Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A | Jesus the Giver of New Life
1st Rdg Ezekiel 37: 12-14, Psalm 130, 2nd Rdg Roman’s 8:8-11, Gospel John 11:1-45
As we draw closer to the climax of our Lenten journey we ought to brace ourselves for a tougher and rougher ride, following Christ in his passion and death. It is important to quickly remind ourselves of the three pillars of lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving and their purposes: healing our relationships with God, self and others respectively. Healing implies first and foremost a loss, damage or disconnection of something essential that needs to be recreated, reconstructed, renewed or restored. Today the readings invite us to reflect on death, the ultimate representation of loss, damage or disconnection of relationships.
The Painful Reality of Death
In one of the vigil Masses of the late Fr. Joseph Okwara MHM, the parish priest of his home parish was invited to speak to the mourners. He spoke for only one minute saying, “while Joseph was living with me in the parish until last week, every morning as I woke up to go for morning prayers I knocked at his door and greeted asking how are you? The response was always “I am fine Fr. Paul”, followed by a laughter. Yesterday as I went for morning prayers, I knocked at the door but there was silence….. Joseph is no longer with us…..”
The death of Lazarus of Bethany
Lazarus of Bethany was the only brother of two sisters, Martha and Mary and the three of them were very close friends of Jesus. Therefore his death was a big blow to the family and to Jesus their friend.
There are interesting details in the names Lazarus and Bethany. Lazarus is the Greek/Latin form of the Jewish name Eleazar. The name Eleazar(El-God and lazor to help) in Hebrew means God has helped. Quite close to the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke (Lk 16: 19-31). Bethany is also from two Hebrew words Beth meaning house of and ani meaning the poor or affliction. Therefore Bethany is house/village of affliction. Located outside the city of Jerusalem, it must have been occupied by the poor who couldn’t afford life in the city similar to present day slums and all things associated with them such as being crowded, filthy, prostitution and crimes.
Jesus loved Bethany and particularly the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. No doubt John records the last and perhaps the most important sign to have taken place in Bethany, the house of the poor and to Lazarus, one who relies only on the help of God; a brother to Martha who out of her poverty provided for the material needs of Jesus such as food and shelter and Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus to listen to him, wiped his feet with her hair and anointed them with oil. Their love for Jesus was immense and Jesus’ love for them is evident, he wept with them for the passing on of Lazarus. He felt the loss and moved with compassion brought Lazarus back to life.
Our Losses
“Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord; Lord hear my voice.” Ps 130
We have all suffered loses of different kinds and at different levels. Loss comes with pain that pierces us to the core of our being. It leaves us with questions such as why me, why now, where is God in all this, why did he allow this to happen, what wrong have I done to deserve this? Loss humbles and often times humiliates us. It brings us to the Bethany experience of affliction, helplessness and poverty. In loss, we become a Lazarus, one in need of help or who is helped by God. In the first reading, God saw the suffering of the Israelites in exile they were humiliated, dehumanized and as good as dead. Seeing their suffering and humiliation, God promises them life through prophet Ezekiel. He will breathe his spirit in them and they shall live again as a people in their own land. This promise has been fulfilled in the person of Jesus who knows, understands and shares in our sufferings (Heb. 4:15-16). He is a high priest who is in total solidarity with us but sin as we shall commemorate in his passion and death in the coming week. He weeps when we weep, mourns when we mourn, and empathizes with us to the extent of paying the ultimate price that we may live.
In a world engulfed with wars, corruption, greed, racism, religious extremism that cause deaths of thousands of people daily mostly innocent children and women, we need to pause and reflect. Christ wept for Lazarus, how much more is he weeping for the thousands that die daily in senseless wars, of preventable causes such as road accidents, treatable diseases and homicides? Martha and Mary grieved the death of their only brother Lazarus. What about entire families and villages wiped out within a second with drones, who grieves for them?
Where are the Bethanies of today in our neighborhoods and who are the Lazaruses that cry for help? As Jesus often visited Bethany and lived there, we are challenged to breakdown the walls that separate us with our brothers and sisters who need our help, we are challenged to build bridges that reconnect us and renew our relationships as one human family. As the saying goes a burden shared is a burden half solved, let us learn or relearn the human and Christian practice of being in solidarity with the afflicted and poor.
Martha and Mary in times of affliction ran to Jesus, let us keep our eyes focused on Christ who tells us, “your brother/sister will rise again”, “take away the stone” and calls out, “Lazarus come out”. What is it in our lives, families, communities and world that needs renewal and resurrection? What are the stones in our lives, families, communities and world that need to be taken away for life to issue out? Do we hear the voice of Christ calling us out of our afflictions, out of our self-made graves and out of those in which we have been condemned by society. Jesus is in effect challenging us to stop afflicting others, killing and burying them?
MARK O. MHM
