Lenten Reflections
FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT, MARCH 26, 2023
By Joycelin Raho, Campus Ministry
Amazon Prime has a feature called x-ray. It allows you to pause a movie and find out the “behind the scenes” information. When you pause the movie, everything stops but you can look deeper into the actors, the soundtrack, the producers, etc.
I’d like to do that with our reading today. Pause for a moment and look beyond the obvious storyline – The Raising of Lazarus – and x-ray more deeply into what the scene is saying. Let’s pause at the moment when Martha first speaks to Jesus.
When Lazarus became ill, Martha sent word to Jesus. He had been a great friend to Martha, her sister Mary and brother Lazarus for a long time. She asked him to come. She knew he would be able to save her brother. Unfortunately, it took him a while to return. Now, when Jesus finally has arrived, Lazarus is dead, and her life is filled with sorrow.
James Tissot, Jesus Wept (Jésus pleura)
So what does Jesus do? Does he rush in and solve all her problems? No. Does he apologize? No. He comforts Martha. He weeps with her. It’s the shortest sentence in the entire Bible in fact: “Jesus wept.” He feels deeply and truly the loss of his close friend and stops everything to comfort her in the middle of the road. Martha knows what could have been: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” and knows of what will be: “I know he will rise again on the last day.” But this does not change the grief and sorrow she feels right now in the present moment.
I am so grateful we have a God that understands the humanity of mourning and comforts us in our sorrow. We all know that breathless feeling of grief, despite knowing what was or what will be – as people of faith. We know only God has the final say on life and death. So we stand, in the middle of our suffering, held by the Lord.
Then Jesus speaks to Martha and says “I am the resurrection and the life.” Notice the use of the present tense. Jesus IS the resurrection and the life – not I WAS or I WILL BE – but that in this moment, He IS life for all of us. Only God has power over death. When He returns again and commands the dead to rise, He will roll aside the stone of death for good. In the meantime, let us be remember that he is still rolling stones – still performing miracles in our lives – to remind us that death never wins, and we as children of God can always find comfort in the promise of eternal life.
One of my favorite songs during this season is “Still Rolling Stones” by Lauren Daigle, so as we “unpause” and go back to our daily lives, let me leave you with this song to jam to today: https://youtu.be/Vr0d51uFTMc