Breaking Open the Word - 5th Sunday of Lent, Year A
Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A – March 28th, 2020
Duccio di Buoninsegna / public domain
In the midst of these challenging times, the powerful Gospel account of the raising of Lazarus offers us a much-needed message of confidence in God’s power. We hope that our reflections will help you to trust more than ever in Him!
As Christians, we can become so used to hearing this story that its “shock value” is lost on us. However, one Sister remarked on just how much John emphasizes that Lazarus is dead – at least six different times! If we put ourselves into Martha and Mary’s sandals, we can begin to see how awesome and terrifying it really was to see their thoroughly dead brother emerge alive from the tomb.
As incredible as it was, Lazarus’ resuscitation is only a foreshadowing of an even more stunning event: the Resurrection of Christ. Sister pointed out how the differences between the two stories serve to show just how earth-shattering Easter Sunday was, even compared with the raising of Lazarus. For instance, both accounts mention a large stone at the opening of the tomb; however, while the bystanders must roll away the stone at Lazarus’ tomb, the angels themselves open the tomb of Jesus. Lazarus emerges “bound” and with his “face covered with a cloth.” Jesus, on the other hand, leaves His burial bands and face-cloth abandoned in the empty tomb. Perhaps this is to show how Lazarus was merely returning to earthly life, still “bound” by sin and destined to die again, while Jesus rose to a new life, free from sin and death.
We also discussed the mysterious combination of Jesus’ human emotion and divine power in this story. There are few places where His true humanity is as evident as in the shortest verse of the Bible: “Jesus wept.” At the same time, His divinity is on full display as He cries out with authority, “Lazarus, come out!” Our Lord’s two natures are visible in glorious harmony as He solemnly confronts the power of death. As Man, He is anguished at the presence of death, which is so contrary to the human yearning for immortality; as God, He grieves at the consequences of sin, which drags man away from his Creator. One Sister saw a beautiful connection between this divine-human cry of Jesus and His last cry from the Cross. On Calvary, Christ gave voice to the cry of fallen man for God, as well as the cry of God for fallen man (“Adam, where are you?”).
Finally, a Sister brought up a beautiful interpretation given by St. Augustine in his commentary on the resuscitation miracles of Jesus. This great doctor of the Church saw each of the three miracles as representing a different kind of sinful soul that Christ comes to bring back to spiritual life. The daughter of Jairus is the soul with only original sin – she has just died, and simply needs to be returned to life through encountering Christ in Baptism. The son of the widow of Naim is the soul who has fallen into mortal sin, but not yet habitually – he is on his way to his grave, but Christ comes to him and raises him up through forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance. Finally, Lazarus is the soul that is seemingly a “lost cause,” deeply sunk in habitual mortal sin – he has been dead four days, and corruption seems to be inevitable, but even then the power of Christ is able to perform the astonishing miracle of restoring him to life. What a powerful incentive to pray unceasingly even for those who seem to have no chance of repentance – the mercy of God knows no limits!