Ez 37:12-14; Ps 129(130); Rom 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45
A. CATECHETICAL APPROACH
The three readings today speak on God’s gift of life beyond death. But the readings show that this restoration to life occurs to those who have an established link with God. In the first reading, the link is ‘My people’; in the second reading, it is ‘the Spirit of God/Christ’, and in the gospel reading, it is ‘love of Christ and friendship with him’.
The first reading of today is the continuation and the explanation of the prophesy of Ez 37:1-11, where dry bones were called back to life, alluding to God’s restoration of the exilic people of Israel to their lives of freedom in their own land. The people of Israel, being in exile in Babylon, lost all hope in their restoration. They were seeing themselves to be the same with dead bodies in the grave that have turned to bones which lie separately without any hope of living again. God promises to restore the hope and life of the people, and to take them back to their land on the ground that they are ‘God’s people’.
In fact, God says “I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people.” Hence, the people will be raised from their captivity and restored to freedom because for God, they are not just any people but ‘ammi’ (My People).
In the second reading, St. Paul tells us that God, who raises Jesus from death, will give life to our mortal bodies only if we have the same spirit of God which is in Christ. Hence, if the same Spirit of God which is in Christ does not live in us, then we will not be raised as Christ was, because there is nothing to link us with him. The Spirit of Christ in us makes us his people, and as such, beneficiaries and partakers of Christ’s life and resurrection.
In the gospel, Jesus risks being put to death (11:8) just as to raise Lazarus from dead because of the love that binds him to the Bethanian family (11:5). In fact, the sisters of Lazarus sent message to Jesus and said: “the one whom you love is sick” (11:3). And Jesus tells his disciples: “Our friend Lazarus is dead. I am going to wake him”. It is interesting to note that Mary and Martha did not even refer to Lazarus as ‘Our brother’ in the message they sent to Jesus, but as ‘the one whom you love’. This is to show how the love Jesus has for Lazarus, took him back to the territory of his enemies, and brought Lazarus back to life. Furthermore, Jesus says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die”. Thus, to be raised and to live the new life of Christ, there is requirement of faith in Christ.
The question then is: On which of these grounds can our own resurrection be based? Are we really ‘God’s own people’? Do we still have the Spirit of Christ active in us? How is our friendship with Christ, and our belief in him?
B. PASTORAL APPROACH
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
These were words of Martha and Mary to Jesus (vv. 21, 32). This expression shows the belief of these sisters that the presence of Jesus keeps one free from death. The presence of Jesus guarantees the absence of death. St. Paul expresses the same thing in the first reading when he says: If we have God’s Spirit living in us, even if our mortal bodies fall asleep (die), we shall always be awake (alive) in Christ. Not only is God capable of fixing together different dead bones in our lives, our businesses, our communities, but his breathe revives everything in us. It does not matter how dried up the bones are, as we can see in the first reading, nor does it matter how long we have been in the grave of sin. As a matter of fact, the gospel reading says that Lazarus was in the grave for four days. The Jews believed that within the first three days after someone’s death, the spirit of the person continues to hover around the body thereby making it possible for the dead person to come back to life. But after the first three s, there is no more hope.
Hence, that Lazarus had stayed for four days in the tomb, shows the hopelessness of him coming to life. But in that hopelessness, immediately Jesus came, and the stone covering the grave was removed, Jesus called Lazarus back to life. God is capable of calling back to life, whatever that is dead in us. But most of the times, it is not only that we are dead (that is, living without Christ) and buried in sin, but that we also block ourselves from Christ’s reaching us. Which stone is blocking you from hearing the voice of Christ? It may be stone of faithlessness in God, of despair, of great attachment to material things, of unholy relationship, of cultism and fraud etc. They are blocking you from hearing Christ’s voice crying: ‘You dead bone, receive life!’ or ‘Peter, come out!’
Today, Christ is calling us to take the stones away, and give ourselves chance of hearing him calling us to life. Furthermore, because of the friendship of Christ with Lazarus and his sisters, Jesus did not mind the Jewish opposing party in Judea who were looking to stone him to death. Even when his disciples reminded him of that, Jesus told them that when love and friendship is involved, nothing can stop him. Weeping at the grave side of Lazarus, the Jews said, ‘Look how he loved him’. In the manifestation of his love for us, Christ is ever ready to come down to the opposition camp where we are being held captive by sin. But we need to send for him, just like Mary and Martha did. We need to always see him as a friend who loves us, and the only one who can lift us from our graves. Even the odour which sin produces in us is not capable of keeping Christ away from us.
Finally, Christ not only raises us from our graves of sin, he also unburdens us of every guilt and weight of sin. He always secures our total freedom with his ‘Unbind him, let him go’. That is exactly what he does to us in the Confession. He gathers us up like dry bones, calls us out from the pit of sin, frees us from the weight of shame and blame rendered to us by sin, and renews his Spirit in us. But we need to play our part by always calling on him and always giving him access.
Fr. Nnamah Chukwuezugo
Wishing You a wonderful Sunday!!!