Proving His Identity

Fifth Sunday of Lent–Third Scrutiny
    With the increase of AI and internet bots, it’s not uncommon for webpages that require a log-in to also require you to verify you’re human.  Apparently, all it takes to be human is the ability to select pictures with bridges, traffic lights, or motorcycles.  It strikes me as funny the different times and situations when we have to prove our identity.  In an ever-more-automated world, I suppose we pray the price for security with electronic hoops through which to jump.
    In the totally un-automated time of Christ, He still had to prove who He was.  If we go through the Gospels we see Jesus proving His divine identity to the people.  Sometimes it’s a whole crowd, other times it’s just the disciples or very few apostles.  We have the miraculous catch of fish when Jesus calls Peter to follow the Lord.  We have the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (which maybe led Peter away from believing in the Lord’s goodness).  Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding when it ran out.  Then there’s the healing of the paralytic, lowered through the roof, where Jesus forgives the man’s sins and then heals the man of his paralysis.  There’s the multiplication of the loaves and fish for thousands at different times.  Jesus heals the blind and the deaf and mute.  He calms the storm when the Apostles are in the boat and afraid they are about to drown.  He walks on water, and even invites Peter to do the same.  He expels demons, including once into a herd of swine.  He heals the centurion’s servant from afar, and raises to life the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain.  Lepers approach Jesus, and not only does Jesus not catch leprosy, He heals them of it.  Two weeks ago we heard Jesus reveal private details of her life to a Samaritan woman.  Last week we heard of the healing of the man who was blind from birth, something that was unheard of, as the man testifies.  
    But apparently, even with all these miracles, people still wondered who Jesus was.  Even with all these miracles, Jesus often bemoans the people’s lack of faith, and their ever-continuing doubt about His identity.  They even accuse Jesus of being in cahoots with the devil when Jesus casts out demons from people, and accuse Christ of breaking the Law of Moses.  In His own home town and in Capernaum, Jesus cannot do many miracles because of their lack of faith.

    Today’s Gospel shows the culmination of all of Jesus’ signs or miracles.  After four days of being in the tomb, Jesus raises His friend, Lazarus from the dead.  There was no way to claim this was a parlor trick or a sleight of hand.  Lazarus was clearly dead.  And not just mostly dead (as Miracle Max declares in “The Princess Bride”), but dead as a doornail.  In fact, as the Jews knew, based upon their concern at rolling back the stone that there would be a stench, putrefaction, where bacteria starts to break down tissues, would have started in 2-3 days after death, or 1-2 days before Jesus arrived in Bethany.  Still, Jesus prays, and raises Lazarus from the dead, and restores bodily wholeness to Lazarus.
    Certainly this would prove Jesus’ identity, even more than clicking boxes with bridges, traffic lights, and motorcycles.  And yet, as we will hear next week on Palm Sunday, while many people believed–the crowd that would welcome Jesus in as the Son of David–there will still many who did not believe: certainly the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees, and maybe even Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.  
    Do we believe that Jesus is who He says He is?  Do we take His miracles as proof of His divinity?  Or do we doubt?  Certainly, belief requires faith, which makes the leap from what is known to what is unknown or cannot be proven scientifically.  But faith is also a form of knowledge.  And when that faith has reason to assist it, even if we are not 100% sure, we can have a certitude in our faith.  For example, I’m relatively sure that my car is in my garage right now.  I can’t see it right now, so I don’t have scientific proof that it’s there, but I remember parking it there yesterday, and the garage door, last time I checked, was still closed and intact, so that I don’t have any suggestion that someone else has taken it without my permission.  But, strictly speaking, I only know it’s there by faith.
    When bad things happen to us, we can doubt in the presence of God, or that God truly loves us.  We wonder why God would let us suffer so much?  How could a good God let evil happen?  The devil tempts us to abandon these true stories we have heard from the Gospels where God proves His love for us, because what we want didn’t happen, or because we had to undergo something bad.  
    In the midst of these temptations to doubt, our Lord invites us to look at the evidence: His teachings that help us live a happier life; His miracles which prove that He is God.  Look especially to this miracle, the culmination of His previous miracles, as the nail in the coffin (pun intended) that God can do anything.  But even greater than that, is the miracle that we will hear about over the next two Sundays: how God, in the Person of Jesus, died for us so that the reign of sin and death could be ended, and the punishment due to sin, which first entered the world through Adam and Eve, could be remitted.  And then, to prove that nothing has power over God, God will raise Jesus from the dead to show us that we, too, can have new life if we are joined to Him through Holy Baptism and through following His way of life.
    My dear elect, you are also signs to us of God’s love and the veracity of what Jesus said.  You have come to believe in Him, through your own pilgrimage of faith, and your choice strengthens our faith.  In these last few weeks, doubts may enter your mind.  But have confidence in the choice you have made, and do not listen to the temptations of the evil one.  God does not only tell us to believe in Him, He gives us miracles and signs which attest to His Divine identity and His power and grace.  God desires to give you new life through His Death and Resurrection.  Yes, faith is required, but it is not a blind-faith, but rather a reasonable belief that God can do all things, because we have heard and experienced through the millennia how He has done all things, even beyond the laws of nature.
    All of us may have doubts from time to time.  We may wonder if our faith will be rewarded, or if it’s just a desire.  Look to the miracles in the Gospels and through the Church for 2,000 years.  Look to the witness of the martyrs who died rather than give up their faith.  Soon we will celebrate, once more, how Christ once-and-for-all proved His love and His power: through His Death and Resurrection which gave us freedom from sin and death, and opened the kingdom of heaven for us.

The Stink of Death

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time–Third Scrutiny

    In my first four years as a priest, I worked very closely with our parish school in East Lansing.  I enjoyed interacting with the kids in the classroom, teaching them from time to time, playing on the playground with them, and rewarding them for paying attention during Mass with smarties, and hopefully they came to connect to Christ more closely through me.
    When the warmer temperatures started coming in May, the fifth grade class in particular became a little gamey, as some kids started to get more body odor, but hadn’t quite realized that they needed to start wearing deodorant yet.  God bless their teachers for having to firmly, yet gently, tell the kids that they needed to bathe or shower every day and needed to wear deodorant.  The effects were noticeable when put into practice.
    In the Gospel today for the third scrutiny, we hear about a stench.  The stench is from a man who had been dead in a tomb for four days, a smell even worse than 5th grade b.o.  While I’ve been around dead bodies in my work with the Michigan State Police, I haven’t had to go into a house that had a dead body discovered after a long time.  So I don’t have a personal experience with that particular odor.  But I know it’s not pleasant.
    When we think about what God wants to do with you, Skyler and Raegan, as your prepare for your baptism next week, some might think about it like throwing deodorant on.  Nothing changes, but you don’t smell it because you mask it with other scents.  In fact, Martin Luther, who separated himself and led to a great division from the Catholic Church, referred to humans and the process of justification as snow-covered dung.  We’re the dung; grace is the snow.  We’re still bad, but God covers us up so that you can only see the pure white of snow.

    But that’s not what God does with Lazarus, and that’s now what God says He will do through the prophet Ezekiel, and that’s not what St. Paul says that God has done for us thanks to the Resurrection of Christ.  Jesus does not spray perfume on Lazarus but leave him dead.  He gives Lazarus new life, calls him out of the tomb, and removes the stench of death from him.  God provides a new reality for Lazarus, not a slight upgrade on his current condition (which was dead).
    And that’s what God will do for you.  The call to follow Christ, especially as an adult, means a call to a new form of life, not just a modified way of your current life.  You stink (not physically)!!  You stink because you are dead in your sins!!  But Christ does not want you to be dead.  Christ wants you to be alive in Him through the working of the Holy Spirit, who, after you are baptized, will dwell within you as God dwelt in the Temple.  You cannot make yourself alive.  And no matter how much perfume you put on a dead body, it still remains dead and will stink.  But God will take away the stink and make you alive in Him so that your can flourish.  
    In this, God fulfills the word He spoke through the Prophet Ezekiel: “I will open our graves and have you rise from them…I will put my spirit within you that you may live…thus you shall know that I am the Lord.  I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.”  God will give you new life through Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist so that you can live primarily for Him, even as you live your human life.  
    Yet, our temptation, and this is true for me and all those who are baptized here in the church, is to return to the tomb.  Even though God has freed us from the death that comes from sin, we foolishly seek to return to the tomb and return to the stench.  Sometimes we are like dogs who just had a bath, only to go outside and roll around in our own dung.  We forget just what a great gift we have received from God in our new life, and go back to stinking and death because it’s what we have known.  We’re so overwhelmed with death that we can be like Mary, who sits at home still mourning her brother’s passing, while Martha goes out to Jesus and makes her profession of faith that He is the Resurrection and the Life.  
    But only when we put our faith in Jesus can we see new life given to us.  Only when we realize that we cannot save ourselves can God raise us to new life so that we don’t stink.  In this scrutiny, we ask God one final time before your baptism to put away from you any works of death that will not allow you to receive His new life.  We one more time have these minor exorcisms where the Holy Spirit drives from you anything that does not help you prepare for the new life of Holy Baptism.  
    And in praying for you, we, the church assembled here, also remember that God does not call us to live in the tomb.  God does not want us to stink.  He wants to have us bathe so that we are truly clean, not snow covered dung, and rely on the graces that come from baptism, or receive the cleansing of the second baptism, the Sacrament of Penance (often called confession).
    God is about to do a great work in you, Skyler and Raegan.  He won’t just put deodorant or perfume on you.  He won’t even hit you with an Axe bomb like a middle schooler.  He will wash you clean, not only to smell with the odor of sanctity, but truly to give you new life, to transform you by the power of His grace.  May this last scrutiny help you prepare fully for the new life God will grant you next week, as He calls you out of the tomb, unbinds the bands of sin from your bodies, and makes you both a temple of the Holy Spirit.

The Desire for Life

Fifth Sunday of Lent–Third Scrutiny
    We spend so much of our energy trying to avoid or cheat death.  “The experts” suggest foods that we should eat or not eat.  Companies make large amounts of money selling creams, vitamins, and pills which aim to prolong life, or even just the appearance of life.  One of the things I have learned with my work with the Michigan State Police is that a drowning person will push a potential rescuer under water if that Trooper is not prepared in order to try to stay above water and not drown.  A person in the cold will start to lose function in most parts of the body, except the brain and the loins, the two seats of preserving current life and perpetuating life, which shut down last.  While some may say that death is natural, the fact that we try to avoid death at all costs shows that God made us for immortality, not simply like the animals who are born into this world and then die and decay.
    As Catholics, we know that death entered the world through our disobedience to God, the source of life.  God further expelled us from the garden and the tree of immortality, which some Church Fathers interpret as a mercy, as it meant that we wouldn’t live forever with sin, but that the reign of sin in our earthly bodies would end at death.  But, even with this, we have an innate sense that God made us to live forever with Him.  And so we fight death as much as possible.
    And while we cannot support euthanasia, assisted suicide, or suicide, because every life has value, and only God is the Lord of Life, we all have to die.  In order to get to heaven, we have to die.  Not before our time, but as a necessary preamble to eternal life, hopefully in heaven, death will come.
    But we know of another kind of death that we must undergo in order to live, and that is the death of baptism. St. Paul speaks very clearly about death needing to occur in order for the spirit to live, and then the body to be raised on the last day.  He also says in Romans chapter 6, verse 3: “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  Water was an ancient symbol of death, because it wasn’t as sure and steady as the ground.  The waters of chaos swirled about before God ordered them and created light and life in the beginning.  In the early church, the priest fully submerged the elect in the waters.  And anyone afraid of water knows that being under water you can’t breathe, and, if it takes too long, you drown and die.  Baptism is death.
    But that submersion did not signify the end.  The priest would then also raise the elect out of the waters where he or she could breathe, signifying new life.  St. Paul in Romans, chapter 6 continues:
 

We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.  For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be untied with him in the resurrection.

Christ died, and so rose to new life.  In baptism we, too, die, and rise to new life with Christ, with a downpayment here on earth, and the fulfillment in heaven, if we stay faithful to Christ.

    Lazarus, then, and his death and resurrection, prefigures both Christ’s death and resurrection, as well as our own death and rising to new life through baptism.  The four days of his death are like the entire life of the Catholic after baptism, where new life is present, but death seems to reign.  Four score is 80 years, and the psalms describe the life of a strong person as 80 years.  So the four days are like a full life.  But then, after our death to sin in baptism, and staying faithful to dying to sin during our earthly life, we rise to new life with Christ, as He calls us out from the tomb.  
    Dylan and Isaiah, you are about to go into the tomb in just a couple more weeks.  At the Easter Vigil you will die with Christ in the waters of baptism, but because of that death you will also get to receive new life from Christ, and a pledge of future glory for when your earthly life is done.  In some sense, you life after baptism will be a practice in dying.  Each day you will have opportunities to die to your sinful self, and stay alive with Christ.  You will die to your own sinful past, and choose to nail your own will to the cross along with anything in you that does not imitate the life of God.  
    But do not be afraid of that death, because it brings life.  Only fear the eternal death that comes when we reject God and His ways in our daily actions and words.  This earthly death may seem scary, like holding your breath for a long time under water, but if you stay faithful to God you will rise to new life.     
    So do not fight the death of all that is not of God.  Embrace the penances and pain that come from denying our sinful passions.  Because if we die that death, starting with our death in the waters of baptism, we have a sure and certain hope that we will live with Christ for ever in joy beyond all description.

New Life Not Rules

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time–Third Scrutiny Readings
    Go to Mass on Sundays and holydays; don’t eat meat on Fridays; serve the poor; love your enemies; save sex for marriage and don’t live together before you’re married; contribute to your parish; pray daily.  Catholicism is often broken down to these and many other rules.  And when Catholicism is presented as simply one set of rules (and fairly strict!) over others, it doesn’t sound that good.  But these rules are meant to be the response to a new life, rather than a reason for joining a new club.
    Yes, clubs have rules, but people make rules for themselves based upon their goals.  I remember a classmate of mine from high school whose goal was to become valedictorian.  She spent much of her time studying and making sure that she understood the concepts that the teachers taught.  She didn’t shy away from tougher honors classes, but I can only imagine the hours she spent going over lectures and assignments (and this, in addition to playing various sports).  But, her years of study, probably when others were doing things that seemed more enjoyable, paid off when she had the grades to be the valedictorian for the Lansing Catholic graduating class of 2002.
    Your goal, Mia, is not simply another tassel around your graduation gown.  Your goal is the new life that Christ offers.  And that is really what Catholicism is about.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we are not always who we want to be.  We desire the eternal, even while going through life in very limited bodies.  There is a desire for God in our hearts, but we don’t always choose God.  We need help.  And God gave us that help in Christ, who not only teaches us, but can fill us with the power to accomplish what we want: union with God.  

    Catholicism isn’t about rules (though we have a lot of them).  Catholicism is about dying and rising; dying to our old, fallen self, and rising to our new glorified self.  That is most evident in baptism, where the Death and Resurrection of Christ are given to us so that we can be changed in a way we couldn’t on our own.  The death of Lazarus, which we heard today in the very long Gospel account, anticipated Christ’s own dying and rising, except that Lazarus would die again, but Christ would never die again, because it no longer had power over Him.  
    Catholicism is about being connected to the source of the power that allows us to reach beyond our limitedness, and begin to reach into infinity as we grow in our relationship with God who is infinite.  God desires us to have new life, not just be dried bones in graves.  And He makes it happen in us through the sacraments and through the grace that comes each day from them.
    And that new life comes from doing our best to live like Jesus.  When we live our merely human life, we care most importantly for ourselves.  We go throughout life seeking pleasure and avoiding pain wherever we think we can find delight and hide from discomfort.  The merely earthly life is very self-centered, very solipsistic.  And while it may lead to more money than one can imagine, or more things that one can count, or more power to exercise over others, it does not, as so many have shown us throughout history, lead to true and lasting happiness.  Ironically, the one who cares for others, who dies to his or her own desire to be most important, ends us rising to a happier form of life where doing God’s will is most important, others follow in importance, and only then are my desires considered.  The happiest people are those who live the new life where service to others comes before pampering the self.  
    And over the centuries, Mia, the Church has created rules and practices that help us die to self and rise for God.  Ever since Pentecost when the Church was born, we have come to know more and more deeply what actions are in accord with how Christ showed us to be happy, and what actions are antithetical to living a truly happy life in Christ.  And the more we live the life of Christ here on earth, the more it will seem like the place we want to be at the end of our life when our actions will shows whether or not we want to be in heaven, which is where God created us to be.  We do those practices and we follow those rules not because we can earn God’s love; we can’t.  We go to Mass, we serve the poor, we fast and abstain, we do all those things that I mentioned and more as our response to the love of God that has been poured into our hearts.  So happy are we that we have access to new life, that we can escape the bonds of death in Christ, that we don’t just tell Christ we love Him; we show Him by what we say and by what we do.
    Mia, you are not signing up to join a new club that your friends are in.  You are not simply applying new rules to your life as a form of self-control.  You are one week away from dying to everything that is old and fallen in you, and rising to all that is young and glorified in Christ.  God doesn’t just want to give you rules, He wants to give you new life.  Hear the voice of Jesus as He invites you out of the tombs of death of your old way of life.  Let Jesus unbind the sinful bands around you.  Come to the waters of baptism next week, not for a new set of rules, but for a new life that is only possible in Christ. 

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.

Waiting in the Tomb

Fifth Sunday of Lent
    The summer after my first year in college seminary, I worked at St. Thomas Aquinas in East Lansing as a custodian.  And on a sunny, hot day on 2 July, I was working with my supervisor–a gruff older man named Grady–on trimming the bushes around the school.  Some of the work wasn’t bad; we were using gas-powered hedge trimmers.  But some of the bushes were big, taller than any of us, and we needed to trim the top.  Grady was convinced that the best way to trim the tops was to put me in the bucket of a tractor, and lift me up so I could reach the branches.  I hated the idea, but didn’t want to say no to my supervisor. 
    So I started to get in the bucket, my mind racing with the hundreds of ways that this could end with a lost limb or fatality.  But, before the bucket could be raised, the secretary radioed for me to come to the office.  Somehow, I knew something wasn’t right, so while my first few steps were at a regular pace, I quickly sped up and ended up running to the office.  It was there that the secretary told me that my sister, Amanda, had been in a bad car accident, and I needed to get to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing quickly so that I could ride in the ambulance down to Ann Arbor with my other family members as my sister was air-lifted to U of M Hospital.  Fr. Dave, the pastor, drove me to the hospital in Lansing, where my sister ended up having surgery, rather than going to U of M. 
    I knew something was wrong, so I ran, and I’m willing to bet that Fr. Dave drove faster than the posted speed limit to get me to the hospital.  And yet, when Jesus gets word that his friend, Lazarus, is ill, St. John says, “[Jesus] remained for two days in the place where he was.”  What was Jesus doing? 
    Jesus knew exactly what He was doing, and what He was going to do.  We heard Jesus say, “‘Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.’”  This may seem cold, Jesus waiting for Lazarus to die, and then raise Him from the dead.  But it was part of the Father’s plan, for the good of Lazarus, for the good of Martha and Mary, for the good of the apostles and disciples, and even for Jesus’ good. 
    It didn’t seem that way for Martha.  She said to Jesus, “‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”  But, even in the midst of her grief and confusion, Martha trusts in Jesus, and the power of God to do anything, even raise someone from the dead.  Mary, too, when she comes to see Jesus, repeats the refrain of Martha, “‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”  Mary, who had sat at the feet of Jesus to hear Him, while Martha worried about being hospitable, is now wondering what Jesus was doing, and why Lazarus had to die. 
    But Jesus is not callused to the death, either.  When Jesus came to the tomb, He cries.  This is the shortest verse in the entire New Testament: “And Jesus wept.”    Faced with the loss of His friend, Jesus cries.  He even took on our sorrow in the face of the death of a friend.  As Jesus goes to raise Lazarus, the crowd does not believe.  Even Martha says, “‘Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.’” 
    And then, after this long, drawn-out episode of Lazarus getting ill, Jesus waiting, Jesus greeting Martha, and then Mary, and then going to the tomb, it all changes.   “‘Lazarus, come out!’” Jesus says loudly.  And Lazarus does.  And the Jews began to believe in Jesus.
    We’re in week two of no public Masses.  Now we have a Stay At Home order from Governor Whitmer.  School is still out.  We’re trying to prevent deaths from COVID-19 by our social distancing, but it almost feels like the world is dead.  It seems like there has been no life.  Many people aren’t even leaving their houses, or doing so very sparingly.  With so many people staying inside their homes, by now, there will be a stench! 
    And yet, the Lord is doing something.  Somehow, according to the will of the Father, this is for our good.  It seems like Jesus is waiting too long.  Things are dire!  We need a cure now!  We need this to end now!  But He’s still waiting.  So what is on the other side of this pandemic?  We don’t know, other than it’s new life.  And somehow, God will be glorified, and others will have the opportunity to believe in Jesus. 
    I know we want to rush this, and get this over as soon as possible.  Believe me, as much as I am grateful to Tommy for Facebook live broadcasting me to you, I’d rather have you here!  I’d rather celebrate the holiest week of the year with you.  But, for now, we wait in the tomb with Lazarus.  For now, we wait for the Lord to act.  And while we wait, we reaffirm our trust, that when the Lord Jesus does act, it will mean new life for each of us.  So let us wait with joyful hope to hear those words of our Lord: Come out!  And we will be unbound, and able to live in the freedom of the resurrection. 

The Conversion Process

Fifth Sunday of Lent-3rd Scrutiny

For the past two weeks at this Mass, we have had the readings from Year A.  We do this because of the scrutinies, the rites by which we ask God to cast out from our Elect any evil which is in them, and to prepare them for the Easter Sacraments–Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist.  In one sense, Bilal, our Elect, these readings have been specifically for you.  

Each Gospel passage (and the other readings as well that point to it) has hit home a theme of conversion, which is the process which has led you here.  On the third Sunday of Lent, we heard about the woman at the well, the woman who came to know Jesus more deeply as Jesus conversed with her.  He went from “a Jew,” to “Sir,” to “the Prophet,” to “the Messiah.”  And all of that happened because of a conversation with Jesus at a well.  Jesus was thirsting, not so much for the water, but for her.

On the fourth Sunday of Lent, we heard about the man born blind.  The man cannot see, and yet recognizes that Jesus is not an ordinary person.  Never before, he tells the Pharisees, has a man cured a man who was blind from birth.  And yet that is what Jesus did.  Because Jesus opens the eyes of the man, the man believes in Jesus, while the Pharisees, whose eyes were opened but hearts were closed, remain blind in their unbelief.

Today, the fifth Sunday of Lent, we hear about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  Martha, the woman who was so concerned with serving Jesus that she forget to actually spend time with him, now is the sister who has faith that Jesus can do anything, that Jesus is Himself the Resurrection and the life.  And, sure enough, even though Lazarus was in the tomb for four days, deader than dead, Jesus brought Lazarus back to life.  

These readings were not chosen on accident.  Holy Mother Church, reflecting on her newborn children, sprung to life from the waters of baptism, saw in these three Gospel passages a message so important for you, our Elect, that she bid them to be read every year, even when it would interrupt the usual cycle of readings.

And She did this because in these three Gospel passages is the format for conversion: conversation with Jesus; Jesus opening our eyes; Jesus raising us to new life.  In your own life, Bilal, Jesus has spoken to you, to you heart.  And you sought to know more about him.  I can remember the day when you asked me about the Catholic Church, and what we believe, and we sat and talked on the pew in the narthex.  Jesus Himself spoke with you, maybe not about your past, but about your future, and about who He is.  

Through the Rites of Christian Initiation of Adults, which we have been celebrating with you for months, Jesus has also opened your eyes to see how He is who He says He is: God.  In fact, ever since Bishop Boyea chose you for the Easter Sacraments at the Rite of Election which you celebrated the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, you have been in the period that the Church calls “Purification and Enlightenment.”  In these last weeks of your preparation, Jesus has been opening your eyes to believe in Him more deeply, so that you are ready to follow Him always.

And today, as we hear about Jesus raising Lazarus to new life, you are being prepared to die with Christ and be buried with Him in the waters of baptism, so that you can rise with Him to new life.  You are almost at that point where Christ calls you out of the tomb into the radiance of new life with Him.

But these are also for us, because conversion is a process that is never done.  Each one of us, though we come as Christ’s faithful, have not always been so faithful.  There are parts of each of our lives that do not belong to Christ fully, and need conversion.  And so, Jesus continues to talk with us about those parts of our life.  He talks with us about our sinfulness, like the Samaritan woman, and the ways that our life is not configured to Him, not to condemn us, but to draw us to the freedom that only Jesus can give.

We, though we have been enlightened by Christ, still have some areas of blindness in our lives.  Each person here has things that we do not see, for a variety of reason, which we will not see unless we ask Jesus to open our eyes.  Some of these are failings that we have had since birth; others are failings that we have developed along the way.  But Christ wants to illuminate our vision so that we can see our failings, turn away from them, and turn back to Jesus.  

Though many of us have been through the waters of new birth in baptism, we all make deals with death.  We blockade ourselves into the tomb by our sins, which cause spiritual death.  We often want new life, but we sometimes don’t want it enough to accept it from Jesus.  The tomb may be musty, it may be dark, it may be a place of death, but sometimes we are comfortable with it, because death has become second nature to us, and we are surrounded by a culture of death.  But, Jesus wants to raise us to new life, and sometimes it’s someone else who begs the Lord to give us that new life.  

Yes, Bilal, these readings are for you, as our Elect, but they’re for all of us here.  Conversion does not end with baptism, or confirmation, or the Eucharist.  Conversion is a life-long process, of dying to sin and rising with Christ to new life.  Your first period of conversion is almost complete.  Your baptism is less than two weeks away.  Then you will join with us in continuing the conversion to which Jesus invites us each and every day, week, month, and year.

New Life in God's Time

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Sometimes we have heard these stories in the Gospel so often, that we miss the parts that would have shocked the first listeners, or would shock anyone who is unfamiliar with the story.  The part that should have made us at least scratch our heads in today’s Gospel was, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.”  If you really love someone, why wouldn’t you go immediately to see them, hopefully getting to them before they die?!?  It’s not like they had stellar hospitals at the time of Jesus who could keep someone alive for a few more days in order for friends or family to visit.

Two things are clear from Scripture: the Lord desires life for His people; and sometimes the Lord delays (from our point of view) in giving that new life to His people.  

Our first reading, second reading, and Gospel all make clear that God desires life for His people.  Ezekiel prophesies that God will open the graves of His people and have them rise.  He will put His spirit in them so that they may have life, and settle them in their land.  This will be the proof that God is the Lord.  And St. Paul reminds us that, while the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive.  If we have the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the one who raised Jesus from death to new life, then God will also give our mortal bodies new life, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  And our Gospel is, we can say, the fulfillment of Ezekiel, as Jesus proves He is God by raising Lazarus from the dead.  God, in the Person of Jesus, opens the grave of Lazarus, one of the People of God, and has him rise.  

The raising of Lazarus
From the Church of Sts. Martha, Mary, & Lazarus in Bethany

But those same readings, if we delve more deeply in them, also give us a less exciting piece of news: God sometimes waits to give new life to His people.  The prophet Ezekiel is writing to a people totally devoid of hope.  Because of their infidelity to the Lord, He has exiled them to Babylon, destroyed their temple, and they don’t know if they will ever return.  They are the living dead, zombies, we might say, as they live but without the love of their life: their land and their temple.  But Ezekiel reminds them that they will go back, and, after some years, they do, and they, metaphorically speaking, rise from their graves by returning to the land of Israel.  But they had to wait.

As St. Paul talks about the Holy Spirit raising us to life, he speaks about it in the present, as the Spirit gives us a new way of life in Christ, putting to death the works of the flesh.  But St. Paul also talks about how the Holy Spirit will raise up our mortal bodies.  This only happens after death, and not simply when we die, but at the end of time.  What the Church calls the general resurrection of the dead, will only come at the end of time (except for Mary, whose body was already raised up by a singular grace).  We have to wait.  

And in our Gospel, that odd paradox of Jesus hearing about one of His best friends being ill, one Jesus knows will be dead (though He uses the term “asleep,”), but Jesus waits two days.  And when Jesus arrives, Lazarus has already been dead four days.  As it turns out, even if Jesus would have left immediately, Lazarus would still have died two days before Jesus arrived.  But Jesus waits, though not without cause.  In fact, Jesus waits in order to prove beyond a doubt that He is God, and to work His greatest miracle during His earthly ministry.

Those two points are certainly true for us.  Jesus desires new life for us.  I am convinced that God has good things planned for St. Pius X, and I am happy to be a part of them, and to hopefully shepherd you as we find new life in Flint.  But, at least in some ways (and in those ways it goes without saying), we’re not there yet.  In some ways, we’re still in our graves, still in the tomb.  That’s a tough place to be.  But we cannot give ourselves life.  New life can only come from Christ, and on Christ’s terms and schedule.

Think about the Israelites.  They were so excited to leave Egypt!  No more slavery, no more Pharaoh!  But as soon as the first difficulty comes, they want to go back to Egypt.  At the Red Sea, as the Egyptians get closer and closer, they cry that they want to go back, until Moses splits the Red Sea and they pass to safety.  In the desert, the people start to complain that they don’t have meat or bread; they lack trust that God will provide; they don’t like waiting for new life in the Promised Land.  So they tell Moses it was better in Egypt, and that they’d rather go back.  They prefer the grave to new life, because they’re not convinced the new life is on the way.

God desires new life for us.  Of that I am sure.  But we’re not there yet.  We’re still in the desert, on our way to the Promised Land, on our way to new life.  The Lord invites us to have faith in Him, as Martha did, that we will rise.  To quote Jesus, “‘Do you believe this?’”

New Life

Fifth Sunday of Lent–Year C and Scrutinies

Most of the times when we have the yearly readings and the scrutiny readings (which 2 out of three years means they are different), I prepare two different homilies.  Usually each set of readings has its own focus and takes me down two different roads as I think about what the Lord wants me to say.  But this week the two Gospel passages–the woman caught in adultery and the raising of Lazarus from the dead–tied in together and seem to both emphasize the same point.

If I think about the raising of Lazarus (you can go home and read John 11 if you want a refresher), it is an amazing passage in itself.  Probably all of us have experienced the death of a loved one, and if it was a close family member or friend, we know the pain and sorrow that Martha and Mary were feeling.  We understand and maybe even have said with Martha, “‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”  We can then also imagine how moving it would have been to actually have seen Lazarus risen from the dead.  Imagine your loved one, who had been dead for four days, being returned to life.  Maybe it would be a little creepy, but the joy would have been inexpressible.  

And then I think about the woman caught in adultery from John 8.  That woman was raised from the dead by Jesus, but in a pre-emptive way.  His challenge to the scribes and Pharisees keeps them and the mob that had formed from stoning her to death.  Jesus’ words have been repeated (whether appropriately applied or not) throughout the ages: “‘Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’”  Jesus saves her life, and encourages her to go and sin no more.

But both Lazarus and the woman caught in adultery would later die.  Lazarus’ earthly life came to an end…again, at some point.  By pious legend Lazarus either became the first bishop of a city in Cyprus, or Provence in France.  We have no idea what happened to the woman caught in adultery.  But they both died.  We usually think of the raising of Lazarus as Jesus’ biggest miracle.  And certainly it was a biggie, and proved His divinity.  Jesus showed that He, as God, had power over life and death.  But we might say that, in one sense, his miracle with the woman caught in adultery was bigger.  When Jesus raised Lazarus, Jesus gave Him back earthly life.  When Jesus forgave the sins of the woman, He offered her eternal life.

Forgiving sins raises people from death.  In my ministry as a confessor, I have been privileged, though I am a sinner and in need of God’s mercy, to be the instrument of God’s mercy to people, some of whom have been away from God’s grace for longer than I’ve been alive.  To hear the confession of people who have been alienated from God by their choices, and to reconcile them to God and bring them back into His family, is a humbling and truly awesome gift, one of the greatest that a priest receives.  To act in Jesus’ Name, with His power, when someone tells me, often with tears in their eyes, that they have been away from the Church for 10, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years; that they have killed the infant in their womb; that they have committed adultery, allows me to see the great power of Christ which raises their dead soul to life, and recreates them.  

I can often see the guilt and hurt, or hear it in their words.  These are people who are as good as dead, and yet are looking for new life.  The world has not shown them kindness.  They have been drug out into the streets, ready to be killed by the stones of judgment of others.  Sometimes they even expect judgment or condemnation in the Sacrament of Penance.  But what they hear are the words of Jesus: “‘Has no one condemned you?  […]Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.’”  Once inside that confessional, the only one who could truly condemn that person because He truly knows what the person has done and why and to what extent he or she is truly culpable, does not condemn, but forgives.

Forgiveness is a way that Jesus gives new life.  Not just an extension of earthly life.  But a new life that can last forever in heaven.  It is given in Christ’s Name with His authority in the Sacrament of Penance.  But each one of us has the power to raise someone from death by forgiving them.  If we truly forgive someone who has wronged us, especially if they have wronged us in a powerful way, we give that person new life, and raise their souls from death.  It is not easy.  It doesn’t mean we forget the pain and hurt that person caused us.  But it means we no longer hold it against him or her, and grant them the opportunity of a new life without the chains of sin dragging that person down to death.  Today, and every day, you have the opportunity to raise someone from the death of sin to the new life of forgiveness.  Can you say with Jesus, “‘Has no one condemned you?  […] Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.’”

From Death to Life

Fifth Sunday of Lent-Third Scrutiny

            For the past two weeks we have heard from the Gospel according to John at this Mass.  We step aside from the usual hearing from the Gospel according to Luke to meditate and reflect upon what St. John calls the main signs of Jesus’ ministry.  We do this to assist our Elect to prepare for baptism, confirmation, and the reception of Holy Communion for the first time, as we accompany them through the Scrutinies.

            These three signs that we hear about all have to do with life, and are fitting for the Elect who are preparing for new life in baptism.  Two weeks ago we heard about the Samaritan woman at the well, and how Jesus was going to give her living water.  As we all know, we can’t live without water.  Last week we heard of the man born blind and how Jesus is the light of the world.  Light is an important part of life.  Without sunlight, the plants don’t produce, which means we, and the animals we eat, don’t survive.  Today, we don’t deal with an image or a metaphor for life, but with life itself in the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

            The first important aspect is that faith is involved.  The Samaritan woman comes to believe in Jesus, and so she is given the life-giving water in her soul which will never run dry.  The man born blind has faith, and Jesus opens His eyes.  Martha has faith that Jesus will raise Lazarus.  In none of these cases is the faith complete, as if one knows it all.  In fact, if one truly knows it all, faith, the knowledge of things unseen, is not necessary.  But faith makes new life possible.

            It is faith, at least in its seminal form, which led you, Elect of God, to ask questions about the Catholic Church.  It is faith which led you to continue searching and opening the Word of God to see if this Jesus should be followed.  It is faith which you will profess before you are baptized.  This will not be the end of the journey, but only the beginning of new life in Christ, just as for those of us who were baptized as infants, when our parents and godparents professed faith for us so that we could receive the precious gift of new life in Christ, that moment of baptism was not the end of our pilgrimage, but the beginning.  And likewise confirmation is not the end of our development of faith, but another important step in the pilgrimage, not the destination.

            God’s love is shown for us in giving us new life.  God promises through the prophet Ezekiel that the way we know that God is God is by receiving new life from Him.  Jesus fulfills that prophecy in our Gospel passage from today.

            But new life is meant to be new, not old.  You don’t pour new wine into old wineskins.  Lazarus had been dead for four days.  His decomposing body was rank with the odor of death.  It looked like a body, in some regards, but was not (we use the word corpse for a body that is no longer animated by a soul).  That is how it is with us before we come to Christ.  Yes, we are made in the image and likeness of God, we have human dignity because we are rational and have an immortal soul, but we do not have new life in us.  That comes through baptism, at least ordinarily.  Before baptism, we are plagued by original sin which puts us at enmity with God.  That is why we pray for you, dear Elect, that, because you have already been chosen—elected—for baptism, the power of Satan may have no sway over you.  After baptism, original sin is washed away—death is washed away—and you are filled with new life.

            But our outsides need to match our insides.  There needs to be a certain consonance, a certainly harmony between the new life we have in our souls, and the way we act with our bodies.  Beauty comes from when the image matches the idea, and if we truly want to be beautiful, then we should try with all our might to make sure that the way we live matches what we believe.  That goes for all of us, not just you Elect.  How many times did Jesus decry the lack of consonance in the Pharisees: “‘You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.’”  The same could be said when what we have inside does not match what we do on the outside.  The temptations are great to keep our faith to ourselves and not let it impact the way we live our lives.  That is where scandal arises, when what we profess with our lips does not match the other actions of our life; when we have new life in us, but we still act like a rotting corpse; when we are members of the Body of Christ, but we act no differently than those who do not know Jesus.

            Dear Elect of God, we pray for you, that as you draw nearer to the life-giving waters of baptism, to the Light of Christ, to new life in Jesus, that you will grow in faith and be kept safe from the Evil One so that you are prepared to put to death the old man, and put on Christ, the new Man.  And we thank you, because your consonance of life between what you believe and how you live reminds us who were baptized before to live up to that call ourselves, so that more and more will be drawn to new life in Christ that not only changes our souls, but changes how we live each day.