Fifth Sunday of Lent A 2020
Ezk 37:12-14; Rom 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45
March 29, 2020

 

Today’s Gospel presents us with a scene that is all too familiar to us, people weeping over the death of a loved one. Of all the causes of tears, death and the sorrow that accompanies it, is the chief reason (culprit). Death is like winter, only worse. In nature’s winter, life doesn’t cease, it merely goes underground. The outward dies, but not the core. But in the winter of death, life seems to cease altogether. Death seems to rob us of everything.

When the winter of death came for Lazarus, his sisters, Martha and Mary, were plunged into grief. It is natural, right, and healthy that people should grieve when death robs them of a family member or a friend. But Jesus didn’t leave them alone in their grief; he came to them and shared their grief. He was so overcome with sorrow that he broke down in tears, an act that tells us more about Jesus’ heartfelt sympathy and solidarity than a thousand words.

Jesus didn’t leave it at that. He challenged them to have faith in him. Jesus said to them, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die (to this life), will live. Do you believe this?” Martha replied , “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world.”

It cannot have been easy for Mary and Martha to believe as all the evidence was against them. Nevertheless, they believed. Faith isn’t easy for us either. Death constitutes the severe test of our faith.

One of the greatest statements in the Gospel is , “I am the resurrection and the life.”

This statement tells us that Jesus holds the key to life and death. Though he experienced the winter of death, by rising from the dead in our mortal humanity, he broke the power of death forever. Jesus entered the dark kingdom of death and emerged victorious. Thus, he has become a guide, a pathfinder for us. Jesus has caused a new and unconquerable spring to dawn on all who believe in him.

We feel sad at the onset of winter. It is hard to believe in spring, when we see snow on the hills and feel a bitter wind in our faces.

However, we are not hopeless because we know that spring will eventually renew everything again. In the same way, we are sad when the winter of death claims the life of a loved one, and when we think of our own death. Yet, (Nevertheless), we are not overwhelmed. What sustains us is our faith in Jesus, the resurrection and the life.

Just as the expectation of spring takes the sting out of winter, so the resurrection of Jesus takes the sting out of death.

Eternal life is not something that begins when we die. It begins the moment we hear the voice of Jesus and believe in him.

Even in the midst of winter, we know that spring is already quietly at work, though its full blossoming is still in the future.

 

Fr. Stephen Lattner, O.S.B.