus approaches this person too, and offers new life, a new way of interacting with others. 

The third person Jesus raises from the dead is our friend Lazarus.  Lazarus has been carried out of the house and placed in a tomb.  By the time Jesus gets there, Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days.  When the Lord instructs them to roll away the stone that blocks the tomb, his sister, famously says, “but Lord, surely,  there will be a stench.”

St. Augustine says that Lazarus in his grave, stinking and rotting, symbolizes that evil, that spiritual death, that not only has come out of the heart in words and actions, but has established itself as a habitual part of one’s life.  Now, the anger and the hatred and the violence and the lust and the greed, have come out, and have become such a part of my life and my activity, that, I have begun to stink, and it’s affecting the people around me—one’s family, one’s community, one’s nation or the world—depending on one’s position of influence. I think of the Hollywood Elites, Popular Musicians, and politiians..who, well, just stink, who set such bad example, especially for children. But Jesus offers new life to these souls as well. 

So we have these three types of sin, the interior, the exterior, and that…well…stinkiest, ugliest sort of sin.  I remember reading that Saint Christina, whose relics are stored at our diocesan Cathedral, by the way, would become nauseated when she was in the presence of people whose souls were dead and rotting because of mortal sin.

But, at the heart of today’s Gospel, is that Jesus does come, even to the grave of Lazarus, and he brings him back to life.  Jesus goes even into the furthest, smelliest, ugliest souls and invites us back to life.  

From time to time, a priest hears someone say, “Father, believe me, what I’ve done is so bad, even God can’t forgive me.  Don’t talk to me about confession because that won’t help.”  Not true. Nobody, not even those who are entrenched in evil are beyond the reach of the forgiving power of Christ.

Now looking at our own life, we might not be Lazarus, but it is highly unlikely that any of us are without a bit of grave rot. For those powers of death are always seeking to reclaim territory lost to Jesus. So the saints recommend frequent Sacramental Confession, to claim our lives for Christ once again.

This Wednesday, a guest priest and I will offer confessions from 5 to 8 here in the Church. If it’s been more than a year since your last confession, you are over due. 

Notice, too, that Martha and Mary, lead Jesus to the tomb of Lazarus. There are likely souls, who are dead and rotting, who we must lead Jesus to by our prayers and penances. We should never pretend, that just because it’s 2021, that some sins are now okay. And souls can live without a living relationship with Jesus Christ. It cannot be done. I know, it’s unpleasant to think that some souls are in danger of hell. But that should motivate us all the more to pray and evangelize.

For the Lord is willing to go to the deepest darkest places in order to bring forgiveness and healing and new life, but sometimes he wants us to lead him there.

May our conviction that he is the resurrection of life spurn us on in our Lenten journey to Easter, in the journey from sin and selfishness to new life, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: 5th Sunday of Lent 2017 - Rotting souls raised to life

 On this fifth Sunday of Lent we hear another of these magnificent stories from the Gospel of John.  Two weeks ago we heard the story of the woman at the well.  Caught up in a rhythm of sin and thirsting for God , she encountered the Lord Jesus, who said to her, “I will give you living water, which alone can satisfy”.  She represents all of us, all thirsting for God, but all to often trying to quench that thirst in all the wrong places.

Last week we heard of the man born blind.  Again, he is all of us, born in the blindness of sin.  Our minds so often clouded and confused, even in our attempts to live righteously.  Jesus says to him and to all of us, “I am the light of the world.”  If you want to see rightly, be grafted on to me.
 
As we near the end of Lent, these stories in John’s Gospel move toward a sort of crescendo.  He is living water, he says, “I am the light”.  And today Jesus speaks the greatest of the “I am” statements.  He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

What is our God interested in?  Life!  One of my favorite quotations from the early Church fathers is from St. Ireneus of Lyons, who said, Gloria Dei Homo Vivens, “the glory of God is the human being fully alive.”  Jesus himself said, I came that they might have life, and have it to abundance.
Christ died, that we may live, free from sin, full of divine life.

God’s glory, what gives God happiness, is that we are fully alive.  Conversely, what saddens the heart of God is when we continue to allow death to reign in us at any level, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

We heard in our first reading about God’s desire to free us from the powers of the grave: “I will open your graves and have you rise from them.”  Of course, this can refer to the resurrection of our bodies when Christ returns. But he’s not just speaking of our final resting place here. The grave also wherever the powers of sin and evil and death reign in us: an addiction, a habitual sin, an inability or unwillingness to forgive, anger and bitterness, perversion, fear of leaving behind the comfortable to follow Christ more devoutly, lack of fervor for the spiritual life…the grave is whatever limits the life of God in you. Think of laying in a grave, there is no place to move, you are constricted, unable to move, tied up, and God says, from your graves, I will have you rise up.”

God’s desire to raise us to new life, can be seen in our wonderful Gospel story of the raising of Lazarus. But, Lazarus is not the only story of Jesus raising the dead in the Gospels. There are three raisings. Can you think of the other two?  The first one is the daughter of Jairus. Remember the little girl who died in her home when Jesus was on the way to heal her?  The second is the son of the widow of Naim.  Jesus sees the widow weeping as they brought out the body of her son, and Jesus is moved to raise him from the dead.  The third is of course, Lazarus.

St. Augustine offered a spiritual reading of these three encounters with the dead.

Because Jairus’ daughter dies in her house, St. Augustine says that her death symbolizes the sort of spiritual death that remains locked up in us, the sort of sins that poisons us from the inside: the resentments, the old grudges.  They aren’t necessarily expressed in words or actions, they just sort of fester within us, poisoning our thoughts, and our wills, and our imagination.  These are the sins we do in private—though no sin is private to God, of course. Jesus raises this little girl, just as he wants to heal us from all of our interior sinful attitudes.

Secondly, the son of the widow of Naim.  He had died and was being carried outside the house to the cemetery. St. Augustine says, he symbolizes the sins, that have begun to express themselves in action.  When the interior anger and resentment, selfishness and lust bubble over in words of actions. But Jesus forgives these too.

The third person Jesus raises from the dead, his friend Lazarus.  Lazarus had been carried out of the house and placed in a tomb.  By the time Jesus gets there, Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days.  His sister, famously says, when Jesus instructs them to roll away the stone that blocks the tomb, “but Lord, surely, there will be a stench.”

St. Augustine says that Lazarus in his grave, symbolizes that evil, that spiritual death, that not only has come out of the heart in words and actions, but has established itself as a habitual.  Now, the anger, the hatred, the violence, the lust, have taken root, and have become such a part of my life and my activity, that, like Lazarus in the tomb, there is a stench, and it’s affecting the people around me.  That anger, addiction, selfishness or lust now affects the well-being of the family. Neighbors begin to avoid us because of our stench.

There was a saint, Saint Christina would become nauseated when in the presence of someone who had an unrepented mortal sin. She could sense that their souls were dead and rotting.

So we have these three types of sin, the interior, the exterior, and that…well…stinkiest, ugliest sorts of sin.  But, at the heart of today’s Gospel, is the message that though our sins are foul, Jesus draws near to us, to bring life. Jesus goes to the smelliest, ugliest soul and invites them back to life.

From time to time, a priest hears someone say, “Father, believe me, what I’ve done is so bad, even God can’t forgive me.” But, our Gospel today says, “false, wrong!”  Nobody, not even those who are entrenched in evil are beyond the reach of the forgiving power of Christ.  He goes into those deepest darkest places, to bring us out of the disgusting muck of sin.

Jesus wept for Lazarus, under the sway of the powers of death.  It breaks God’s heart when we aren’t fully alive.  He doesn’t weep out of anger with us; he weeps when sin and death take his friends.

This Thursday, we will have a penance service. Through Sacramental Confession new life is available to the most hardened sinner. Every Catholic should go to Confession during the Lenten season. If you’ve already confessed, thanks be to God. If you haven’t come and allow Jesus to raise you out of the grave of sin and dysfunction, to release you from the constrictions of the grave, and to the new and flourishing life of grace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.