Fifth Sunday of Lent

Bishop Peter Muhich
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 26, 2023

“I am the resurrection and the life says the Lord. Do you believe this?”

 Celebrating Mass here at the chapel at the Chancery, we’re marking the Fifth Sunday of Lent. So, we’re way down the road to the liturgies of Holy Week that will begin just in a week’s time. And we have another beautiful passage here from John’s Gospel to reflect on, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. 

If your life is like mine, busy and hectic, you’ve had a number of endeavors and projects you haven’t finished yet. Books that you’ve started to read and haven’t finished. Work assignments that are still awaiting completion. Maybe papers to correct. Promises to keep. That’s life when you’re busy and a part of everyone’s life at times. But important things are worth finishing. Courses of medication. Priority work assignments.

 In today’s Gospel, Jesus performs his second greatest sign or miracle in the Gospel of John — he raises Lazarus from the dead. Now, you might remember that John’s Gospel is unique. I mean each of the Gospels is unique in some way but Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they follow a very similar ordering and pattern. John is different, and we have some of these passages like raising the Lazarus from the dead that are unique to John. And you’ll notice if you read John’s Gospel, that the first half of the Gospel is really dominated by accounts of seven signs. In fact, college scholars call it the book of signs. For John the signs or miracles of Jesus are not just mighty works, but they’re miracles that unveil the power of glory of God working through him.

They actually recall the signs that God worked through Moses during the Exodus and there are seven signs recounted in Saint John’s Gospel. The first is the miracle at the wedding of Cana in Galilee, turning water into wine. Then the healing of the official’s son. The healing of the paralytic. The multiplication of the loaves. The healing of the man born blind; we had that last Sunday in the Gospel. The raising of Lazarus and one more. Each of Jesus’ signs points to his greatest sign, that seventh sign, his paschal mystery. His suffering, death, and resurrection. And the sequence of signs builds, one mighty, or mightier miracle, on top of the other. Water into wine is an impressive miracle but it’s even more impressive that he heals some physical ailment. The multiplication of the loaves to feed the crowds is even more impressive. As we heard last Sunday, nobody had ever heard of someone giving sight to someone who had been born blind, an even greater miracle than those that preceded it. And, of course, now we have Lazarus being raised from the dead. An even mightier sign.

We are nearing Holy Week as I just mentioned. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday when we will join the Lord Jesus once again as he enters Jerusalem to meet head on his suffering and death. His hour, as St. John calls it, will come and he will willingly face the ravages of sin for us. 

The message of this Sunday as we approach Holy Week, is as we recall Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, such an amazing miracle, that the church invites us and pleads with us not to stop here. There is more to come. Do not leave this course of healing and the entrance into a new life. Don’t let this process, that Lent is so reflective of inviting us each year to undergo once again, to let this course go unfinished. Completed it. 

You know, you and I have the tendency to leave this cleansing and healing unfinished. We like it when God does something like curing, you know, an illness or giving us some kind of help with our struggles in this world. But that’s not why Jesus came, at least that’s not his whole story. He came to bring us new and everlasting life. There is more to come. There’s something greater than the raising of Lazarus from the dead and in order for us to experience that something greater we have to be willing to undergo deeper conversion.  

But we have a resistance to that. What keeps us from undergoing a deeper conversion. It’s a very important three letter word — sin. Saint Augustine in a commentary on today’s Gospel says that Lazarus bound and dead represents all of us wrapped up in our sins. Deadened because of our sins because they’ve closed us off to God’s divine life. 

So, my assignment for all of us as we prepare to enter Holy Week, is to prepare and then make a good confession. You know, there are many ways to examine our conscience. Maybe you want to just google the seven deadly sins. You know, our sins fall into those seven categories quite nicely: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice also known as greed, gluttony, and lust. You know, how are we doing when we examine our conscience based on that list of seven deadly sins: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. 

Jesus shows us authority over power over physical death in this Sunday’s Gospel. A great miracle, raising Lazarus from the dead, but let’s not stop there. Let us open our hearts to a deeper faith in conversion as we prepare once again to celebrate his greatest sign, his greatest miracle, the defeat of sin and death in his paschal mystery. Jesus says not to just Martha in the Gospel, but do you and me today, “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”