What do we fear most about life? What is it that we dread most about our mortal nature? There is one thing common to all people of all ages that we dread and fear: death. We fear death, that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. We hate death because we fear it, because we want to avoid it as much as possible. Our generation continues the quest for immortality, seeking the fountain of youth not in some mythical land far away, but in a pill or in a computer. We will do anything rather than die.
But death comes for us all. We cannot avoid it, we cannot pretend it will never happen. Yet there is more than one way to die. Certainly, our physical bodies can die. However, we can also die spiritually. How does this happen? It is the same as our physical death: we lose life. But how can we lose our spiritual life? We lose it when we remain enveloped in sin. We lose it when we are consumed by sin. We lose it when we choose sin over God. Our spiritual death is never just a death, but is always a suicide, for we choose that death for ourselves. Yet God desires not the death of the sinner, but that he live.
We hear about the greatest of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospel today, when He raises His friend Lazarus from death, and not just any death: Lazarus had been dead in the tomb for four days, a sign taken by the Jews to mean that one was completely and totally dead. Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, by His power and authority restores Lazarus to life. It is probably the greatest sign that Jesus offers up to this point in the Gospels. But it also has great meaning for us: it demonstrates that God is the Lord of life, and that He can restore life whenever He wills.
We hear in the psalm today that with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. God desires life for all of us, as we see in the vision of Ezekiel in the first reading. For indeed, who can truly stand in innocence before the Lord? As the Psalmist puts it, “If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand?” None of us are totally innocent before God: all have sinned, both as individuals and as the human race. Yet God desires not death, but life. Knowing our weakness, knowing our infirmity, God desires to revive humanity by redeeming it from the bonds of sin and Satan, and this work will be accomplished so very soon in the passion and death of Christ our Lord.
Yet this redemption is not a ticket easily purchased, nor is it merely a free gift. God does offer us redemption and salvation, but it comes at a cost: our death to sin. Saint Paul recognizes this as he writes to the Romans in the second reading. Salvation is not something that is merely bought with a few words: it is something that costs us our life in sin. Saint Paul is not rejecting the physical world in saying this, but the truth that we are not meant to live for this world, to live for the flesh. We are meant to be animated by the Spirit of God to live for Christ. We cannot have the Spirit if we remain dead in sin. We cannot be lead by the Spirit if we cling to sin. We cannot live in the Spirit if we reject that same Spirit.
The raising of Lazarus from the dead serves as a sign that Jesus can raise any soul to life, even a soul that has been steeped in sin, wallowing in sin for decades. The history of the Church is filled with scandalous sinners who converted and became great saints: egotists, sex addicts, murderers, heretics, drunkards, even worshippers of Satan. Yet their eyes were opened to the error of their ways by the grace of God, they repented of their sins, and lived their lives with the same confession we hear on the lips of Martha: that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world to save it. And we can do the same as them, if we believe as Martha and Mary did, that this same Jesus who weeps over death desires us to live and to live fully.
As we enter the last two weeks of Lent, we are plunged more deeply into the mysteries of these days. We are preparing for all that Jesus did and suffered from this day until Easter Sunday. Let us not merely listen to these actions and events, but let us be moved by them. Let our hearts be filled with contrition for our sins and a true desire to repent of them. Let us seek the mercy that can only be found in the confessional, for God desires us to have a sure sign of our pardon. Brethren, do not let your hearts remain dead to sin, but let them be alive in Christ Jesus, in His Holy Spirit. As Jesus raised Lazarus from death, so too will God raise our souls from the death of sin, but only if we respond to His grace and seek His mercy. Let us indeed seek His mercy, so that we may have the fullness of redemption in the life to come.
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