Ah, the LAST Sunday before Holy Week! Saturday was the Solemnity of the Annunciation—when Mary said the “yes” that started humanity on a new course of history. Now, today, the Church turns our attention toward Jerusalem and the events of the Passion by telling us what happened just before Holy Week.
How do we get our minds ready to begin to comprehend what Christ’s Passion and Resurrection meant for all the world and for us today? That God would become man-without-the-blinders-of-sin and then be able, willing, and ready to deliberately choose to have so many horrors of the effects of evil in the world poured out on his body, mind, and soul. That Jesus, the God-man, could and would deliberately choose to use none of the powers of man or God to fight back at the moment—but wait three days to show everyone for all time that evil does not, cannot, will not triumph. That God, with infinite Love in his bones and heart and mind and being would choose to overcome evil in a way that enables each of us, all of us, to live forever in that triumph. How could the people of Jerusalem in 33 AD be ready for that?
How can we?
I learned about readiness in college while studying to be an elementary teacher. I learned that learning occurs when a child is READY for the learning. That readiness includes her physical, mental, and social development. A child has to be able to fix her eyes on a page and focus on pictures and words and be able to move that attention from left to right before she can learn to read in English. She has to be able to identify certain sounds with letters to learn to read by contemporary methods. Then, a teacher works with those basic abilities to gradually move a child from, “See the cat. See the cat run.” to great books of literature.
We can read—yes. But can our minds and hearts appreciate the great gift of Resurrection when we read about it? The Scriptures today were selected to help us.
Ezekiel 37:12-14
Ezekiel was a prophet of the Babylonian exile. His task was to help the Jewish people maintain their faith and relationship with God while they were living hundreds of miles away from their home. He was deported with the first wave of exiles from Judah to Babylon in 597 BC and began to prophesy from his visions five years later. An educated man and priest, he continued to hold his people together for the next twenty-six years.
Here we have a selection from Ezekiel’s vision of a valley filled with dry bones—human corpses robbed of flesh, laying on the ground like cow bones in an old cowboy movie. God has Ezekiel walk amid the bones and asks him, “Can these bones rise again?” Ezekiel, used to such dialogues with God, answers, “O LORD God, you know.” Then God has Ezekiel preach to the dry bones. Ezekiel says, “Thus says the LORD God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.” (Ezekiel 37: 5-6)
There is a great rattling sound and the bones come to life. Our passage for today follows and predicts both the rising of life and hope in the exiles, which was the immediate purpose of the vision, and foreshadows the raising of Lazarus today and the rising of Jesus on Holy Saturday night.
It helps us understand that Christ’s resurrection was not God’s Plan B response to the crucifixion. God intended his Passion and his Resurrection from long before.
Romans 8:8-11
It is Paul who gives us the really, really Good News today. He tells the Roman community and us that Jesus’ Resurrection changed everything. Our “flesh” is not the be-all, end-all. Of itself, it houses our life here on earth, but that is not our ending. It is the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, who lives in us Christians and gives us the opportunity for Eternal Life—Eternal Life of BOTH body and soul. “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.”
Our culture gives a sense that everyone’s soul automatically goes into a spiritual afterlife of bliss. That’s a comfort for all who grieve, but it is not what God said, and it is not what the Church teaches. The Church teaches what Roman says today, “IF THE SPIRIT OF THE ONE WHO RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD DWELLS IN YOU, THE ONE WHO RAISED CHRIST FROM THE DEAD WILL GIVE LIFE TO YOUR MORTAL BODIES ALSO, THROUGH THE SPIRIT DWELLING IN YOU.”
Keeping the Spirit alive within us is very, very important.
John 11:1-45
This is most of Chapter 11 of the Gospel of John. Chapter 12 begins the narrative of Holy Week. John is creating readiness in us to see Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection as clear, deliberate choices of both Jesus and the Triune God. Lazarus was NOT resurrected from the dead. He was raised from the dead. Jesus resurrected from the dead through his Divinity. His body was different and he lives forever. Lazarus was raised by Jesus. His body was the same body. He did not live in that body forever. Eventually, he died again—and will be resurrected along with all of us on the Last Day.
The beauty of the story today is exquisite. My attention focuses on how tender Jesus was with Martha and Mary’s grief—even though his delay had caused it. He didn’t run from their confrontations of disappointment. He listened and wept with them BEFORE he did away with their pain by raising Lazarus. It reminds me how God’s way is to be with us in our suffering—even if he is eventually going to relieve our suffering. Jesus values suffering—perhaps because suffering was so essential to our salvation and Resurrection. Here, Jesus mourns with Martha and Mary—then raises Lazarus.
He could have come sooner and cured Lazarus before he died. Then it would have just been another healing. But, instead, he deliberately delayed, wept with Martha and Mary, raised Lazarus—and pushed forward the plot to put him to death. Something to ponder in prayer. Something to consider as part of our readiness for Holy Week and Easter.
Applications
In preparing this reflection, I went to the catechism. There is so much there to inform us of what the Resurrection meant when it happened and means for us today. It was radical for God to become human through the Incarnation. But how much more radical it is for us humans to be united with God forever through the Passion and Resurrection.
Paragraphs 631 through 658 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church tell what the Church teaches about what happened to Jesus when he died. Paragraphs 988 through 1060 tell what the Church teaches about our own deaths and resurrections. Sixteen pages in my catechism.
There are fourteen days to Easter Sunday. I would challenge and encourage you to join me in reading a page (or about 7 paragraphs) each day until all those paragraphs are read. And don’t just read. Read as lectio divina:
Prayer
Each day, read 7 paragraphs (or less, if something really stops you) : What thoughts come?
Read the same paragraphs a second time: What feelings come, what do you talk to God about as you mix thoughts and feelings?
Read them a third time: What meaning for your life today emerges?
Read a final time: Rest in God with whatever thoughts, feelings, meanings, and desires you have shared with God.
Blessings!
