Fifth Sunday of Lent

Lectionary: 34

Then you shall know that I am the LORD, 
when I open your graves and have you rise from them, 
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live, 
and I will settle you upon your land; 
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.
I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.




"The last enemy to be destroyed is death." Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians. 

From the moment we're born we're destined for death. The child doesn't understand. After the funeral, he still wonders why Grandpa doesn't visit anymore. "Young invincibles" ignore its reality; they put off commitments, investments, savings and insurance as long as possible. Extreme sports persons defy injury, maiming and death; they shrug off the possibility of catastrophe. They entertain the millions who, as Thoreau said, live in "quiet desperation," with the hope that their inevitable will not occur today. Finally, the weary, the sick and the depressed long for death, supposing it might provide relief from the burdens of life. 

Unlike mute animals, the human being feels the presence of death throughout her life.  Alone among all thinking creatures she feels the presence of the past and the future. She knows her resources, potential, options and time are limited. 

Embracing the inevitable, the philosopher accepts death as the bitter which makes life palatable. A life without end would lack purpose and meaning; it would drift from idleness to idle goals and back to idleness. Nothing focuses the mind like the reality of death. 

Death is the final insult to everything human. All of one's accumulated knowledge, experience and wisdom are wasted with death. How much history have the dead taken with them? How much more would we know if we could reclaim their knowledge? Who would not want to sit down with a deceased parent or grandparent and remap the family tree? 

The Prophet Ezekiel promised his exiled people a new life in the Land of Promise. Perhaps his utterance was only poetry but we cannot let it go. He described a fantasy of how it might come about: dry bones connect to dry bones by sinews, muscles and tendons, covered with soft flesh and luxuriant hair, and finally animated by a Breath of God. It may not be realistic but it sure is entertaining. If only it could be....

Our Gospel tells of a man who could call the dead back to life. He might even call all his friends and disciples back to life. But there was a hitch: he would be murdered for doing so. 

Perhaps that's why he wept at the death of Lazarus. That's why he wept as he came in sight of Jerusalem. That's why he collapsed in the Garden of Gethsemane. His love cost him everything and he could not -- would not -- turn back. In the end he would ask one kind favor of us....