1. Year A / Eastertide / Divine Mercy Sunday 
    Readings: Acts 2.42-47 / Psalm 117.2-4, 13-15, 22-24 25-27a (R/v 1) /1 Peter 1.3-9  John 20.19-31


    Have you ever hidden in fear because you worried about the consequences of a wrongdoing you did? 

    When I was a little boy, I uncapped my mom’s perfume bottle and poured out its rich golden liquid onto the cushioned stool she sat to make herself up. I turned the stool around and around, laughing gleefully. The perfumed scent wafted through the room. “Look, Mommy, look”. “Oh no!” she cried seeing my dad’s anniversary gift of expensive French perfume to her empty. She looked at me annoyed; I knew I had done wrong.  So, wailing, I ran into the cleaning closet to hide. Oh, the fear.

    Fear was the disciples’ experience that first Easter evening. Not the joy or elation we had last week at Easter celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. Locked in a room, they hid in confusion, despair and fear. The women had seen the empty tomb. Peter and John had entered its emptiness. Jesus was nowhere to be seen. And though they must have heard about Jesus appearing to the women, they had not seen him yet.

    Mark’s narration of Mary Magdalene and Salome going to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body articulates this fear best. They see the stone rolled away. A “young man” announces that Jesus has risen. He instructs them to tell the disciples that they will find Jesus in Galilee. Hearing that Jesus has risen, these women “fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.” Why fear and not unmitigated joy? 

    Fear because what happened that first Easter was truly outside anything that they could have expected. Fear because now there was no security, no rules, nothing normal they could trust in for all the familiar and well known had collapsed. Fear, perhaps, most of all, because Jesus who died is alive, and they could only speculate what would happen next.  

    According to the moral calculus of the world, of how humankind often interacts in a tit-for-tat manner, they had reason to fear. Indeed, they ought to fear because Jewish Scripture tells of how God acted after Cain slew Abel: “Where is your brother Abel?” God asked and Cain replied, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” only to hear God lament, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground”. 

    If Jesus is indeed alive, if the victim has come back, they who are guilty had better hide. This fear could have forced the disciples to hide themselves behind locked doors. If Easter is seen from this perspective, from our human way of tit-for-tat—even from the Bible up to this point—then Easter cannot be good news for the perpetrators, for the disciples who betrayed, fled, and stood at a distance, for those who washed their hands and called out for his death. And it cannot be good news for us too who must be counted among the guilty—we who have sinned, nailed Jesus to the Cross, and killed him. If Jesus is indeed alive, not dead, how are all of us, the guilty, the sinful, the fearful, the ashamed going to face this victim? 

    Everything about Jesus’ coming into the midst of the disciples however overturns the world’s moral calculus, our human tit-for-tat interactions, our Old Testament knowledge of God as vengeful, and yes even our fear.

    The risen Jesus came into their midst, as he comes in ours daily, not crying out for vengeance, for revenge, for punishment because of a wrong, of an immoral act, of a sinful choice. He came then, as he comes now, simply saying “Peace be with you”. The Letter to the Hebrews says that the blood of Jesus “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” What is this better word? Where Abel’s blood cries “Guilty,” the blood of Jesus cries, “Forgiveness”. Where Abel’s blood cries out “Vengeance;” the blood of Jesus cries “Peace!” 

    Forgiveness and peace must have been the unpredictably unexplainable and profoundly unbelievable experience the disciples had when the risen Jesus came into their midst. In a more personal and intimate way, Thomas experienced it when Jesus came, took his finger, put it into his wounded side and said, “Believe”. 

    Believe that Jesus has risen as he said he would. And yes, believe that his peace reconciles all with God for through him, with him, and in him,  the disciples are still his own, still his beloved, still one with him in spite of what had happened. Jesus also calls us to believe in him as the Christ and in his peace that reconciles. Isn’t this the reason we keep coming to the Eucharist, even when we have sinned? Aren’t we also hoping to hear Jesus say, “Peace” and experience him taking our finger, placing it in his wound, and saying, “Believe”? 

    We can courageously answer “yes” because the return of the risen Jesus into our lives places us in the power of God’s love that triumphs over death, that brings new life and undying hope. Jesus’ coming gives us a whole new moral calculus to understand how God interacts with us: with mercy that is limitless and immeasurable; with mercy that bestows peace, not retribution. 

    Easter is not Judgment day for the guilty and sinful. Easter is the resurrection day that surprises all with fullness of life. Easter was that moment when my Mom found me in my fear, hugged me, and loved me still.

    The risen Jesus entering into the disciples’ midst reveals the very nature of God’s mercy: it always desires to enter into the chaos of our human lives, and meeting us there to raise us upIn Jesus, God’s mercy comes to all he loves wherever they are but, more so, into however their lives may be, whether saintly or sinful. “Peace be with you” Jesus says to everyone. God’s mercy is indeed the Easter scandal we celebrate with today’s feast—divine mercy for all.

    Jesus as Divine Mercy returns from the dead speaking that better word, “Peace”. Wounds inflicted by human hate, condemnation and evil no longer scar his risen body. They are transfigured into channels of mercy. God’s love, forgiveness and grace pour forth from them changing everything. Such mercy will never let us be the same again. It will open us to an unexpected future, sowing life and light in place of death and sorrow. And no matter how sinful we may think we are, the good news today is that Jesus will look for us, come into our midst, greet us with peace and invite us to believe again

    This is why we have every right to rejoice and be glad today. Our joy will be profoundly richer however when we can acknowledge that fear is indeed part of the Easter story. For then we will know that Easter joy is the joy of relief, the joy of finding ourselves surprisingly forgiven, inexplicably loved still, and wonderfully made new again by God’s mercyTry as we might, we will never be able to explain God’s mercy for us. It will always bother and bewilder us, but it will always humble us into gratitude, into giving” thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his love is everlasting”, as we sang earlier. 

    Today we learn that we need not hide in fear anymore. Yes, Jesus our victim has come back from the dead looking for us—looking not to condemn or punish us, but to bless us with peace and to draw us deeper into our belief in God. 

    Now is therefore the time to come out of the tomb of our sinfulness. Now is the time to step into Easter light and see the face of the risen Jesus who comes to take away our fear, our sins, our death by giving us God’s incomprehensible relief of being incalculably loved and forgiven. Yes, now is the time for us to shout out our victory story of Jesus who will fill us with love that we may always rejoice.





    Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
    photo: www.kidanemihiret.org

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  2. Year A / Eastertide / Easter Sunday
    Readings: Acts 10.34a, 37-43/ Psalm 117.1-2, 16-17, 22-23 (R/v 24) / 1 Corinthians 5.6b-8 / Matthew 28.1-10

    Here we are on the first day of another week. Dawn is breaking. Darkness is lifting. And here we are again at the same seats we sit at every Sunday, at the same time, to celebrate the same Eucharist. The altar servers, the communion ministers, the lectors, even the priest are familiarly the same. Is anything different today from other Sundays?

    Let’s slow down, you and me, and begin to understand how different today must be. Let’s slow right down and notice where I am, notice what is around me, notice the people here, what they look like, the expressions on their faces, notice what they are doing. What do I really see?  

    Perhaps: someone we know; some action that delights; something to be fixed. With eyes of faith, we might say “God and God’s goodness”. We might say this with more certainty because today is Easter morning: Christ is risen; Christ has triumphed over sin and death; Christ has saved us for eternal life. Alleluia!

    Yes, Happy Easter, everyone! But has anything changed, really changed, for you, this Easter morning?

    Our gospel reading tells of the experiences Jesus’ disciples had that first Easter morning. Dawn was breaking but they were grieving, confused and fearful because Jesus, their rabbi, their expectant Messiah, died crucified a criminal just two days ago.

    Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to Jesus’ tomb. They remembered the burial: his body wrapped in linen and placed in the tomb; a great stone rolled over its door. Reaching the tomb that Sunday morning, what they saw and heard turned their world upside down: the great stone was rolled back; an angel announced Jesus’ resurrection; the tomb was indeed empty.  

    Where is Jesus?  What has happened to him?  They struggled to understand. Yet, they hasten to the disciples to inform and to echo the angel’s announcement: “He is not here: for he has been raised”. They could because these wonderful words changed their lives: they were fearful yet overjoyed. “He is not here: for he has been raised”: these words should change us too: mend our brokenness; renew our lives; uplift us in hope. Will we let these words change us?

    More than a new day dawned upon the women then, as it now dawns on us. What scatters the darkness of night, of sin, of death for us is the radiant light of God’s power to raise Jesus to life, never to die again. Love is the source of this light; God’s love that makes real and alive something remarkably different, something indescribably good, something profoundly new breaking into our lives because Jesus Christ is risen.

    What is this newness Easter brings? We can appreciate it by going with the women to the tomb. It is empty yet the promise of new life abounds, not death.  Yes, “He is not here: for he has been raised”. Then, with the women running to announce this good news, we meet the risen Jesus who greets us with these words, “Do not be afraid”.

    “Do not be afraid” because the newness of Easter calls us to a new way of living. We learn about the disciples’ new experience of eating and drinking with the Risen Jesus in the first reading. We hear Paul’s call for Christians to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection with new dough, new unleavened bread of sincerity and truth with and for one another in the second reading. 

    Through the risen Christ, with the Risen Christ, in the Risen Christ, then, you and I are invited to new ways of interacting with God and with one another. To live this call is to live in the newness of Easter. What Easter brings about is the grace of transformation.

    This allows us to have a new relationship of intimacy with God. Because Jesus has forgiven our sins on the cross, and God has raised him from the dead into fullness of life, we can know God and call him Abba, Father. He is our Father who will never abandon his children; he will look for them, save them, and bring them into eternal life. This is the Easter truth Jesus’ resurrection proclaims to everyone.

    This also moves us into new relationships of intimacy with one another. We hear the form and depth of such relationships in a word Jesus uses in today’ Gospel reading—one word, which is extraordinary, and we oftentimes miss it.  We hear the risen Jesus say to the women, “Don’t be afraid, go and tell my brothers”.  My brothers. Its Greek translation is adelphoi refering to those who share spiritual relationship with each other in God. 

    Until this moment, Jesus has never called his disciples “brothers”. “Disciples,” yes.  Even, in John’s Gospel, “friends,” but never brothers. But now brothers, now adelphoi—now one in God’s family with Jesus, our brother. In him, we are brothers and sisters to each other. This is the Easter joy Jesus’ resurrection ushers into every heart.

    The gift of intimacy is the newness Easter brings into all relationships. Because of Jesus’ victory over sin and death, we are not just his followers, or his disciples, or even his friends. We are more. We are God’s children and we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters. This is why Easter must matter—in raising Jesus from the dead, God empowers us to live anew by sharing intimately in their divine life and from this sharing to draw others to participate in it. 

    This is possible, as Pope Francis reminds us, because “Jesus transforms our sin into forgiveness, our death into resurrection, our fear into confidence...that’s why with Jesus all our darkness can be transformed into light, every defeat into victory, every disappointment into hope. Every? Yes, every” (12 April, 2017). Even the relationships we have—they will be transformed in the light of the Risen Christ.  

    So, let's slow down again and look around this holy space we are in together. We are here not as acquaintances or strangers but as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are here not to be served but to serve.  We are here not to judge and condemn but to forgive and mend our brokenness together. We are here not covet and hoard but to share our giftedness, talents, riches. We are here to partake of the Eucharist and become like Jesus, bread broken for all. We are here not to come and go as weekend worshippers but to build each other up as a Christian community that cares for and uplifts each other. We are here not to do and do and do, but to be formed in God’s ways so that we can work with Jesus to serve all, especially the poor. We are here because God calls us to be here together. 

    What transforms these relationships? What makes intimacy possible? The love of God in the risen Christ that lifts us up and binds us together. Today, the risen Christ is calling us to enter into the intimacy of his own Easter joy. 

    We cannot really enter this intimacy of Easter joy unless we roll away obstacles, like the great tomb stone, that block us from letting God raise us up into his life. Is there something, some unacknowledged sin or activity that is damaging your relationship with Jesus, who longs to call you “my brother, my sister?” Jesus longs to roll it away. Will you let him?

    The newness of Easter makes this the most joyful day of the year. It must be because God in the risen Christ has overcome sin and death, and made all things new. Renewed again is our broken relationship with God. New now is Jesus calling us his brothers, his sisters. 

    Let's look up now: see this newness in the light of this day streaming into church now, all around us, and its promise of relationships with new intimacy, new life, new possibilities. Truly, then, how can today be just another Sunday?




    Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
    Photo: http://salfraedimedferd.is. 

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  3. Year A / The Paschal Triduum / Holy Thursday – Mass of the Lord’s Supper
    Readings: Exodus 12.1-8, 11-14 / Psalm 115.12-13,15-16bc, 17-18 (R/v cf 1 Cor 10.16) / 1 Corinthians 11.23-26 / John 13.1-15



    I remember them well. They were standing at the traffic light, waiting to cross Empress Road. Her petite fingers enveloped in his gnarled hand, roughen probably by years of manual work. His face etched with concern for his frail, anxious looking wife. Their almost insignificant clasping of hands—because of the busyness, the blur, the bustle of the passing traffic—betrayed the depth of how much they had touched each other’s lives.

    We don’t usually communicate by touching. We feel safer expressing ourselves with words we can choose, or not choose. Touch can be dangerous: it says so much more with no words. So often, it reveals our innermost feelings and thoughts.

    Yet, don’t we all long to be touched? A baby crying wants to be lifted up. The frightened child wants to be hug into safety. A friend’s warm pat on the back cheers us up. A lover’s deep embrace warms the heart. The downtrodden wait for hands that care. The guilty yearn for open arms that forgive. The dying want to be cradled in empathy. In particular, don't we all yearn for family and friends to touch us? Their touch is how we experience the depth of their love and concern, the warmth of their friendship. Their touch assures, as it enlivens and delights. 

    As much as we yearn to be touched, many of us struggle to return another’s touch. How often do we give a family member a hug to start the day? Are we honestly comfortable with patting a friend heartily on the back to encourage and affirm? Isn’t it much easier to say “sorry” than to stretch out our hand in reconciliation?

    The unspoken action at the heart of tonight’s gospel reading is touch. Jesus touches his disciples’ feet to wash them. Their feet are dirty; they need to be cleaned. Jesus’ action is practical, but also symbolic. He takes up the role of a servant to serve. 

    But Jesus’ action is also metaphor, an image, an icon of a life giving, serving, loving. This is Jesus’ vocation, his purpose for being in the world that is directly related to the purposes of God. Again and again, he tells us that he knows the Father and has come to reveal the Father’s will to those who believe, so that they might have power to live as children of God. 

    Footwashing expresses Jesus' identity: he has come to serve, not to be served. The Cross expresses Jesus' mission: he has come to lay down his life in order that others might have life. Such a life of self-giving is rooted in love of God to the end and embodied in love for others onto death. 

    In washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus presents them with more than an example to serve. He gifts them his mandate to live lives of service. Mandate from the Latin word “mandatum” which is the origin of “maundy” the word we call today. Indeed, the only right we have in calling ourselves Christian is if we live this mandate selflessly, generously, fully for one and all in the world

    “When he had washed their feet and put on his clothes again he went back to the table. ‘Do you understand’ he said ‘what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you’” (John 13:12-15). We are called to live lives of service by copying Jesus. This is how we live in his image and likeness—by being servants of God’s love and compassion to one another. This is our vocation, our purpose for being alive in the world.

    Jesus’ call—our mandate—is to meet people in the lowest places in their lives, in the places where they know themselves to be soiled and unfit. We are to love and serve them there, putting their needs before our own, laying down our lives for them. We are to wash their feet. We are to touch another in love.

    There is a wise saying we know: “you cannot give what you don’t have”. Tonight, we hear Jesus command us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” At the Last Supper, Jesus teaches that our life is all about love. Jesus teaches with many words in a long speech in the Gospel of John, and most powerfully in two actions. 

    Jesus shows love made visible and tactile in the washing of feet. God’s love made visible. God’s love that knows no boundaries or separation, distance or divide between heaven and earth, between person and person, because God’s mercy bridges them all. This is why all our feet will be washed, whether we are gathered here saintly, or sinfully. Our feet will be washed clean, our wrongdoings forgiven, our personhood restored because serving us in Jesus is God’s way of drawing all to him who he desires to save and uplift. Go and do likewise, Jesus commands us.

    Jesus also shows us love made visible and edible in the breaking of bread. “This is my body”, “This is my blood”. “Do this in memory of me”. We hear these words at the Eucharist; they remind us that Jesus himself invites us to eat his flesh and drink his blood so that God’s life will be our life (John 6.53). But these words will mean nothing unless we let ourselves become like Jesus in communion: bread broken for others. Do this in memory of me. 

    Washing feet. Becoming bread broken. I believe that when we do these actions selflessly, sacrificially, and generously to all, we fulfil Jesus’ mandate to do as he did. This is how we are to live our Christian identity and mission. This is how we will die to the sinful selves we are and rise with Jesus in God’s life as the saints our baptism anoints us as. Indeed, this is how we become like Jesus and live as his body, the Body of Christ. But it begins when we let him touch us with God’s love.

    Touch. God’s touch in our lives. We need to keep our eye on this in tonight’s liturgy that has a lot going on in it. We remember the first Passover meal which preceded the Exodus. We sit before a basin and jug of water to remember Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. We live again the moment in the Upper Room where Jesus takes bread and wine and returns them to us as his Body and Blood. We watch sleepily through the night with his disciples in the garden waiting and watching for history, not to end but to be fulfilled. 

    There is a lot going on, but in reality it is all one. For what goes on tonight in sign and sacrament, word and action is nothing less than “love”. For in bread and wine, Body and Blood, water, towel and story we see God’s meaning: love. Love is indeed the meaning of the next three days in which God’s love is made manifest in bread and wine, in water and towel, in fire and oil, in word and action, in sign, symbol and sacrament.

    As water is poured over feet, let us confess God’s mercy to cleanse us of sin. As we stretch out our hand to receive communion, let us welcome God’s life shared with us. As we accompany Jesus all night in prayer, let us contemplate God’s sacrifice to save us. As we stand at the cross as Jesus dies, let us feel the depth of God’s love for us. As we wait with eager anticipation for the Easter proclamation, let us savour how much God lavishes on us in salvation.

    Indeed over the next three days, everywhere we look, everything we taste, everything we feel, everything we hear, everything we smell will be a reminder that God loves us deeply. And it all is possible because of the simple act of touch: of Jesus humbly serving us with a jug of water and a towel; of him nourishing us with a meal of bread and wine to transform us; of God touching us in the love of Jesus.

    How should we respond to God’s touch? Perhaps best by simply getting down on our knees and washing someone’s feet, by simply stretching out our hands to fill another’s empty hand, by simply touching another person’s life in forgiveness, in encouragement, in honesty, in hope, in love—and yes, in the simplicity of a touch.

    Yes, if you want to know the real meaning of all we do these days, love is the meaning, and it begins with no other action than in God touching us in the person of Jesus.




    Preached at SJI and St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
    Photo: www.pinterest.com







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  4. Year A / Lent / Palm Sunday
    Readings: Matthew 2:1-11 – for procession of palms / Isaiah 50:4-7 / Psalm 21.8-9, 17-18a, 19-20, 23-24 (R/v 2a)/ Philippians 2: 6-11 / Matthew 16:14-27:66 

    A playwright once wrote: “My plays are a success when the audience is so drawn into the drama that they can feel the actors’ emotions”.

    Today’s gospel reading is about the Passion of the Lord. It dramatically tells of Jesus’ final days and hours and his death. It invites us into Jesus’ experience of suffering and dying, but, more so, of his love for God to the end and his selfless love for us onto death.

    The Passion begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem for the Passover. The crowds are excited. They wave their palms. They throw down their cloaks. They sing Hosannas! They are welcoming a vagabond rabbi they accept as the promised King and Messiah. If you’re part of this crowd, how does it feel to be part of this demonstration?

    On the margins are the Roman authorities. They see the crowds, burgeoning because many more have come for the Passover. They are anxious about disorder. They want the law to prevail. If you’re one of them, what are your thoughts and feelings about this noisy demonstration?

    Jesus is the protagonist in this scene. From the onset, he seems to control the action. He knows what needs to be done. He sends his closest friends to get all that he needs ready. He directs the action. If you’re Jesus’ disciple, what feelings do you have?

    Such is the drama you and I have participated in a few minutes ago. Such is the drama that calls us to reflect on our roles in it. Such will also be the unfolding drama of this Holy Week. We must enter deeply into it, participate in it, get involved because it is a the real-life drama of our lives and our salvation.

    Our Lenten journey leads us into this week. This must be time of profound renewal for us. The drama of God in Jesus battling the powers of darkness and destruction in our world and in our lives, and winning, is the drama of our redemption. God’s triumph must empower us to renew our baptismal life.

    The best way of entering into the drama of Holy Week is to pray—to pray that we will follow Jesus closely as he does the will of the Father. This desire is the right grace to ask for at this time. The week’s scripture readings offer us details to feel, to contemplate, to ponder Jesus’ journey to the Cross. There is no need to speak much, or ask for more or to think too hard in our prayers this week. All we need is to let God lead us more deeply into Jesus’ suffering, passion and death, to touch the mystery of his selfless love for you and me.

    The German actor Anton Lang once articulated very well this desire to follow Jesus closely. Lang played Jesus in the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau, which is staged every ten years. After one performance, a tourist and his wife went back stage to take photos with the actors. The man noticed the great cross that Lang had carried during the performance. He said to his wife, “Here, take the camera and I’ll lift the cross on my shoulder, and then snap my picture.” The tourist stooped down to lift the prop to his shoulder. He couldn’t budge it. The cross was made with solid oak beams. In amazement the man turned to Lang and said, “I thought it would be hollow and light. Why do you carry a cross which is so terribly heavy?” The actor replied, “Sir, if I did not feel the weight of his cross, I could not play Jesus’ part.”

    To feel the weight of the cross. Isn’t that what we have been trying to do throughout Lent with our Lenten practices? Shouldn’t this be what we must now really want to experience as we begin to live this Holy Week?

    Throughout this week, we will meditate on the life-giving events of these last days of Jesus’ life, and our part in them. Today, we walk with Jesus into Jerusalem, singing our Hosannas. At the Last Supper, we will pray to have our feet washed. At Gethsemane, we will want to stay awake with Jesus. When Judas betrays Jesus, we will ask not to run away. When Herod and Pilate judge Jesus, we will feel the injustice. When the crowds demand his death, we will be aghast that cries of “Crucify Him” replace the “Hosannas”. When he is tortured, spat on, crowned with thorns, we will cry. When Jesus is hung on the Cross and dies, our hearts will break open; we will be bereft and empty. When he is laid in his mother’s arms, we will feel deep grief. When Jesus is entombed, our need to be silent will be deep and real.

    Choosing to enter into all of these by praying to enter into the drama of Jesus’s passion is how we can begin to feel the weight of the cross, borne by one who carries it and is nailed onto it to die for us. The weight of Jesus’ cross is how we can experience the magnitude of God’s sacrifice for us. It is moreover, how we can savour the immensity of God’ loves for us. 

    Will we let the weight of the cross awaken the depth of God’s love in us? Are we ready to experience the highs and lows of Jesus’ life in these final days, the consolations and desolations of his faith in the final hours, the passion of his suffering and death and the promise of God’s love that he abides in to die for us and to save us?

    We can answer these questions if and only if we really let ourselves go and enter into the drama of Holy Week. 

    The way ahead through Holy Week ahead will be difficult; it is the way of the Cross. But I believe we can walk it with hope and trust because the weight of the cross is really the weight of glory—the glory of the Resurrection. The Opening Prayer sums it best: “that we may heed the lesson of his patient suffering and so merit a share in his Resurrection”. Easter is God’s promised resurrection in our lives. The only way to get there is to go through the drama of Holy Week with Jesus. As we do so, may we may come to know

    … that goodness is stronger than evil.
    That love is stronger than hate.
    That light is stronger than darkness.
    That life is stronger than death.
    That Victory is ours through him who loves us*.






    * Archbishop Desmond Tutu

    Adapted from Br Geoffrey Tristram's writings


    Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
    photo: salt & light tv (internet)


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  5. Year A / Lent / Week 5 / Sunday
    Readings: Ezekiel 37.12-14 / Psalm 129.1-2, 3-4ab, 4c-6, 7-8 (R/v 7) / Romans 8.8-11 / John 11.1-45

    “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Singapore Changi Airport, where the local time is 5.36pm. The outside temperature is 36 degree Celsius, with 94% humidity, and there is a chance of showers this evening. Please wait until the seat belts signs are switched off before moving about the cabin”. I am always comforted when I hear these words after the plane I’m travelling home on touches down safely. I believe we all want to hear similar words when we arrive safely at the different destinations we travel too.

    Today’s readings however offer us sobering words about the destination of human life: it ends in death. We hear of Lazarus death in our gospel reading. We hear of the dead buried in graves in our first reading and of bodies dead because of sin in our second reading. Our Psalm, so often read at funerals and sung at requiem masses, expresses our pain, our despair, our hopelessness when we mourn the death of a loved one.

    Death. Despair. Hopelessness. We are familiar with these themes. They are part of our lives. We anguish over them when our loved ones die. We grapple with the many more deaths we read or hear about: the deaths of innocent Christians and minorities massacred in the Middle East, of unsuspecting civilians slaughtered in London, Jakarta and Orlando and of starving hundreds of children in Africa. These remind us starkly of where human life ends—in death.

    Today, we hear that Jesus goes to the place of death, to where his friend, Lazarus, died and is buried. Many come to comfort Martha and Mary who grieve the dead brother, like he now comes to do. Seeing Jesus, Mary cries out: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She weeps; the Jews accompanying her weep too. It must been quite a sound—this sound of death. At the sight of her tears, and those of the Jews who followed her, Jesus said in great distress, and with a profound sigh, “Where have you put him?”

    Whatever language we speak, it is always difficult to talk about emotions, let alone translate them into another language. The Greek word used to denote how deeply moved Jesus felt is ἐνεβριμήσατο (enebrimēsato). It literally means “to snort out of anger, indignation or antagonism” This suggests a more primitive, even animalistic behaviour: snorting like a horse. The Greek word for “profound sigh” is ἐτάραξεν (etaraxen). It literally means to stir up or to shudder in emotional agitation. 

    Jesus is indeed deeply saddened by Lazarus’ death; he weeps because he has lost a close friend. But he is also filled with so much anger that he shudders. English translations of the Bible generally do not describe this quality of character in Jesus. The Greek translations expresses it better: they describe it as it is—that in the face of death, Jesus is agitated, vexed, furious and so angry that he is trembling. Why so?

    We know that Jesus is not despairing that his friend had died. We also know from John’s gospel that Jesus knows all things: he would therefore have known that he would find Lazarus dead and that he would call him forth and raise him up. Jesus would also have known the depth of faith Martha and Mary would have as they grieved their loss. Jesus probably pitied the as many would have been hired. If Jesus is not angry with Mary and Martha or the mourners, why is he so angry?

    He is angry at the situation that has brought such devastation into these people’s lives. He is angry at Death—this manifestation of Satan’ evil in the world that came through Adam and Eve’s disobedience. He directs his anger at Death, the source of grief itself. Death’s presence in the Lazarus’ tomb does more than stink; it stirs Jesus to action. He is indignant in its presence and intolerant of its temporary power. He snorts like a horse and hot tears stream down his face. He demands the stone covering the tomb be rolled away. He calls Lazarus forth and raises him up.Lazarus’ tomb is therefore where God who gives life overcomes Satan who destroys life, especially through sin. For Jesus, death cannot be the last word about life.

    We know Jesus died and was raised from the dead. His resurrection is different from Lazarus who will die again. This is why the Paschal Mystery must matter to us: in Jesus’ death, we die, but in his resurrection, we are raised to eternal life—God alone makes this possible. The story of Jesus raising Lazarus therefore prefigures Jesus’ own death and resurrection. In Jesus, our Lenten journey does not end in death; he leads us through it to life eternal. Death then cannot have the final claim over us.

    Jesus does four actions in today’s story that assures us of the certain power of God working through Jesus to raise us up from death. 

    The first is that he stayed where he was after hearing of Lazarus’ death. There was no reason holding Jesus from going to Lazarus. He intentionally waited; he delayed going; he stayed. Why? Because he saw in Lazarus' death the in-breaking of God's glory, and he wanted to make sure no one missed it. By staying two more days before returning to enact the miracle, he made sure Mary, Martha and the mourners accepted Lazarus’ death but more so that they would ache for God’s saving presence. Their ache is nothing less than humankind’s poignant, fragile hope for God's saving action.

    The second is that he wept. He wept because he identified with those who had lost a loved one and who simultaneously have lost confidence in God's redemption and power laboring in their midst. When Martha confessed that she believed Lazarus would rise again at the last day, Jesus reminded her of God’s immediate presence: "I am the resurrection and the life", even now, even here. Jesus can say this because he is God-with-us; he shares in our humanity and in our human life.

    The third is that he commanded Lazarus to come out. Jesus’ command bestows life where there is nothing, only death. By calling Lazarus from death into life, Jesus reminds us that the responsibility for life—for creating it in the first place and recreating it once again—is exclusively God's.

    The fourth is that he instructed others to unbind Lazarus. His instruction reminds us that everyone has a role to show forth God’s mercy. While creation and redemption are God's work, activity, and responsibility, God needs us to play a part, and so, glorify God.

    Staying. Weeping. Calling out. Unbinding. Individually and collectively, these actions Jesus does confront and overcome death. More significantly, they witness that God is with us and that God wants to save us and raise us to eternal life.

    Soon you and I will face another death. It will end differently from how every human life ends. It will end when a stone is rolled away from a tomb and the one who consoled a grieving sister with the words “I am the resurrection and the life” will snort at death because God called him forth from the dead and raised him to fullness of life. Jesus Christ is this risen one. And in his risen life, you and I will find our own.

    What other destination than Jesus would you and I want to arrive safely and happily at when our Lenten journey ends? And as we come home to the risen Jesus, don’t we yearn to hear him say to us, “I am the resurrection and the life”?





    Inspired by Debra Murphy

    Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
    Photo: jornalmaker.com
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"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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