So, we come to the dramatic and very moving conclusion of the public ministry of Jesus prior to His Passion. The drama’s cast, in order of appearance, introduces us to Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha; then to Jesus and his disciples with Thomas mentioned by name; then we have the Jewish mourners, some of whom were critical of Jesus and others who came to believe in Him to some degree. The plot of the drama begins with a powerful tension: on the one hand, the expectation of Mary and Martha that Jesus would respond immediately to their message and come and cure Lazarus; on the other hand, Jesus’ decision to let him die so as to raise him and glorify the Father. Jesus wanted to save him, not from death, but out of death. The tension increases when first Martha then Mary, reproach Jesus for not preventing Lazarus’ death. Both sisters profess a limited faith in Jesus: they know that God will listen to His prayer, but they don’t yet fully perceive that Jesus is God, that He is Himself the Resurrection and the Life. The climax of the plot is not the raising of Lazarus, but when Jesus declares, “I am the Resurrection and the Life”, which Martha accepts in faith. The miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection is the playing out of Jesus’ identity and finally resolves the tension of the drama.

The main themes of the drama are: first, the deep love which binds Jesus to this family of Bethany; second, Jesus always has a higher and more wonderful purpose in mind for anything that happens to those who love Him, including sickness and death – He is not bound by our space or time or expectations; third, the revelation to this family, to his disciples and to the Jews present of His divine identity both by asserting it and by proving it in raising Lazarus; fourth, the power of Jesus over sickness, death and life through His Word, His voice. Less prominent, but still important, are themes such as: Jesus’ bravery in returning to Judea when He knew they were out to kill Him; the disciples’ slowness to understand Him; His refusal to get involved in the Jewish mourning rituals of the time, yet His deep human and divine sorrow and anger at death; and the ever-present cynicism among the crowds.

The evangelist St. John has carefully crafted this drama to draw us, the listeners, into it, to examine ourselves, to scrutinise ourselves in its light. With whom do I identify in this dramatic climax of the public ministry of Jesus? Where do I stand? How does it, or how do I let it, challenge my faith in Jesus? No Gospel passage is ever just about the individuals involved in it, whether named or anonymous. Because the Word of God is alive and active, it always involves me. You might even say that every Gospel passage is still the powerful voice of Jesus calling me out of the tomb or cocoon or comfort zone in which I live and think and feel and act and even pray. Being dead or comatose is not just about being in a grave or hospital bed. It’s also about being closed in on ourselves, in the little world of self that we so often think is spacious and wonderful, but which is in fact deaf and blind to the much grander world of God, the eternal horizons of the world of faith. The Word of God seeks to awaken us, to unbind us and let us go free, as Jesus commanded Lazarus to be stripped of his grave clothes. Jesus is our Resurrection and Life, not our demise and death, nor the guardian of our comfort zones. Yes, it is true: in baptism weare joined sacramentally to Him in His death but that’s because the sin and mortality in us must die if we are to live; but in baptism we are also joined to Him in His Resurrection precisely because our sin and death have been put to death. Baptism in this way literally con-forms our whole being to Jesus dead and risen. The death we will each most certainly die is no longer our own: it is His. In fact, as the story of Lazarus tells us, the sickness we all have, especially as we leave this world, is not our own: it is His. For all sickness comes from original sin and is intended to lead to death. But the grace of Baptism immerses us in Christ and immerses Christ in us. Everything we live and experience, good, bad or indifferent, we now live and experience in union with Christ. Even the sin we commit He suffers in compassion with us, but He takes it from us and carries as if it were His own, destroying it by the mighty power of His mercy. And He will raise us body and soul. Let there be no doubt but only faith.

How, then, might the drama of this Sunday’s Gospel help our elect and ourselves to perform a self-scrutiny in preparation for Easter? The undercurrent of the drama is the deep and familiar love of Jesus for Lazarus and his sisters. Can this love also include me? It can! It does! But do I want it to? Do I long for the personal and heartfelt love of Christ for me? Do I seek it out and go to Him and ask Him to show it to me in a way I can understand? Will I allow His love to be what my life and death are all about? Jesus had a purpose for Lazarus’ sickness and for Lazarus Himself. Am I willing to accept that, once I have done all the medical things I must do to heal or prevent sickness, if my sickness becomes chronic or terminal, the Lord has a purpose for my sickness, too? And if I die from it, can I accept the words of Jesus also for me: “this sickness will not end in death but in God’s glory”, because I know I will rise again? However understandably, Martha and Mary wanted Jesus to fit in with their timing and their expectations of Him. Am I willing to abide the times and ways of Jesus with patient trust, especially amid trials and emergencies? The sisters’ faith in Jesus had not yet reached maturity. Baptism is the sacrament which most radically enacts in me the truth of Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life. Do I believe that He is this? How does that truth and therefore the grace of my Baptism show itself in my life? Jesus weeps with human sorrow for His friend, but He is also deeply outraged at the audacity and absurdity of death itself. We all have sorrows in life, of different kinds, as we all experience different kinds of death, from separation and broken relationships and from end-of-life tragedies. Will I invite the weeping Jesus into my sorrows and let Him share with me His human and divine compassion for my grief and loss? “Lazarus, come out!” I know with certainty that I will die one day. Can I even now commit the hour and manner of my death to the power of Jesus and thus abide in humility and trust the Day when He will call me by name to rise from the dead, never again to die, along with all who have loved and believed in Him? Do I believe that I will rise from the dead, and this by the power of Christ alone? And so, will I live my life now in a way that truly prepares me both for death and for resurrection? Do I long to see Him in glory?

Lord Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, by the grace of my Baptism, I surrender my life, my sickness and my death to your purposes, for I know that you love me as you loved Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Enable me to abide humbly your timing and your ways. Open my heart to your compassionate tears for my sins, suffering and death and, one day, open my ears as you did those of Lazarus to hear your powerful voice command me to leave my tomb and to be reborn, body and soul, to the life and love that will never end. Amen.