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1. For three consecutive Sundays we
have been reading rather long sections from the Gospel of
Saint John. Each section told us the story of an incident
that took place during the public ministry of Jesus.
Unlike most of his ministry, which was to crowds or to
special groups of people, these three incidents are about
face-to-face meetings with individuals. We began with the
story of Jesus’ meeting with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s
well and last Sunday we read about the healing of a man
born blind. Today’s story is that of the raising of
Lazarus to life.
There is a kind of crescendo, a build-up in the dramatic
quality of the three events. It began with the spiritual
awakening and empowerment of the Samaritan woman. That was
followed by the miracle of giving sight to the man born
blind and his subsequent seeing with the eyes of faith.
Today’s story is the most dramatic of all – the raising of
a dead man to life.
While reflecting on the first two stories we noticed, with
a touch of regret, that John did not tell us the names of
either the Samaritan woman or the man born blind. In that
respect today’s story is altogether different. In the very
first sentence we are told the name of the man who will be
raised from the dead, Lazarus, and also the names of his
sisters, Mary and Martha - “Now a certain man was ill,
Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister
Martha.”
John goes on to tell us that Jesus was very close to this
family – “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus”. So, his being with them was not just an
occasional meeting, like that with the woman of Samaria or
the meeting with the man born blind. And John is at pains
to let us know how deeply affected Jesus was by the sorrow
and pain brought upon his friends Martha and Mary by the
death of their brother - “When Jesus saw her weeping, and
the Jews who came with her, he was deeply moved in spirit
and troubled; …”
Indeed in all three stories, but most of all in today’s,
John paints a picture of a very human Jesus, one who like
ourselves “is repulsed and horrified at the way in which
death and suffering distort the goodness of creation and
mangle the lives of humans.” Robert Kysar, Augsburg
Commentary on the New Testament / John, Augsburg
Publishing House, Minneapolis, 1986, p 180)
2. So, in today’s story, we see how Jesus reacts when
confronted with death. Death is the greatest of all the
enigmas of our human existence. That was very poignantly
expressed in the document The Church in the Modern World,
of the Vatican Council II;
“It is in regard to death that the human condition is most
shrouded in doubt. We are tormented not only by pain and
by the gradual breaking-up of our bodies, but also, and
even more, by the dread of forever ceasing to be. But a
deep instinct leads us rightly to shrink from and to
reject the utter ruin and total loss of our personality.
Because we bear in ourselves the seed of eternity, which
cannot be reduced to mere matter, we rebel against death.
All the aids made available by technology, however useful
they may be, cannot set our anguished minds at rest. They
may prolong our life-span; but this does not satisfy our
heartfelt longing, one that can never be stifled, for a
life to come.” (n. 18)
Faced with the fact of death and the anguish which its
utter finality and absolute impenetrabilty cause to our
human spirit, we try to soften its impact by comforting
and consoling one another when it makes its presence felt,
when a person dies. But we are all aware of how inadequate
words can be on such occasions. Our mind is truly at a
loss before the mystery of death. John Steinbeck, a
craftsman with the use of words, when writing to
Jacqueline Kennedy of the occasion of the assassination of
her husband, President John Kennedy, asked her forgiveness
for not finding the proper words with which to express his
sympathy.
We can, of course, turn to poets like
Khalil Gibran or Rabindranath Tagore to help us cope with
death and they have some very beautiful and helpful things
to say. Let me quote just a few verses from one of the
several poems which Tagore has written about death;
“I am not aware of the moment when I first crossed the
threshold of this life.
What was the power that made me open out into this vast
mystery like a bud in the forest at midnight!
When in the morning I looked upon the light I felt in a
moment that I was no stranger in this world, that the
inscrutable without a name and form had taken me in its
arms in the form of my own mother.
Even so, in death the same unknown will appear as ever
known to me. And because I love this life, I know that I
shall love death as well. …..”
(Gitanjali, Macmillan India Ltd, 1997, n XCV, p 62)
3. But what do we find in the Gospel? How does Jesus react
when confronted with death? He does not say all that much
and his words are not at all poetical. In fact, by and
large, they tend to be very practical and down to earth –
“Where have you laid him?” / “Take away the stone.” /
“Lazarus, come out.” / “Unbind him, and let him go.” These
are not words of consolation or comfort; these are words
of command. These are not words to soften the sorrow of
those bereaved by Lazarus’ death; they are words spoken to
death itself. They are words of power and life and, in
response to them, John simply tells us – “The dead man
came out …”
The poets and writers may write beautiful and consoling
things about death. Jesus, on the other hand, speaks to
death itself! There is a power and vitality, a majestic
freedom in the presence of Jesus before which death must
give way. Death no longer has dominion when confronted
with the fullness of life. It is precisely the other way
round. Here is one who stands in the presence of death
utterly free from any fear, knowing that it is death which
must obey his command.
And we! Because we are linked in faith to this same Jesus,
we possess, even now, a life that will outlive death and
already reaches into eternity. “I am the resurrection and
the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall
he live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never
die.” What a stupendous promise!
And so, the same power of Jesus, which confronted and
overcame the death of Lazarus, is a power which he shares
with us. “Christ’s union with us is power and the source
of power, as Saint John stated so incisively in the
prologue of his Gospel: ‘The Word gave power to us to
become the children of God.” (Jn 1: 12) We are transformed
inwardly by this power as the source of a new life that
does not disappear and pass away but lasts to eternal
life.”
(Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, n 18)
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