Lent 5A

During Lent we encounter death in the appointed prayers in readings and they makes sense when seen in the context of the Liturgical year. During Lent we are preparing for what we know will happen at the end of Holy Week. Jesus will be betrayed by a friend, condemned by the world and put to death in a shameful way. This is only bearable year after year because we know the Resurrection awaits on Easter Sunday.

Lent is also the time were we hear about why death is in the world. In my sermon on the first Sunday of Lent, I talked about how the particular form of death that awaits all humans was not the intention of God. Instead, it was a death that can lead to separation from God because of the barrier we had erected between us and God through the Fall, where we chose our own desires and will over God’s. Once again this is only bearable because we know the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ can free us from this eternal death if we choose God over the world.

These theological explanations of the Lenten season of the means of our reconciliation often satisfy the head, but sometimes do not move the heart. In today’s Gospel we get an insight on all this that cuts through the intellectual barriers. We encounter Jesus Christ, the human that is also fully God, crying. We hear of our Lord and Savior weeping over the death on one man, his beloved friend Lazarus.

In the passage from St John we hear how our Lord is told that his friend Lazarus is gravely ill. In what seems inexcusable to us at first, Jesus decides to stay for awhile. It seems cold until we realize the Jesus already knew what had happened. When the messenger brought the news to Jesus that Lazarus was ill, Jesus knew that in the full day it had taken to get from the Lazarus’ village, he had already died. Jesus doesn’t decide to journey to the tomb of Lazarus for another two days. Jesus may have stayed those two days to prove a point to his disciples, or maybe he stayed put because he was grieving, but for whatever reason he waits, however he eventually decided to go to Lazarus. Jesus’ disciples are not pleased with this because they know that Jesus will surely get himself in trouble if goes back to Judea, where he has infuriated the religious authorities. Eventually, ignoring the risk, they all decide to go to the tomb.

After their one day journey, they arrive to find that Lazarus is indeed dead, and has in-fact been dead for 4 days now. When he arrives he is scolded by Mary, the sister of Lazarus. Jesus, the consummate teacher, assures Mary that not only is there a resurrection of the dead to come, but that He himself is that resurrection, and in Him there is life. Then they bring Jesus to the tomb where Lazarus is laid.

In that moment, when Jesus encounters the stone cold reality that his beloved friend is dead, he weeps. He cries in front of the people he has been teaching and has kept his guard for. The miracle worker is watched by the crowds surrounding Jesus, some loving Him, some hating Him, they watch as the great man cries.

People have pondered over this for centuries. How is that Jesus, when he is fully God can cry? Why would he? Jesus knows that He is the resurrection and the life, so what does He have to get bent out of shape about? John Henry Newman, preaching on this text, told his congregation: Jesus’ “pity, thus spontaneously excited, was led forward to dwell on the various circumstances in man's condition which excite pity. It was awakened, and began to look around upon the miseries of the world. What was it He saw? He saw visibly displayed the victory of death… Here was the Creator of the world at a scene of death, seeing the issue of His gracious handiwork…There had been a day when He had looked upon the work of His love, and seen that it was "very good." Whence had the good been turned to evil, the fine gold become dim? "An enemy had done this" He says.

Newman is pointing out that Jesus’ tears are much more than the tears of a man for a dead friend. They are the response of God to the fallen world. God did not want us to die the way we all did after the Fall. God the Father who created everything to be good, sends His Son to stand in front of the concrete proof that we, God’s children, had turned away from Him and empowered the Devil and his good friend Death to have sway over the world. No parent likes to see their children in trouble, and we were most definitely in trouble.

Jesus knew what he would do. He would raise Lazarus from the dead. This act was more than just a compassionate action of a friend, it was a sign to the world that Death’s time of dominion over men was drawing to a close. Jesus knew he needed to do this to break through the icy hearts of so many around him that would not follow him. Yet, Jesus knew this act would cost him dearly. Newman wrote: “there were other thoughts still to call forth His tears. This marvellous benefit to the forlorn sisters, how was it to be attained? at His own cost... [Jesus] went to raise Lazarus, and the fame of that miracle was the immediate cause of His seizure and crucifixion. This He knew beforehand, He saw the prospect before Him; He saw Lazarus raised; the supper in Martha's house; Lazarus sitting at table; joy on all sides of Him; Mary honouring her Lord on this festive occasion by the outpouring of the very costly ointment upon His feet; the Jews crowding not only to see Him, but Lazarus also; His triumphant entry into Jerusalem; the multitude shouting Hosanna; the people testifying to the raising of Lazarus; the Greeks, who had come up to worship at the feast, earnest to see Him; the children joining in the general joy; and then the Pharisees plotting against Him, Judas betraying Him, His friends deserting Him, and the cross receiving Him.”

Jesus’ raising of Lazarus was more than an act of kindness to one person. It was a sign that He need to perform, even though He knew it would lead to his own Death. Our Lord Jesus, when faced with the prospect of eternal death for all humanity, acts to our benefit, even though it means His life for ours.

As I spent the week pondering this text, I couldn’t help but notice just how different we respond to death than Jesus did. Despite the fact that 2,000 years ago Jesus made it perfectly clear that Death was our enemy and gave His own life to give us eternal life, we don’t really seemed to have noticed. Each year since the resurrection has seen mankind find a new and more efficient way to kill his fellow man. Now in a fallen world I don’t think it’s possible to avoid wars, but yet we seem to get a perverse pleasure out of going to war.

Today, in the Western World we live in a paradox. Thanks to the advances in modern medicine, and longer stretches of peace achieved by better communication, the sight of death is absent from the world for most of us. Today, the only people who regularly see the dead are medical workers, clergy, military personnel and emergency crews. And seemingly to make up for this lack of the dead in front of us, we have created a culture that loves death. We love it in our movies, we love it our games. We love to sell it on the front page our newspaper, and we enshrine its protection in law. And on those rare occasions where we realize how much virtual death and the talk of death scares us, we let the same culture tell us it’s ok. “Don’t be afraid of Death, it was always meant to be there. It’s the Lion King and the Circle of Life.”

The Church doesn’t let us off the hook that easy. Jesus has given us access to everlasting life in Him if we but choose Him. Yet instead of embracing a culture that glories in the sacred miracle of life that the Lord said is good, we spend so much of our time talking about, facilitating, encouraging and mandating Death, the enemy. The enemy that Jesus was so pained to see in our world that He wept and gave His own life to free us from its grip.

I pray that God will bring all of us, especially me, to the moment that Jesus had. The moment when we all weep, when we all realize what we have done, and still are doing to ourselves, by cooperating with death, and not life. I pray that we all come to the point that we have the same tender heart that Christ did, so that when we see our brother and sisters in trouble we are moved with compassion, and willing to do what God wants us to do for them, not what the world tells us to do.