Power Over Death

At one time or another, everyone wishes they had the power to change reality – to escape from a difficult conversation, perhaps, or to disappear from an awkward encounter. In fact, some time in the last few weeks we all have probably thought, “If I could just snap my fingers or say the magic word to make this whole corona virus thing go away, I would do it!”

There are times as a priest when I sincerely wish I had the power to change reality. In fact, I feel that way most often in the face of grief, when trying to console someone whose loved one has passed away. It’s hard to not feel somewhat helpless in the face of this terrible thing that has occurred, this thing that they and I wish we could somehow undo. If I could snap my fingers or say the magic word to bring back their loved one, I’d do it.

The Gospel today presents us with a similar scenario. A man named Lazarus has died, and the family comes up to Jesus to ask, “Why did this happen? Where was God when we needed him?” In fact, Lazarus’s sister Martha puts it a little more pointedly: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha knows that Jesus could have healed Lazarus, as he had healed so many others before him. And yet, he didn’t — in fact it seems, he chose not to, since he was delayed in getting there. Now, it is too late, it seems – Lazarus is not just dead, but definitively so, four days in the tomb.

Jesus Wept (c. 1896) by James Tissot

What exactly is going on here? Why did Jesus let his one friend die and his other friends go through the profound grief of death if he had the power to prevent it? We get an insight from the first reading from Ezekiel. God foretells through the prophet how he will raise his people to new life – to open their graves, and breathe his Spirit into their dry bones. God hates death, just like we do – in fact, as the Author of Life, it is completely foreign to him. Recall that the Church teaches that we humans would not experience death, nor pain, violence, disease, suffering – all of the hateful things in life – except for the fact of our sins. Sin altered God’s creation – the first sin of Adam and Eve, and our sins as well. But God was not thwarted in his plan. Rather than hand over humanity to the eternal separation of death, he promised instead to save us – to open the grave, and bring back to life what had been dead.

Now, all of this sounds great as a promise. But how do we know it could really happen? Now we can see the reason for the Gospel story. Jesus allowed his friend Lazarus to die, and the sisters of Lazarus to experience the weight of grief that comes with death, not because he was uncaring but because he wanted to show through them that he has the power to change reality – a power over even that final reality, our greatest enemy, death itself. In doing so, Jesus shows us that he has the power to raise us to life as well – not just another life to end in death, as Lazarus’s did, but a life that cannot die, a share in his own risen and eternal life. As St. Paul said, when the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells also within us, then we too have firm and sure hope in eternal life.

Friends, over the next few weeks, as the Church we will recall Jesus’s own death. We will see how the one who raised Lazarus from the dead allowed himself to die – indeed, we will hear the jeering crowd say “He saved others but he could not save himself.” Because Jesus did not save himself, because instead he chose as Lamb of God, our High Priest, to enter into our death in order to heal and transform it, in order to overcome it, then we can say now with faith and hope that there is no pain or sorrow in this life that is not redeemable – that despite what we might have to suffer at times, or what grief we might endure, or even what terrible death we might experience, it is all fundamentally redemptive if we remain connected to Christ. Death is not a sign of God’s absence; in the death of Christ, it becomes the very means by which he saves us. With the presence of the living Spirit within us, we too wait for the day when he will give new and everlasting life to our mortal bodies.

In these difficult days, when we feel intensely the desire to change much about the way things are, may we not lose sight of the fact that God has altered that most terrible reality, and has overcome even death itself and transformed it into something life-giving. In these coming weeks, may we allow our hearts to cry out to God, not out of grief or despair, but in faith, with hope, with eager joy at the gifts that he has promised to us.