Fifth Sunday in Lent

1.       Yesterday, I went to visit Sr. Joan who is terminally ill with cancer. No food or even a drop of water has passed her lips since December. She still has her charming smile - but the rest of the body shows tiredness. I could not help praying the words of Martha, “Lord if you had been here, my sister would not be dying.” It has been a prayer made each day by someone or another in some part of the world as they loose a dear one.

2.       In our Gospel, Lazarus is brought back to life. Ezekiel prophecies over dry bones - and there is a shake, rattle and a roll and the dry bones get sinews and muscles and they come back to life. However, their life is no different from the life they had before. It has all the ailments - the arthritis and hypertension, the diabetes and loss of hair.. Is this the type of life to which you and I would like to return? For some who have children and grandchildren, the answer would be a resounding yes. They would like to see their children grow, take them to the altar to get married if that is the case, to coo and cuddle their grandchildren.

3.       However, St. Paul tells us in the Letter to the Romans - not in the section chosen as our second reading, but from the same letter, St. Paul tells us that the Wages of Sin is Death...  (Romans 6:23) We might strive to live good and innocent lives, but our lives are intimately connected. People who have never smoked but live through second hand smoke die of lung cancer. And so as there is greed and jealousy, anger and a desire for revenge, lust and violence in the world around us - we pay the price with Death. Innocent people die tragic deaths - and the cry is “Where was God when all this happened” - the same cry that Martha makes in our Gospel to Jesus: “If you had only been here !!”

4.       It might seem odd that when we see Lazarus being brought to life, and when the Dry Bones of Ezekiel’s time are brought back to life, that we should spend so much time on Death. However, if we believe that this earth is not our final resting place, then Death is not an enemy but a friend. Death is a moment in time when we pass on to live a Life that will not have arthritis and hypertension, the diabetes and loss of hair. Lazarus had to die again. Did he die of the same thing that killed him the first time? Did his sisters have to go through mourning all over again?

5.       Our invitation today is to say: Death where is your victory? Death where is your sting? As Job would say I know that my Redeemer lives and on the last Day I will see him again. It is a challenge to live our lives to the fullest now, to use a cliché: “to seize every moment.” And this life can only be meaningful in my relationships. My relationship to God and to my fellow men and women. It is a call to a life

 full of kindness and generosity.

 full of sensitivity and reaching out a helping hand

 full of joy and happiness, free from revenge and anger. As Ralph Waldo Emerson would say: “every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

6.       So I thank Sister Joan - and I am ever grateful to her for making me take another look

at the things that I possess that tie me down and do not let me be free.

at the things that I think I have to do and put me under pressure

at the innocence of children and friends that are so full of life - and I have not taken time to appreciate and enjoy

at the worries I have that are not worth either the time or the energy

at the sunsets and sunrises that slip pass unnoticed

7.       Today is the day for us like Lazarus to COME OUT of the things that entomb us, bury us. It is a time to stop being dry bones parched with pride and prejudice and a sale of our integrity.

          It is also a time to COME OUT as a world community - a time to speak out against ethnic cleansing, and waste of our natural resources, against prejudices towards the young, the gay, the women, the disabled. It is a time to encourage our young families and old to live out to the full potential of reflecting the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As a wise woman has said, “this is our own resurrection - this side of the grave.” What I would like to add is not a teaching of the church - but my own humble opinion. And it is this: if we do not taste such a resurrection now - we will not taste it after death.

God bless you all.