The Fifth Sunday in Lent - 10 April 2011
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
Saint John 11:1-45
BACKGROUND: The Approach to Holy Week and the Paschal Mystery
Often, when listening to the lectionary, we listen only to the relationships (if any) among the various readings for the day, and limit the relationship to that. What is really true, however, is that often there is an on-going relationship from Sunday to Sunday, so that the listener’s ability to understand a particular season, or teaching grows incrementally. For example, in the Sundays following the Epiphany of our Lord, the Gospel reading builds a picture of the ministry of Jesus, aspect by aspect. The same is true here, during these Sundays, as we approach Holy Week. The Gospel readings from the Third Sunday on build a set of types and signs that will be useful to us as we enter Jerusalem on the Sunday of the Passion. It is not the Gospels alone that give us this vocabulary, for the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Psalter, and the Epistles contribute as well. The Woman at the well and the Living Water that she desires relates to the baptisms that will be celebrated, or relate to our own baptism and its renewal. The man born blind sees the light while others do not, and this Sunday Lazarus and his family explore the notions of resurrection, death, and living. These all prepare us to hear the radical Easter message. Listen carefully for all the clues that these readings provide.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 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."
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, `Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act," says the Lord.
As we read the prophecies of Ezekiel, we meet a man who witnesses to the dualities of life and existence. He is both a prophet of doom, and a prophet of promise. He may have been exiled to the north of Jerusalem, and then later to the city of Babylon, but he is singularly an exile observing and writing in two totally disparate situations. In today’s reading, the prophet provides us with a graphic scene and metaphor for the nation of Israel. Dried up, hopeless, forgotten, and discarded, the people become a challenge for the prophet. They are dried up bones, as Ezekiel sees them, and in his ministry to them as fellow exiles, he means, with God’s help, to call breath (the Hebrew word rûah can mean “breath”, “wind”, or “spirit”) into the bones. Ezekiel lives on the cusp of a nation’s life, witnessing both its demise and its resurrection. Thus, in this reading, we see new life granted to an entire people. He, however, is not the agent of this resurrection. Rather, it is the Living God who grants the breath and the Spirit. This is a theme that will be repeated in the Christian story, where one man will be raised for the sake of all.
Breaking open Ezekiel:
- What is hopeless and dried up in your life?
- What is hopeless and dried up in our national life?
- How can the breath of life be blown into our hopelessness?
Psalm 303 De Profundis
Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice; *
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
If you, LORD, were to note what is done amiss, *
O Lord, who could stand?
For there is forgiveness with you; *
therefore you shall be feared.
I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him; *
in his word is my hope.
My soul waits for the LORD,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, wait for the LORD, *
for with the LORD there is mercy;
With him there is plenteous redemption, *
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.
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| Edward Burne-Jones, "From the Depths of the Sea" |
This psalm is a psalm of ascents, which immediately turns to an image of despair and helplessness. The depths, to which the psalmist makes reference, are the depths of the sea – an apt image of death in Hebrew writing and culture. Although the first person is used, this is not a psalm of individual guilt or despair, but rather that of the nation of Israel. The last two verses of the psalm make this clear to the reader. There is an eagerness here, that is underscored in the psalmist’s vocabulary, where the watchers watch, and hopes are doubled (or in our translation, waiters wait). YHWH also watches – and in this fact the psalmist registers some concern, for YHWH will wait upon the nation and will see wrongs. There is however, another quality that God exhibits, and that is forgiveness. It is for this quality that Israel waits, hopes, and yearns. This forgiveness will be the redemption of the whole people.
Breaking open Psalm 130:
1. Have you ever experienced profound guilt?
2. If so, how did you dispel it?
3. How has God forgiven you in your life?
Romans 8:6-11
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law-- indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
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| Albrecht Dürer |
Paul sets up a contrast for the Christian to study and learn from. On the one hand he presents the flesh, which he equates with death, and on the other hand he presents the Spirit, which he equates with life and peace. Here he borrows the notion of the wind that gives life (Ezekiel), but it is the Spirit of Christ. Paul wants us to understand the limits of our life and body. If we should limit our experience of God only in worldly terms or only in terms of our bodily experiences, then we shall be sorely disappointed. If, however, that same flesh has been redeemed – if it has been “raised” just as Christ was raised, then the breath of a new kind of life becomes present and active. In this reading we can also see how the lectionary prepares us for the Paschal Mystery.
Breaking open Romans:
- Describe your worldly self.
- Describe your spiritual self.
- How do the two interact with one another?
Saint John 11:1-45
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews, who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
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| Giotto, "The Raising of Lazarus" |
In this reading we have the seventh and last of the great signs that John lifts up as evidence of Christ’s ministry and status. Indeed, there is almost a thematic link of the first and the last. In the first, Mary, Jesus’ mother, requests that he do something about the lack of wine at the Wedding at Cana; and Jesus waits. In this reading, the sisters let Jesus know of their brother’s illness; and Jesus waits. We also have references to other signs that prepare us for the journey of Holy Week with the references to the healing of the man born blind and to light.
Jesus waits for a variety of reasons. Jews believed that the soul hovered about the body for three days, and on the fourth day was gone. John, the storyteller, wants his audience to be certain as to the realities surrounding Lazarus – he is truly dead. This last and great sign points directly to the resurrection of Jesus, and in John this seems to be a common belief. The resurrection was a bit of an import to Judaism, probably coming out of their contact with Persian thought. Oddly enough, it was the Pharisees who promoted such theology, which was opposed by the more conservative Sadducees. Martha acknowledges the resurrection, and points the way of belief for those who are about to witness the ultimate sign of Jesus rule and power.
Of interest are two actions on Jesus’ part. The first is his prayer, said almost soto voce to those who are witnesses. In John, Jesus and the Father are one, so Jesus’ request regarding Lazarus need not to have been spoken. It is spoken, however, for the benefit of those around him. The second action is Jesus’ loud shout, “Lazarus, come out!” Both of these actions involve the spoken word – like unto the breath, the word, and the rûah that breathes life into creation. In this final sign, Jesus, breathes new life into the people who surround him and who witness his unity with the Father, and new life into his friend Lazarus. The final action is the freedom that comes with the word: “Unbind him, and let him go.” These actions that make for a new relationship of heaven and earth, are the signs that create belief, and that point to Jesus’ own being raised.
Breaking open the Gospel:
- How are you like Mary in the reading?
- How are you like Martha?
- How are you like the Jews who witness these events?
After breaking open the Word, you might want to pray the Collect for Sunday:
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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