A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 26, 2023
Ez 37:12-14, Rom 8:8-11, Jn 11:1-45
In one of the big production numbers in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye the milkman and wedding guests get rowdy and sing l’chaim — to life!
To life, to life, l’chaim.
L’chaim, l’chaim, to life.
Life has a way of confusing us,
Blessing and bruising us.
Drink, l’chaim, to life!
Every day, most of us raise a glass of something — wine, coffee, Gatorade, water — to life.
We’re grateful for a new day, another day, and we’re grateful for the people, places and things in our lives. Grateful to be sharing the day with them.
We’re grateful to be on this side of the daisies, as the sassy expression goes.
And I think we cherish life as much as we do because — despite the richness of our faith — we don’t know anyone besides Jesus who’s ever come back from the dead to tell us what the afterlife is like.
Lazarus never spilled the beans to any Scripture writers.
Jesus promised the Apostles, and by extension us, that we have residences in his Father’s house, and that the eternal banquet is joyous and plentiful. That in Heaven we will see the face of God.
But here on Earth we have TikTok and Netflix and the beach and sea gulls that steal the french fries and delicious Jersey pizza right out of our hands. We have friends and family and DNA tests that reveal we have even more family all over the world than we ever imagined.
We enjoy our days in the sun and our nights in our comfortable beds under warm blankets. What we have is tangible and abundant. We know what we have. We have a little slice of Heaven on Earth.
Why would we want to leave all this?
We can sing “To Life!” at the top of our lungs and mean it.
Well, some of us can.
Many of our sisters and brothers are destitute, thirsting and starving, scraping by here in the United States or barely surviving as refugees from war zones. Worse yet, all too many are dodging bullets and rockets and bombs as their homes themselves have become front-line targets.
Their lives are huge slices of Hell on Earth.
Why would they want to stay in all that?
Yet they, too, cling to life as they know it, in the hope that God’s better angels among them will bring peace. They cling to the memories of how good life was before evil rained down on them. Before death invaded. Death that entered the world because of sin.
Death that has become their constant companion.
Most of us don’t like talking about death. Not talking about it too much, anyway.
Our own deaths are scary and unpredictable and inevitable.
A loved one’s death takes them from our sight. It creates an empty space at the dinner table and leaves a Christmas stocking unhung. Death blasts holes in our hearts, especially when the death is shockingly tragic or totally unexpected.
No wonder Jesus wept.
No wonder Martha and Mary were beside themselves.
Yet through their grief, they found hope and comfort knowing that they would see Lazarus again in the resurrection on the last day.
That took a lot of faith for Martha and Mary, faith not running rampant in that place and time. Jesus rewarded that faith when he called Lazarus to come out of the hole in the rock where he had lain for four days. And through that miracle, faith in Jesus spread.
When we deal with death all these centuries later, we don’t get that same immediate reward of a resurrected loved one. That means our faith has to be stronger, deeper, more long-lasting. It has to be the truest definition of faith: belief in what is known but not seen.
That means our hope in our promised resurrections has to shape how we live our lives, our brief, precious lives.
We cannot afford to waste even a moment with anyone. Everyone in our lives is a gift from God to us and everyone everywhere has something we should celebrate.
No, we cannot afford to waste even a moment with anyone. Everyone in our lives is a gift from God to us and everyone everywhere needs something we can and must help them acquire.
We should greet everyone we see as if they’ve just risen from the dead. Yes, greet them with that much joy.
We should say goodbye as if we’re unsure we’ll ever see them again.
Though we will, in the communion of saints. God said so.
