HOMILY FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR A
Rev.
Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi
There are two days in
every week about which we should not worry. These two days should be kept free
from fear, worry, anxiety, cries, feelings of disappointments, and
apprehension. One of these days is yesterday with its mistakes and cares, its
faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed forever beyond
our control. All the money in the world cannot bring it back. We cannot even
erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone. The other day is tomorrow with
its possible adversities, burdens, promises and prospects. It is beyond our
immediate control. Tomorrow’s sun will rise irrespective of your awareness of
it. But until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn. The only
battle that you can fight is that of today. If you add those of yesterday and
tomorrow, you will surely break down. It is the remorse for something which
happened yesterday and the dread of what tomorrow may bring that drives people
crazy. Only God is not limited to time. We are limited to time, but to survive,
we must be concerned with the present time. We must therefore grow in such
consciousness that God does not operate in human time. God is atemporal, which
means unaffected by time. If we know this, then we must in our human terms
herald that NO TIME IS LATE FOR GOD.
God also weeps. In the
face of human difficulties, worries, troubles and travails, God is troubled. And
He does respond. God is the giver of life and so makes us to understand that
the past, present and the future are all in his palms. He can rewind the past
to become the present, the present to become the future and the future to
become the present or the past. In the First Reading (Ezek. 37:12-14), we are
presented with the eternal promise of God.
I will open your graves,
and raise you from your graves, Oh my people.
I
will
bring you home into the land of Israel...
I
will
put my spirit within you, and you shall live...
I
will
place you in your own land...
The First promise is a precondition for
the third promise, as the second promise is for the fourth. When he opens the
grave, it is the spirit that he infuses into the corpse that will make him rise
and then live. We recall the Second account of creation where the Lord God
formed Adam and breathed into Him the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). The spirit
that he will put within us is the spirit of recreation, revival, renovation and
renewal; and thus a re-enactment of creation. This promise is for all those who
have been killed and destroyed, while the destroyer thinks they have no power
to rise again. If you are among such people, may the reading of this reflection
raise you from your grave and restore to you abundant life. When he brings us
home, then we actually have been placed in our own lands. In v. 21, the Lord
makes it vivid that He will bring back the people of Israel from the nations
among which they have gone, and gather them all along and bring them to their
own land. And in v. 25, they shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant
Jacob. The journey back home then is the journey for reinstatement and
restoration. This promise is for those who have been denied what actually they
had before or what actually they ought to have. If this is your experience, may
your reading of this reflection effect your restoration and reinstatement.
When God says I will, we must know that he does not
talk of a particular time understood by humans. The ‘I Will’ of God is eternal, not even futuristic. So since the
promise of God is atemporal since He who promises is atemporal, there is no
given time one can give himself as to the time when the promise is fulfilled. God
is the eternal ‘I’. He is the eternal presence.
When He says I will, it does not
mean that the plan is yet to be done. It means that this is what he does, has
done, and will continue to do. And when he does it, you shall know that He, the
Lord has spoken and has done it. He cannot fail in His promises because what we
see as futuristic promises is what he actually does eternally.
The Gospel (John
11:1-45) saddles the message of the First Readings unto our thighs. Lazarus
(the brother of Mary and Martha) was sick. His friend, Jesus was informed and
called. Jesus divinely delayed. Lazarus died. There was mourning in the family and
even in the village. After four days of Lazarus’ burial, Jesus went to Bethany,
the home of the deceased. He promises resurrection to Lazarus, but Martha
thought he was been futuristic. Mary came to the scene weeping, and Jesus
joined to weep. He was led to the graveside, and there he ‘opened his grave, and put his spirit into him, and placed him in his
home.’ The promise of the First Reading was realised in the Gospel. Hence,
we can state that God is the resurrection and the Life. Mary and Martha had
thought that Jesus’ visit to their home was late. But God is never late. There hope
was lost. They might have even misunderstood their good friend, Jesus, who in
human judgment wasted time, neither visiting his friend nor being present on
the day of burial. But Jesus’ way is God’s way; not yours or mine. When he is
four days late, he is still on time. There are two deep sense of wonder that
come to our minds about the episode of the resurrection of Lazarus.
The first wonder
concerns how Jesus reacted on hearing the news of the illness of a friend. When
the news reached him, he stayed two days longer. The main reason for how this
is that the Evangelist wants to show us that Jesus takes action entirely on his
own initiative and not on the persuasion of anyone else. John wants to present
Jesus as one who loves us and takes action not because he is persuaded and
compelled, but entirely on his own initiative. When the time came and without
having been informed, Jesus gladly told the disciples that Lazarus was dead and
they are to go to raise him. Jesus was glad because the sign is to provide an occasion
for the disciples to believe strongly. Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
The second wonder
concerns the reaction of Jesus on arrival at Bethany. The two prominent
reactions were weeping and the movement towards the grave. Jesus had to weep
when he saw how everybody was weeping. He met a house of mourning. After the
burial, the Jewish house of mourning had set customs. Deep mourning lasted for
seven days, of which three days were days of weeping. During these seven days,
it was prohibited to anoint oneself, to put on shoes, or to engage in any form
of trading, or even to wash. It was called the week of deep mourning. It was a
sacred duty to visit the family and to express sympathy during this week. Here,
we see the emotion of Jesus. The arrival of Jesus reminded the two sisters of a
person who would have averted death in the life of their brother. If only Jesus
had come in time, Lazarus would still be alive. Jesus saw people wailing and
shrieking, and crying aloud because the Jewish point of view was that the more
unrestrained the weeping is, the more honour it paid to the dead. He was
troubled. This most probably was because he saw that those cries were sheer hypocrisy.
This artificial grief raised Jesus’ anger. He ordered them to take him to where
he was buried. He wept. Why did he weep when he arrived at the tomb? Remember,
Jesus knew what he was going to do right from the onset. He knew that Lazarus
had died and that he was going to raise him. Jesus wept because he had come to
reality with the pains and misery of this family. Jesus weeps for us and with
us.
He proceeded to the
grave. People could think of only one reason for opening the tomb –that Jesus
wished to look at the face of his dead friend for the last time. Little wonder,
Martha said that by that time, putrefaction must have begun and so it is not
hygienic to do so. There was now no hope of rising again. It was Jewish belief
that the spirit of the dead hovered around his tomb for four days, seeking an
entrance again into his body. But after four days, the spirit finally left for
the face of the body was so decayed that it could no longer be recognized. Hence,
Jesus returned the spirit to the body when all hope was lost. He restored the
flesh that was decayed.
You may be fighting a
battle of fear, and all hope may seem to be lost. Friends, do not be
discouraged. He remains the same. Jesus is on his way coming to you. When he
arrives, he will calm those fears and weep with you, and your weeping will
cease. He will restore your initial joy. He will go to that grave of disappointment,
of misery, of sorrow, of hopelessness, of darkness, of death; yes, he will go
to that grave where your character has been assassinated, and has been rendered
moribund; yes, he will go to that grave where you have been sabotaged and backstabbed;
then, he will look up to heaven as he did in the case of Lazarus, and pray to
God, and will call out your name. When he does this, you will come out, and
everybody will testify that He God has done it. Those who assisted in your
misery, sabotage and death will themselves assist in untying you from that
clothing with which you were tied. And Jesus will herald: Unbind him, let him
go. You will become the envy of all. With God, it is not over. A fool at 40 is
not a fool forever. There is still time to succeed. Even when you seek
something and you think you are not getting what you want, just be patient, for
God can never be late in your life. There is still time and ample opportunities
to fight on with your dreams.
We now finally conclude
with the spiritual relevance of the physical resurrection of Lazarus. Jesus
also wants to prove to us that even if we were rendered dead by sin, he is able
to raise us to righteousness. Even when a particular sin has held us hostage and
chained, Jesus is able to break the chains and liberate us. The Second Reading
(Rom. 8:8-11) enjoins us to be aware that the spirit of God has been given to
us. So, as those who have the spirit of God in us, we are alive in
righteousness. The spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is able to give life
to our mortal bodies because that spirit dwells in us. God does not forsake his
people. Happy Sunday and do have a splendid New Week of renewal and
restoration. God bless you.
No comments:
Post a Comment