FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR A 

Ezek 37.12-14;  

Rom 8.8-11;  

Jn 11.1-45

“Lord, he whom you love is ill"

God loves us all equally. As man, He naturally preferred the company of some more than others. Lazarus who was dead in today's gospel was obviously among His closest and dearest. And yet, we would we be missing the more important meaning of this gospel passage if we limited it simply to that of a miracle done for the sake of human affection for a friend. Christ Himself says that the meaning is wider and deeper than that. He says: This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God…

The raising of Lazarus was not just so that Our Lord might continue to enjoy his company, nor yet merely for the sake of consoling Martha and Mary.  He did it to teach us something.  Everything recorded in the gospels is there for a reason, even if the reason is not always obvious at first reading.  For example, Martha says of Lazarus,  "he has been dead four days."  Why this detail?  Why mention four days? Because the Jews in Our Lord's day believed that only after three days could one be sure that the soul had finally and definitively departed from the dead body. The fourth day meant that Lazarus really was dead, beyond recall. The stench of corruption had already set in. The recording of this detail was to emphasise the supernatural nature of the miracle. Lazarus had truly died, and yet he is reprieved from death, and given a second chance.

 

Lord, he whom you love is ill.  The fact is that my name is Lazarus, and so is yours. Our name is Lazarus. Lazarus is humankind, every single instance of sick and dying humanity.  Lazarus is a race intent on the pursuit of death; a race who throughout its long history has shown repeatedly that it prefers death to life; a race that for countless centuries has shown its favourite pastime to be tribal warfare. Throughout the centuries God saw that his poor wayward creatures were sick. Again and again He sent them the means of their healing. On Mount Sinai He gave them the preventative medicine of His holy Law, to teach them how to live. He sent them messengers, one prophet after another, to urge them to mend their ways.  In the end, all His efforts were largely ignored.  

Finally, He knew He had to come Himself.  Messages and gifts had been of no avail.  His own presence was required, and so He came. The Creator came. He crossed that unimaginable gulf between His own unlimited perfection and us, His sickly short-lived creatures.  He came in Person,  to reprieve us from the tomb.  No longer just a spoken word, or even a written word, but something better. A living, breathing word, flesh and blood, with the face and voice of a man, with the heart, the sighs and the tears of a man. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. Our sickness was to end, not in death, but in God's glory.  This is what St. Paul also assures in today’s second reading. Yes with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. 

As we enter once again into Passiontide, all glory seems far distant. We know that our journey through the shadows is meant to lead us to the One who titled Himself  "resurrection and life". But before that, we have to admit our sickness. Lord, he whom you love is ill. We have to come to the only place where sickness and death make any sense, the foot of the Cross, our only hope.  The week ahead is an opportunity for honesty before God, acknowledging our deepest needs and opening our hearts to receive the blessings of new life from his Son.  If we enter the celebration of the Lord’s Passion realising how sin has brought us sickness and led us to the verge of death, our joy at the triumphant victory of the Lord will be even greater.