Commentary
Sunday, 4/2/2017, Fifth Sunday in Lent
I Will Do It, Says the Lord
First Reading Commentary Ezekiel 37:12-14
Jesus promised the Kingdom of Heaven when He gave the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus made His promise, He was confirming the promise which had already been made by the Father through the prophet Ezekiel.
Today’s prophecy from Ezekiel is all about the last day and the LORD promising the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord said, “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel.” We have to consider two questions. 1- Who are God’s people? 2- Where is the land of Israel?
Ezekiel spoke to the children of Israel who were the people that God chose to deliver from Egypt. God chose to have His Son come into the world as a descendant of Abraham and David. Therefore, God chose to have His Son born a Jew.
But we must not put limits on God who created all of mankind. By our creation, we are all His chosen people and therefore, God speaks to all of us in making His promise just as Jesus did. However, God’s promise is fulfilled with everyone, past, present and yet to be born who have faith in Him and listen to Him.
With that in mind, it is not an earthly place that God promises through Ezekiel. It is the New Jerusalem—the Kingdom of Heaven and it is God’s people who will be delivered to the Kingdom.
With faith, we believe that which we do not see with our human eyes. Jesus gives us this message over and over again throughout the Gospels. Because of our faith, we are able, to believe in God and His Kingdom even though we cannot see it. But God tells us that when He opens our graves and has us rise from them, we will know that He is the LORD. In other words, we will not have to believe with faith anymore because we will be with God in His Kingdom. This is the reward of having faith.
God tells us that He will put His Spirit in us so that we may live and settle in our land. Jesus also promised the Holy Spirit and said that He would send the Advocate who is the Holy Spirit. That promise was fulfilled on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on Mary and the Apostles. That promise is also fulfilled with us, one-by-one, at Baptism and strengthened at Confirmation.
When we are raised on the last day, we will be given a new life which will be everlasting. There will be no more death and our home will be in heaven.
God never has and God never will break a promise and through Ezekiel God says, “I am the LORD, I have promised, and I will do it.”
The Trinity within Us
Second Reading Commentary Romans 8:8-11
Today’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans points to what was promised by God through Ezekiel. But there is a twist. Paul tells us that we cannot please God if we are in the flesh.
Paul tells us that we are in the Spirit and in order to please God, we must have the Spirit of Christ. This may sound like double talk but think about it. God made us in His image and through Baptism; the Spirit descends upon us and lives within us. The question is, do we allow the Spirit to work within us and through us?
Paul is telling us that if we do not allow the Spirit to work within us and through us, we do not have the Spirit and if we do not have the Spirit, we do not belong to Christ and therefore, Christ is not in us.
We cannot have one without the other. We cannot have the Spirit without Christ and we cannot have Christ without the Spirit. Why? Because, even though they are two different persons of the Trinity, they are both the same One God.
This means that the Father must also be with us. Paul tells us that when He says, “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.” This is a proclamation from Paul of the Trinity within us.
Notice that Paul uses the words “mortal bodies.” That is because when we are raised on the last day, we will be raised body and soul. But Paul’s spiritual direction is not limited to the body. In fact, Paul’s message is about rejecting the sinful ways of the body so that our spirits can live. Paul says, “…the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”
When we allow the physical pleasures of the body which lead us into sin govern our lives, we kill the spirit’s ability to work within us. Therefore, when the body dies, so does the spirit within us. But we are all sinners and many of us commit the same sin over-and-over again. So how do we attain the righteousness which allows the spirit to live?
We repent. We admit to our sins and ask God for His forgiveness. That is why Jesus gave us the Sacrament of Confession.
Raised from the Dead and Set Free
Gospel Commentary John 11:1-45
Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was ill and upon hearing the news, Jesus said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Everyone thought that Jesus was saying that Lazarus would not experience a physical death. But Jesus was talking about the spiritual life of Lazarus and not the physical life of the body. This set the stage for what would be much more than a great work by Jesus and He already knew exactly what He was going to do. We know that because God knows all things but in this case, Jesus also told us so when He said that the death of Lazarus occurred so, “that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
This is not the first time that Jesus raised someone from the dead. In Luke 7:11-17, Jesus raised the widow’s son from the dead. But the raising of Lazarus led to the Sanhedrin deciding to kill Jesus. Remember that the Pharisees were stuck on their own pride and wanted the people to listen to and follow them. But because of the many works that Jesus was performing, more-and-more people were becoming disciples of Jesus and so the Sanhedrin decided that Jesus had to go.
God is always way-ahead of evil and Jesus knew very well that He would soon experience His Passion. Jesus used the giving of life to Lazarus by raising him from the dead as a lead into His own death and Resurrection.
Jesus stayed where He was for two days and then said to His disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” The people had recently tried to stone Jesus in Judea so the disciples did not want Him to go back. But Jesus said, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” The disciples took what Jesus said in a literal sense so Jesus had to tell them directly that Lazarus had died.
You have heard the saying; “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” So it is with Scripture. Sometimes we cannot hear the message for the words. This is the mistake that the disciples made by not knowing that when Jesus said; asleep, He meant; dead. I have commented on this before and in this gospel, Jesus is telling us to listen to the message without being hung up on the words.
Jesus added, “I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.” This suggests that there was doubt within the minds and hearts of the disciples. They knew who Jesus was, they had listened to His preaching, they had seen Him perform many works and that had faith in Him. But there was a limit to their faith and there was doubt in their hearts because when they looked at Jesus, they still saw a man. Remember our message from last week: Our eyes do not see as God’s eyes see?
Many of us make the mistake of the disciples. We believe in Jesus but there is a limit to our faith because we keep trying to see God in a human way. If we are going to truly see God and have limitless faith, we have, to step out of the box and try to see things as God sees them.
When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Let’s take a closer look at that. We could compare the four days that Lazarus was dead to the forty years that the Israelites were in the desert or the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert.
Martha told Jesus that if He had been there, Lazarus would not have died. Jesus told her that Lazarus would rise and Martha said, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.”
This was not a lack of faith on Martha’s part for she had no idea what Jesus was about to do. In fact, what Martha said was an expression of her faith in the resurrection and the Kingdom of Heaven. So, Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life…whoever believes in me…will live…Do you believe this?” Martha’s answer was another testament to her faith. She said that she believed that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God.
Martha did not know what Jesus was going to do but she did have absolute faith in Jesus because when she looked at Him, she saw much more than what her physical eyes could see. Martha was, able to see things as God saw them and she was therefore able to see Jesus for who He was. When Martha looked at Jesus, she saw God.
So, Martha went for her sister Mary who fell at the feet of Jesus and said, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She said the exact same thing that Martha had said but was her level of faith the same? We really do not know because we do not know everything that Martha said to Mary. What we do know from the gospel is that when Jesus saw her and the Jews who had come with her weeping, He became perturbed and deeply troubled.
Why? Was Jesus perturbed because of His compassion for their grief? Or did Jesus see their tears being the result of their faith being weak? Or was Jesus perturbed because their tears were an outward expression of their not realizing that Lazarus was dead to this life but spiritually, he was still living in a much better place?
Put yourself in their shoes. If you were Mary, Martha or one of the other people, why would Jesus be perturbed with you? With this question in mind, I could write a whole different commentary on why a funeral is a celebration of life. But that is another commentary.
Jesus said, “Where have you laid him?” They showed Him and Jesus wept. Jesus wept in the same way that we weep when someone close to us dies. Lazarus was a close friend and Jesus loved him and so Jesus wept. You may ask, how this can be when Jesus is God, the Son, who was about to raise Lazarus from the dead? Once again, we must remember that Jesus was both one hundred percent God and one hundred percent human. It was the human Jesus that wept.
Some of the people said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?” These were people who, were aware of Jesus healing the blind man in John 9:1-41 which was last Sunday’s gospel. Their question came from a lack of faith and after witnessing such a work, their lack of faith could only come from the influence of the evil one. At this, Jesus became perturbed again and that may have also contributed to His tears.
Jesus went to the tomb which was in a cave and said, “Take the stone away.” Notice the connection to the Resurrection of Jesus who was laid in a tomb with a stone placed in front of the entrance which was removed when Jesus rose.
Martha told Jesus that there would be a stench but Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” Up to this point, Jesus did not say what He was going to do but this was His way of telling Martha, “Relax. I am going to raise Lazarus from the dead.”
Jesus raised His eyes and spoke to the Father saying, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” In other words, Jesus was saying to the Father, “We do not have to prove anything here. I know that we have given them enough signs. But I am interceding on their behalf just the same so that they may be a witness one more time to the fact that You have sent Me.” This intercession of Jesus is a demonstration that He does not give up on us in, spite of our brokenness.
Having spoken to the Father, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” When Lazarus came out, Jesus said, “Untie him and let him go.” You could say that the raising of Lazarus was a fulfillment of the prophecy made by Ezekiel in today's first reading. In reality, the raising of Lazarus is a prelude to the fulfillment of that prophecy which I see as coming in two parts: The Resurrection of Christ and the second coming of Christ on the last day when we are all resurrected.
There is a message in the instruction from Jesus to untie Lazarus. When we die to this life, we are bound and tied up by our sins. But when we are resurrected, the bandages are removed and we are set free of sin never to be tied up again.
John tells us that many of the Jews who saw what had been done began to believe in Jesus. The operative word is: many. There were still some who would not believe. Such is the case today. In spite, of all that has been done by God for us and in spite, of everything that God has given us, there are those who will not believe. But for those of us who do, we can keep the faith knowing that God promises eternal life and that when we are resurrected, we will be set free.
