The Raising of Lazarus and a Greater Miracle

Fifth Sunday of Lent
    I have a vague memory from when I was a young child of the first funeral visitation I attended.  I remember looking at the casket with the deceased person, and being a bit confused.  The person looked to be asleep, and I wondered if the person would ever wake up again, and if it would happen while I was there.  I obviously did not, at that point, really understand death.

    We have heard this story about the raising of Lazarus how many times in our life, and it probably has become a bit passé and humdrum.  We know what’s going to happen.  But imagine that story was transposed into our time.  Imagine a wandering priest, who had worked some miracles, walked into the funeral home visitation with a closed casket, told you to open it, and then said, “Awaken!”  And then imagine the person actually opened his eyes, sat up, and then got out of the casket.  Not so humdrum anymore!
    That is the shock that we should have when we hear this familiar story.  It should shake us out of our complacency.  The raising of Lazarus is the last great sign in John’s Gospel that Jesus is who He says He is.  And Jesus takes great pains to make sure that no one will be confused about the significance of what just happened.  Perhaps the other accounts of Jesus’ miracles were written off by others as parlor tricks, or clever shows put on by a snake oil salesman.  But this amazing feat could not be written off.  Jesus waited two days after knowing that Lazarus was ill even to go to Bethany.  And by the time He gets there, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.  There was no question that Lazarus was dead.  In fact, the people were concerned that decomposition had started.  And yet, no one could deny that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, because they saw Lazarus, tied up in burial cloths, walking out of the tomb. 
    And yet, that work, as amazing as it is, is not the greatest work of Christ.  This sign, this miracle, merely restored earthly life to a man who would die again.  Incredible?  Yes.  But not as incredible as the greatest work of Christ, which was His own Death and Resurrection, into which we will enter and participate in less than two weeks. 
    The raising of Lazarus was the re-vivification of earthly flesh.  The Death and Resurrection of Christ brought about the possibility of eternal happiness by filling the earthly flesh with the Spirit of God.  St. Paul references this in our second reading when he writes, “if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”  And Christ comes into us through Holy Baptism, the Sacrament in which we die with Christ so that we can rise with Him to new life.
    Through Baptism, God takes something which is opposed to Him, His own enemy, and makes it the dwelling place of His Holy Spirit.  He makes a son or daughter out of an enemy, and takes that which is pointed towards destruction and makes it that which is pointed toward glory.  Our bodies operate under the weight of sin and the death that comes with sin.  And yet, by the Spirit of God, they can continue on this earth but no longer plagued by sin and death, but designated for eternal life.  And that eternal life will not end, like the earthly life of Lazarus eventually ended (and as our earthly life will eventually end).  But God will raise up our bodies to be like His in glory, as St. Paul said, and those bodies will experience no more death, nor more pain, no more limits that our earthly bodies experience. 
    With this in mind, it is also striking that we often choose to reject the resurrection that Jesus offers us, and give in to the death that comes from sin.  If Baptism is our own raising like Lazarus, so that we are a new creation, choosing to commit major sins after Baptism is like asking the crowd to re-wrap us with burial cloths and put us back in the tomb where can rot.  Sin binds us up and brings death and rot.  Jesus, on the other hand, frees us to be ourselves as God created us to be, and refreshes us and restores us to our youth. 
    Do we believe that Christ can do this?  Do we have faith in Christ who is the Resurrection and the Life?  Are we like St. Martha, so often put down because of her busyness, but here demonstrating her faith in the Lord?  Do we meet Him and express our faith that we will rise in the resurrection on the last day, because He is the Christ, the Son of God?  Are we like Mary, who previously had sat at the feet of Jesus, but who, in this instance, was slow to come to Jesus and slow to believe?  Are we willing to accept the new life that God desires for us, a life separated from the sins of our past, leaving them in the tombs as we walk about in the fresh air of life in Christ?
    [My dear Elect, in this last scrutiny, we once again ask God to heal you from your past sins, and remove any hold that Satan has upon you.  Christ beckons for you and says, “Come out!  Do not be bound any longer!”  You are less than two weeks away from the time when Christ will make you His own, and pour His Spirit within you, the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead.  Hear the voice of God.  Do not linger in the tombs, but enjoy the bright light of freedom.]
    I dare say it would be a shock to any of us if, at the next funeral we attended, the person were to come back to life.  And if that person said that Jesus had sent them back, we would probably pay heed to what Jesus had said to that person.  Jesus does a greater work than that: He frees you from the death of sin.  Pay attention to what Jesus has said through the Scriptures and the Church.  Pay attention to the witness of those who have died to their sins and risen to freedom in Christ.  Come out of the death of sin.  Allow the grace and mercy of God to unbind you from slavery to Satan and walk about freely in the Spirit of God.