5th Sunday in Lent, 3rd Scrutiny – Remember the Destination
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
“Not only do we know God by Jesus alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what our life is, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.”[1] These words are those of the French philosopher Blaise Pascal in his book Pensées (a collection of his thoughts published in 1670).
Christ not only reveals God to us, but he also reveals to us the true meaning of our lives, our sorrows, our joys, our relationships, and our destination.
In our Gospel passage, when Jesus arrives at the house of Martha and Mary, Lazarus, their brother, has already died. Martha greets him with these words, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (Jn 11:21). [Mary will also greet him with the same words (Jn 11: 32)]. In other words, Martha says to Jesus, “How I wish you were here, because if you had been here, things would be different.” The words of Martha carry a tone of disappointment and a question. We waited for you; why were you not here when we needed you the most? What does all this mean?
How often do we, like Martha, feel lost, feel as if the Lord is not there or is far away in our times of greatest need, or feel as if the Lord does not care? Those Martha moments make life feel empty, unbearable, unfair, and perhaps not worth living. It can be times of sickness, pain, grief, or disappointment. In the first reading, the prophet Ezekiel provides an apt image of those moments: “Dry bones” (37:4). Where is hope for them? What does hope look like when everything seems like “dry bones”?
In response to Martha’s feeling of helplessness, Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he dies, yet shall live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” In other words, Jesus is saying to Martha, I am the one who gives meaning to life and to death. I am life itself. I am the resurrection.
Now, that is a bold claim. No other man or woman ever claimed to be life itself and to be the resurrection. We can go through lists of great founders of religions, etc. Who else ever made such a claim? Confucius? No. Buddha? No. Moses? No. Mohammad? No. George Washington? No. Karl Marx? No. Donald Trump? We wait to see, but in any case, the answer is no. Only Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Only he can say that because only he can back up the claim with actions to confirm it.
Jesus backs up his claim to Martha by raising her brother, Lazarus. We know from the Gospels that, besides raising Lazarus, Jesus performed other resuscitations or raisings. He raised the son of the widow of Nain (Lk 7:11-17) and the daughter of Jairus (Mk 5:35-43). But there is something that is unique about the raising of Lazarus. Whereas in the other raisings, the persons had just died, Lazarus had died many days ago and had been buried. Being that it was already four days since his burial, it was believed that Lazarus’s body had begun to disintegrate. So, Jesus is not only restoring Lazarus to life but to integrity, to wholeness, putting an end to the forces of disintegration and decay. Moreover, calling Lazarus out of the tomb is significant. It points to the destination to which Jesus’ life and mission are directed: the resurrection of the dead, defeating the power of death.
In the context of the Johannine Gospel, it also signals that in his passion and death, Jesus's life will not be taken away from him unwillingly. Pilate, Caiaphas, etc., do not have power over Jesus’ life. Rather, he lays it down freely on his own and has the power to take it up again (Jn 10:18).
As we come to this point in our Lenten journey, the raising of Lazarus gives us a preview of the destination of our journey in Christ: the resurrection, eternal life. The destination of the friends of Jesus is eternal life. Therefore, we are invited to ask ourselves the following question: How can Jesus’s raising of Lazarus serve as a source of hope for us? How does it invite us to re-awaken the gifts of God that remain entombed and need to be set free to flourish in our lives? How does it foster our closeness, friendship with Christ?
Martha and Mary were never the same after Jesus raised their brother. Similarly, we should never be the same. We know our destination and the key to that destination. It is Christ and only Christ. Thus, we can agree with Pascal:
“Not only do we know God by Jesus alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what our life is, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.”[2]
[1] Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. F. Trotter, New York: Random House, 1941, 174 (No. 547).
[2] Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. F. Trotter, New York: Random House, 1941, 174 (No. 547).