“Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” This question comes from some of the friends of Lazarus who see Jesus weeping for the death of Lazarus. I sometimes wonder about this, encountering dying patients I have a relationship with and seeing their family and friends in deep sorrow and grief. What if Jesus were here? What would he do? I see myself raising the same question as some of Lazarus’ friends do, “Could not Jesus who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” And this question becomes something like “Why couldn’t Jesus keep our loved ones from dying?” Then it leads to “Why couldn’t he keep all of us from dying?”
This question that Lazarus’ friends raise disturbs Jesus greatly. And he does not avoid the question that somewhat challenges his healing power as the Son of God would have. He directly tackles the question by visiting the tomb of Lazarus. I think we all know what happens. He ends up bringing Lazarus back to life. We might wonder if he does what he does in order to prove himself and his mighty power. His prayer to God the Father shows us the purpose of this particular miracle, which says, “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.” So the purpose of reviving Lazarus is not to give him a second chance to live a better life. It is not to teach us that if we pray hard enough, people who are dying or already dead can be brought back to life. This is extremely rare, and it can not be the standard. It is not surprising how often this miracle story of Lazarus is misunderstood or misinterpreted among Christians at the hospital where I work. Let’s not forget that Lazarus also died after all. Jesus’ intention, on the other hand, is quite straightforward that it is to help the crowd in sorrow believe that he is the Son of God who is beyond life and death. It is to have them focus on God who is beyond life and death. Jesus’ peculiar miracle of going to the tomb of Lazarus, ordering people to take away the stone, and seeing this dramatic scene of the dead man coming out with his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth leads us to the resurrection of Jesus himself. In other words, Lazarus’ revival foreshadows Jesus’ resurrection. We all can recall the story of the empty tomb, the Easter story. Jesus’ tomb stone was open. All the clothes that bound his hands and feet and wrapped his face were neatly folded on the side where his head had been laid. Jesus turned the tomb of death to the womb of life as he turned water to wine. What is dead becomes living in and through the resurrection of Jesus. This is the fundamental teaching and truth of our Christian faith. On this foundational belief of Jesus’ death and resurrection lies the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls which we’re celebrating today. Both days, we remember all the faithful who have departed. While All Saints’ Day focuses on all the saints, known and unknown, All Souls’ Day is about all the faithful who have departed in our communities and families, the ones we actually know. It is one of the reasons why we brought the pictures of our loved ones. But as I said these feast days have its foundation on Jesus’ death and resurrection, we shouldn’t simply consider our celebration of these feasts as a means to remember our favorite saints and loved ones who died. Quite frankly, you don’t need to be a Christian to do that. These feasts particularly point us to something deeper than remembering the departed, which is the communion of saints in Christ. This communion of saints is none other than the Church herself. The Church that is united in the Holy Communion of Jesus Christ is also the Communion of all the followers of Jesus Christ, the living and the dead. Not only do we remember the dead on the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls but also remember our intercommunion with them in Christ. This is to say that we never forget the dead and continue to have a relationship with them. Often, our society teaches us we’re always to move on once our loved ones die. Death is something to either defeat or avoid. Aging which is then perceived as a step closer to death is another thing to avoid or fight against. We are living in a society that doesn't help us age well and die well. In this kind of sociocultural setting, aging doesn’t lead to maturity, and death doesn’t provide hope for the resurrection. In this context where we’re unconsciously receiving all these anti-aging and death-avoiding messages, these Feasts of All Saints and All Souls are counter-cultural. We not only remember all the faithful departed but also claim and believe that we’re interconnected with them. We’re in communion with them through Jesus Christ. Hence, we can say that we’re in constant dialogues with the saints and the deceived local saints that we personally know. We pray for them as well as we believe they do not cease to pray on our behalf. Rather than dismissing or discrediting a unique moment where you think of your loved ones who are no long here with us physically or seeing them in your dream or becoming reminiscent of your memory of them, those experiences become a reminder of how we the living and the dead are united in Christ. And this faith is fundamentally rooted in Jesus who bring his resurrection to all of us, the living and the dead. Facing his own death, Saint Dominic says to his brother, “Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life.” (CCC 956) If we truly believe in the communion of saints, then our Christian grammar, our way of talking about God must change. For example, how often do we hear when facing someone’s death, “So and so is now with God.” Wasn’t God with that person before he was actually alive? Of course, God was, is, and will be. Then as Christians who believe in the communion of saints, therefore in the resurrection of the body, we must say, “So and so is closer to God’s presence. That person is more closely united to Christ.” This is not really the case for us. It seems we might have long become functional atheists. We might sometimes say we believe but we might not act like one. Sometimes we actually look like Lazarus in the tomb, our hands and feet still bound with strips of cloth and our faces wrapped in a cloth. Without anticipating for the hope of the resurrection, we end up locking ourselves in the tomb of death, disabling our hands and feet to do the work of God, blinding our eyes to see the risen Christ in our midst, and suffocating ourselves from breathing the new breath of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus tells us this morning is rather simple. “Lazarus, come out! Unbind him, let him go.” Jesus is here and now, present with us to unbind us from whatever holds us down and let us go. Even the ones who are dead are no longer locked in the tombs of death. With all the saints and all the faithful departed whose pictures are here with us, we are called to live out our lives to the fullest. While all these saints, known and unknown, local and universal, praying for us, we are called to discern and do what God calls us to do. God has already turned the tomb of death to the womb of life. God has already transformed you from water to wine through baptism. And as we drink the blood of Jesus Christ with all the saints, we go beyond this culture of death to the divine culture of life in Christ our Lord and Savior. May God the Father of all the living and the dead take away the stones that block us from living fully. May God the Son who dies and rises with us unbind us from all the strips of despair, hopelessness, resentment, and death. May God the Holy Spirit set us free and set us on fire to live and love God and our neighbors as ourselves. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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