Re-run. This homily was previously preached in 2017
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 degrees 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 traveling 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 be 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 express 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 mourners 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. Jesus is angry at Death — this manifestation of Satan’s 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 the 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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