SUNDAY OF LAZAR

5th Sunday of Lent – A: (Ezek 37:12-14; Rom 8:8-11; John 11:1-45)
Theme: We will also go and die with Him.

Reflection:
- We will remember that we are still in the journey towards Him, who is the source of life and grace.
- We will go back little to realize clearly where we stand and what is the point of our departure in our pilgrimage towards the Calvary.
- Last Sunday we mediated that we have to walk towards the ‘lake of Siloam’ to wash ourselves to be healed and to be purified.
- Every day and every week of the lent teach us to intensify our journey towards the Paschal Glory of the Resurrection with the imitation of the Christian virtues like that of renunciation (first Sunday), of transformation (second Sunday), of immersion in the Living Water (third Sunday), and of the washing in the One who is ‘sent’ (fourth Sunday).
- In the same manner, this week, the fifth Sunday of Lent, the Sunday of Lazar, we are to move towards the suffering and death (Christ moves towards the Jerusalem) and in this way we have the consequence/the fruit that follows: the glory of resurrection and life.

First reading

- The prophecy of Ezekiel: If the prophecy of Isaiah rotates itself around the Hope of Israel in the promise of God, the prophecy of Ezekiel is around the Spirit which will be poured out.
- The promise of God to the people of Israel who are in the tombs of suffering, of slavery and of perdition of proper life: “You shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil” (Ezek 37:13-14). Thus, the promise of God after calling into life the dry bones (37th Chapter) is comprised of his four actions in which He would:
o Open the tombs : opening the life that is like a grave closed with all the disbelief, with all the malice, with all the pride and with all the disobedience but seem to be ‘the whitewashed tombs’ which appear to be beautiful outside because of its colors but inside is full of rotten and useless material.
o Bring up from the grave: grave is the not the permanent house/residence of the people of God. Grave is only the place to keep the dead. Who believes in God is no more dead but already alive in Christ through the Spirit (Jesus’ words in the Gospel of today can be recalled). Grave is the requirement to bury the dead in the thinking of the world. But, God does not will that his faithful is in the grave. And so He breaks open the tomb (destroys the sting of death in the thought of St. Paul) and brings UP (and thus, we can rise in faith, hope and love also from the daily falling and failings in life) those who sleep in grave (the continual pain of death in the thought of St. Paul).
o Put His Spirit within: Once one is raised up from the death, there is no loss but only gain (I lose everything in order to gain my life in Christ: the words of St. Paul). Once the grave is open the dead is brought back from it, there is no more the perdition but re-breathing of the life. Thus the passage from the grave to grace, from the loss to gain, from the death to life and finally from the powers of evil to the powers of the Spirit. God’s promise of pouring out the Spirit in his people is always present in the full manner in the prophecy of Ezekiel. The fruit of the Spirit is life: “I will put my spirit within you and you shall live” (37:14).
o Place you on your own soil: Opening the tomb, bringing up from the grave and finally pouring the spirit within are not the end in themselves. It is a process. Process from one condition to the other; from one state of life to the other; from one situation to another. And this process has a purpose. The purpose is TO BE IN THE OWN SOIL. To be in one’s own place is an unending joy that one can have. For the people of God the true soil is not this world and they are absolutely aware of this. God at the end of the process of redeeming plan, places everyone who has heard Him and lived for Him in the place/in the soil of His bosom (I am going to prepare a place for you so that you would be where I am: the word of Jesus). This is the final end of the journey the people of God has to reach: being in the bosom/house of God.

Second reading

- While the first reading talks about the promise of the Spirit, Paul carefully observes and admonishes the presence of the Spirit. Between the pouring out of the Spirit (the promise of the first reading) and the presence of the Spirit (the actual action of the Spirit of the second reading) there is the total commitment and perfect obedience of Jesus Christ who is the cause of this realization of the Spirit in the believer.
- Paul’s preaching of the Spirit is always in reference and in contrast to the flesh. The best example of this statement is same as in the reading of today. He says that for the one who believes Christ is in him (v.10), when Christ is there, there is also His Spirit (v.11). Being in the desires of the flesh (and being dominated by them: v.8) is not the will of God (cannot please God: v.8). On the contrary, the one who allows himself to be dominated and dwelt by the Spirit is always with the life and though dead because of sin, he will be brought back to the life in the Spirit (v.11).
- God, whose spirit was staying on the waters in the beginning, wills that this dwelling of the His Spirit always happens in the life of the believer. For this reason when the presence of the spirit was rejected by man and thus he lost his life of grace, God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, the giver of the Spirit, into the world so that this presence of the Spirit will be effected once again.

Gospel

The love of Jesus for the family of Martha, Mary and Lazar
- First of all, the love of Jesus is for all without any conditions:
o This is the main theme that flows in each and every word of the Gospel of John.
o God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to save the world (Jn 3:16): the salvation of Jesus, according to John, is ‘to bring back man fallen in sin (therefore into the grave: the first reading) to the bond of love of God’.
o The Son, who has come into the world to seek and save man, in reality, has called all those around him ‘friends’. We shall remember the bond of friendship that Jesus establishes between Him and his disciples: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15).
o The Spirit, the fruit of the love between the Father and the Son, is also given as the Helper to search into the truth of love.
o This love of the Trinity always abides in those who listen and keep his commandments because love leads to the knowledge and the embracing of the Word of God, that is, Jesus Christ: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home (and thus here we can remember the promise of the first reading: keeping on OWN SOIL) with them” (John 14:23).

- Love of Jesus for the family of love
o Exactly this is fulfilled in the situation of Bethany and in the family of Martha, Mary and Lazar.
 They have listened to the word of God (Luke 10)
 They have learnt from Jesus the one and same experience and thus both of them are able to express their hope in the words more similar: “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (frist Martha in v.21 and then Mary in v.32). They could bear the same experience because they have so intimately followed Jesus.
o And finally they have received the fruit of love: the life and the resurrection (I will open the grave and bring you up from the grave: the first reading).
o The visible testimony is: the return of Lazar to life; his journey from the grave to the glory.

The attitude of Jesus towards the sickness is not that of negative but of positive
- Illness non for the death but for the revelation of the glory of God:
o This is also underlining theme of John’s Jesus. Jesus is not just the fulfillment of the Old Testament but He is the Final Revelation of God to man.
o We have another occasion that of last week’s, in which, Jesus views differently at the born blind man. He is not here to judge who is at sin and who is in judgment. He is here on earth to manifest God’s unconditional love and His eternal glory to the humanity.
o Therefore, in every condition of man, whether physical sickness or spiritual astray, Jesus likes to see only how the love and glory of God can be recognized in those various situations.
o As humans and as the ones who choose their life in freedom they have these unavoidable conditions and these become part of their daily life; so also as the believers and as those who hope in the will of God in faith they have also the unavoidable grace and these moments of grace (prayer and liturgy) have to become part of their daily life.
o In this way, the believer can change his mode of viewing the daily happenings in a normal way and can learn to view them differently as the occasions for the manifestation of God’s glory.
o If this happens, there will be less murmur, less blame, less curse, less grudge. Instead there will be more reflection, more introspection, more examination of conscience and more praise. In every situation God can be glorified. After all it is the play of God’s love as Padre Pio says: “when God listens to your prayer give him glory, even if he doesn’t, give him glory all the same; because it’s only the play of his love.”
- Jesus makes use of this occasion as time for the revelation of truth
o Last week, in the miracle of born blind man, Jesus turns the occasion into the time of teaching and thus from the story he reveals himself as the Light of the world (John 9:5) and that the darkness/night (the time of devil and his operations) is over and the light/day (the time of Jesus and his message) has come.
o Even today, in the miracle of calling Lazar to life, Jesus makes it a time of teaching and thus from the story he reveals himself once again as Light and says ‘as long as one is in the light he will not stumble’ (John 11:9-10).
o Thus for John, Jesus is not just a miracle worker or just a preacher of the kingdom of God but more over and above all, He is the revelation of God in the midst of humanity (John 1:14).

The manifestation of Jesus’ fullness of humanity and divinity is very clear in this context
- We shall remember that this is not the only occasion for this manifestation because we see this throughout the gospel of John
- But in this particular context:
o The humanity of Jesus is manifested in its fullness: in the cry for his friend Lazar and for his family. Jesus is truly human. He has experienced and lived all the moments of humanity (as St. Paul reminds us that He is like us in all things except sin).
o The divinity of Jesus is manifested in its fullness: in the rapport and in the communion that he has with His Father and which is seen in his prayer at the grave of Lazar.
o Even our divinity can be manifested in our personal communion with God in prayer and our humanity can be manifested in our personal communication with the others in charity. This is the love of God and love of neighbor that we need to cherish.

Let us also go, that we may die with him:
- The strange words of Thomas is our central part of our reflection today
o Jesus and his disciples know well that the Jews are planning to kill Jesus because of various confrontations that he has with them and we see them very obviously in the preceding chapters.
o Jesus who remained silent for two days after hearing that Lazar was sick, finally, decides to go to Judea. We can positively see the silence of Jesus towards the bad news the illness of his friend, Lazar.
 His delay is not because he doesn’t want to go and heal him immediately; His delay is not also for the reasons of fear of Jews who plot to gnash him; His silence is not a pleasing act for himself also.
 He always waits for his hour of manifestation of the glory of God (the time and moment of his Father’s will and action). This hour is more important for all his events because it is the will of God which for him is the food and water. We can have reference to this hour in the wedding of Cana.
 All other things fall in the sphere this hour for their final glorification: in the case of man born blind, in offering the sight; in the case of Lazar, more than just illness, in offering the life from the death.
o His hour has come to Judea and He tells them that it’s a time to go to glorify the Lord in raising the Lazar from the death in front of all the people. The revelation of God’s glory in Christ takes its high point once again as it was preceded by the miracle of sight to the born blind man. This is the will of God and Jesus does this with full knowledge and obedience.
o But on the part of the disciple they still have in mind the fearfulness of their travel towards Judea and yet, John inserts the words of Thomas in the meaningful manner which signifies that:
 Even if they do not understand fully the ways and words of Jesus they want to follow him because for them at that moment he is the messiah.
 They know that they have to make difficult confrontations with the Jews but they are confident because Jesus can make them very easily and they had past experience of this.
 Particularly Thomas who will one day deny, to believe him unless he sees the living proofs of his death, the wounds, now, shows the radical acceptance Jesus’ ways. Though he is not clear of what he says he certainly makes the decisive movement of his obedience and love for him.

Conclusion

- We also travel towards the partaking of Jesus’ suffering and death so that we will be again raised with him.
o Our Lenten journey should always towards the acceptance of this suffering with the love for God and neighbor and thus glorifying Him alone.
o It also tests our attitude in enduring the daily hurdles in life and how we treat them and how we live them.
o It also teaches us how to meditate on the silence of God or delay of God in the needful situations of our life.
o It also exalts us to be in the family of Jesus and to be intimately related to him so that his love is manifested to us in the ways pleasing to God alone.
- We journey towards the hope that God will
o Break open our daily burdens
o Bring us up from our daily cries
o Put in us his spirit of love and obedience and finally
o Lead us to our real soil, the bosom of the Father.
- There we will see him face to face and partake perfectly in his love and share the glory of sons of God where we always sing his glory, his power and his praises, Amen.