For Sunday
Lent 5C
Collect
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
When Martha and Mary come to Jesus to save their brother (and Jesus’s friend), Lazarus, they appeal to his sense of urgency, his personal relationship, his willingness to protect others. And when Judas dies, their shock and sadness is colored by this belief about Jesus. That he should want to save his buddy from dying.
The turn in the story comes when Jesus subverts this desire to protect by revealing a whole other option. He raises Lazarus from the dead before the grieving and dumbstruck sisters and friends. Saving, it would seem, is not the only choice; raising is on the table, too.
There is a temptation to treat Jesus as these sisters do: to want Jesus to be a miracle-worker who particularly works miracles for us. Save my brother or myself. Heal the whole world. Considering Jesus is a miracle-worker, this isn’t a bad calculation on anyone’s part. He does fit the part. But there’s a difference between rightly assessing who Jesus is and then assuming his miracle-working is to one’s personal benefit. That none of us would have to face death or rejection, struggle, or live separated from the ones we love.
The raising of Lazarus reveals, not the virtue of Jesus, but the power of God. And it serves as a precursor to the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is why Mary is at the feet of Jesus, after participating in an act of burial for Jesus in the days after burying her brother and yet getting him back. In burials we live with both celebration and grief. It is a time of thanksgiving for God’s offering of life and in sadness that we don’t get to live forever with one another.
Judas doesn’t get this yet. And some Pharisees will conspire to kill Lazarus — the proof of resurrection. But we are called to live in the both/and of this moment. We celebrate knowing the grief to come.