Not to repeat myself on the gospels we hear at scrutiny masses, but they are long. And as a preacher, the cue I take from this, is that the gospel is, as it always is, the principal expression of God’s word. Indeed, it is communicating to those with ears to hear far more than anything I could say with hours to speak.
Our own St. Augustine said this story of Lazarus being raised from the dead is so well known, known outside the Church, by those of other faiths and of no faith, and it conveys dramatically to all who hear it the principal promise of Christ: resurrection. And it identifies resurrection with Jesus Christ – it’s not simply an event in the future, but is something that is found in him now.
So, it borders on the superfluous to say anything much after we hear it. Jesus Christ has the power to restore life; admittedly in this instance of Lazarus, it is to a mortal existence, but as our patron saint points out, how could the Christ, the maker of all things, the creative word of God, not be able to recreate? Indeed, in some sense, it’s a lesser miracle. God creates from nothing, summons into existence all there is from a void. So, with the material at hand, the corrupted remains, the remnants of life, how can God fail to make new life if he wills it? And if he wills the restoration of flesh to mortal life, how can he not confer upon us immortality who has immortality within himself to give?
So, as Christians, we have this blessed assurance that by our faith, our good relationship with the source of life, that by his grace we will be sustained to the end of this mortal life, and pass through death to everlasting life.
But I could imagine someone saying, “so?”
Wonderful! When my body dies, I’ll be made alive in Christ. How does that help me now? I’m not dead.
It occurred to me in consideration of the number of youth who will be baptized and confirmed at the Easter Vigil, that resurrection from the dead is a pretty abstract concept; their mortality is something which, at least as biologists and psychologists tell us, is not particularly present to them. The idea of reckless youth is not alien to any of us here – anyone who is raising or has raised children will have some experience with the incapacity of adolescents to consider consequences, anticipate outcomes of actions. Indeed, science tells us that the mind of the young develops in tandem with their physical development, and the neurological capacity to imagine the future is very limited until one reaches one’s mid-twenties. So, some of our candidates have a way to go.
But, a person of 30 or 40 or more, could well ask the same question of resurrection: how does it help me here and now? As sceptics have done down the ages, this can be scoffed at; it’s all just ‘pie in the sky when ya die.’
The origin of that phrase, as some may know, came from a parody of Salvation Army hymns sung by members of the International Workers of the World (the IWW, also known as the “wobblies”). They were critical of the evangelical emphasis on eternal salvation when the immediate problems of people needing work, a living wage, affordable food and decent housing were apparent and pressing.
Of course, as a rival for the allegiance of people, they posed a false dichotomy – Christian faith can only be about promises fulfilled in the afterlife, while the international socialism of the IWW dealt with people’s real and immediate problems.
Our Catholic Christian faith encompasses both; and as Jesus says, our god is the God of both the living and the dead. And so, there is a concern for the living, for their spirit, for their mortal lives.
Well, we can turn back to our patron saint, who again in his own preaching on this text points out that as great a miracle as resurrection from physical death is, it pales beside our rescue from spiritual death. Because spiritual death can happen now; and it condemns people to hell on earth, to despair, and eventual, physical death as they haven’t the life in them to resist sin, or their sinful exploitation by others, or the unconscionable neglect of those who have the power to help but exercise it selfishly. Yet we give too little consideration to this. There are too many who give little thought to the soul’s morbidity. As St. Augustine said,
Everyone who sins, dies. Every man fears the death of the flesh, few the death of the soul. In regard to the death of the flesh, which without a doubt must someday come, all guard against its coming: that is the reason for their labors. Man, destined to die, labors to avert his dying; and yet man, destined to live in eternity does not labor to avoid sinning. (tr.xlix 2)
And in its in our sinning that so much of our suffering comes. There’s our personal sin, those things we do contrary to God’s law that brings harsh consequences to us in our relationships with family, friends and neighbors. There is also the aggregate of our sins, as we contribute our little sins to the heaps and piles of sin that litter our society, pollute the moral environment, corrupting the innocent, and speeding the degeneration of the weak. And in that we come to fear as we see how we have fallen, either as individuals or as a civilization. What’s the phrase that’s now going around, and not just in Canada, but throughout the West? Everything is broken.
And this is where Jesus becomes so relevant. The Church in her foolishness has chased after relevancy for decades now, forgetting her basic mandate of teaching all that Jesus taught, and baptizing, making true disciples and not dispensing sacraments the way governments hand out money so as to appear to be doing something.
For those preparing for baptism, for confirmation at Easter, for those of us anticipating that great feast as a renewal, remember and know the faith that we live is not concerned with death, but rather the fullness of life now. God has solved the problem of death for us so that we might live without fear of it; and so be encouraged, emboldened, to fight sin; fight it within our own selves, and struggle against it in the world. And we do that not in anger at the sinner, anger at ourselves or our enemies, or our country, or this world, beset by sin; but rather in thanksgiving for the freedom that comes from knowing that death has no dominion in our lives; but the kingdom of God does. Our souls can be revived by Christ, our spirits unbound, and set free.
Amen.