“O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them. …Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” Our readings today go straight to the heart of our Christian faith. They speak of death, and new life in Christ. We hear it promised in the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel and we hear about it actually happening in today’s powerful Gospel account. In a world where we spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to look young and doing everything medically possible to avoid the inevitable – death – we, the followers of Jesus Christ, dare to look death straight in the eye because we believe that, for the faithful, death leads to new life. And, it’s much more than just being raised from the dead to live in this world once again. That was the best the prophet Ezekiel could understand in his day. As you know, he was prophesying among his fellow Israelites in exile in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem. He understood that God was going to raise the dead and bring them back to “the land of Israel” as we hear in today’s first reading. “You shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land,” we hear God promise in the first reading. Ezekiel and his contemporaries were only expecting a return to life here.
And, that’s probably all that the sisters of Lazarus were hoping for, as well. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” we hear both Martha and Mary say to Jesus. Before he revived Lazarus, however, Jesus invited Martha to put her faith in him, “the resurrection and the life.” And then, he performed his final sign for all to see as he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” As you recall, unlike the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are filled with accounts of Jesus performing miracles, the Gospel of John does not report any miracles. Rather, it speaks of “signs” – beginning with the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana – all of which point to something else, something much greater. Let’s review them for a moment. It’s easy to understand that the first sign – changing water into wine – was a sign of the great gift of the Eucharist that our Lord has given us, when wine is changed into his own life-giving blood. The fourth sign – the feeding of the crowd – reinforces the spiritual nourishment our Lord would leave us in his life-giving body and blood. The other signs all point to something else – something much greater that our Lord is about to do – as well.
The second and sixth signs that we find in John’s Gospel are the healing of the Roman official’s son and the curing of the man born blind, which we heard last Sunday. Both of these were signs that our Lord’s saving power was open not only to the Jews but to all people who would put their faith in him, including those whom the Jews considered to be sinners and outcasts. The third sign – the cure of the cripple at the Pool of Bethesda – pointed to the saving power of baptism in Jesus. And the fifth sign – Jesus walking on water – demonstrated our Lord’s power over all of nature, not only storms but death itself. This leads us back to the raising of Lazarus from the dead – the seventh and last sign that we hear today. But, as miraculous as this was, Lazarus would die again. Raising him from the dead was a sign of the new life that Jesus was to offer us in his Resurrection, a life that would never come to an end, a life without the struggles and suffering that we all experience in this life. It is this promise that allows us to look death in the face because, for us, death is no more than the passage way to eternal life of endless joy in God’s presence.
What does this mean for us, living out our everyday lives today? It leads us to question what this world teaches us, this world that fears death and doesn’t like to talk about it or even think about it.
Easter, which we will celebrate in just two weeks, is our bold statement that, for us Christian, there is no reason to fear death. To be sure, we will all die. Some of us may live longer than others. I have had the privilege of burying a parishioner who was 101 years old. I have also had the precious but painful privilege of burying infants only a few months old. For us – we who believe, like Martha, in Jesus, who is “the Christ, the Son of God” – there is something new that God has offered us through his Son – new life for all eternity in the joy of God’s all-loving embrace.
In today’s second reading from the Letter to the Romans, we are assured that “if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also.” As we prepare to walk with our Lord toward his suffering and death on the cross, let us be strengthened by the Spirit we received in baptism and confirmation. Then, we can be strong in our faith in our God who gives us life and the promise of new life through his Son’s Resurrection – eternal life with him in his heavenly kingdom, where there will be no more suffering or sadness but only endless joy before the face of God!