{"id":2089,"date":"2017-04-02T13:00:22","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2089"},"modified":"2017-04-02T13:00:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T17:00:22","slug":"5th-sunday-of-lent-year-a-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/5th-sunday-of-lent-year-a-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"5th Sunday of Lent, Year A – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

5th<\/sup> Sunday of Lent, Year A<\/a>
\nEzekiel 37:12-14
\nPsalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
\nRomans 8:8-11
\nJohn 11:1-45
\nApril 2, 2017<\/p>\n

Last week we heard the story of the man born blind and how Jesus gave him physical sight and then the man came to see Jesus as the Messiah.<\/p>\n

Ezekiel speaks for the Lord, \u201cI will open your graves and have you rise from them<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 As Christians we see this as speaking of the Resurrection but in the days of Ezekiel there was no real belief in the Resurrection.\u00a0 To see this passage as the Israelites would have, we need to realize it was written during the Babylon Exile.\u00a0 They would probably have interpreted its immediate fulfillment as when God set them free from the Babylonians and they returned to Jerusalem.\u00a0 This would have been seen as the restoration of life in Israel.<\/p>\n

In the days between Ezekiel and Jesus there was some development of the idea of resurrection but not strong belief in it.\u00a0 Now, for us as Christians, resurrection is central to our faith.<\/p>\n

When Jesus arrives after Lazarus dies, Martha said to him, \u201cI know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 So, clearly Martha has a belief in the resurrection as some future event but doesn\u2019t understand Jesus\u2019 place in it.<\/p>\n

Jesus knows this.\u00a0 Jesus knows He will soon be crucified and that He will rise on the third day.\u00a0 He has been trying to tell his disciples this but He knows they do not yet understand.\u00a0 So, He uses Lazarus\u2019 illness as a way to help them all understand.<\/p>\n

Even with faith in the resurrection, death can be a terrible thing.\u00a0 Without knowledge of the resurrection, death is final.<\/p>\n

As Lazarus is dying, Martha and Mary send word to Jesus.\u00a0 They have complete faith that Jesus could help.\u00a0 They both say to Jesus, after Lazarus dies, \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Yet, Jesus does not come for He knows, \u201cThis illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Jesus uses this as a teaching opportunity to show that He has power even over death.\u00a0 Lazarus has been dead for four days by the time Jesus arrives at the tomb.\u00a0 People are shocked when He tells them, \u201cTake away the stone<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Why could He possibly want to do that but they do as He says in faith.<\/p>\n

Jesus \u201ccried out in a loud voice, \u201cLazarus, come out!\u201d<\/em> and Lazarus comes out.\u00a0 Now, this is not the \u201cresurrection.\u201d\u00a0 This is resuscitation, the restoring of earthly life, but it clearly shows that Jesus has power even over death foreshadowing what will come in his own Resurrection.<\/p>\n

Jesus had told Martha, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This can seem convoluted.\u00a0 What is death?<\/p>\n

When we think of \u201cdeath\u201d our thoughts most often turn to thoughts of end of life as we know it in this world.\u00a0 This means the person is no longer with us.\u00a0 It means they are separated from us.\u00a0 Without faith in the resurrection, it means they are gone forever.<\/p>\n

There is a death worse than physical death.\u00a0 The death we really need to fear is death from sin.\u00a0 Physical death means separation from our family and friends in this world<\/em>.\u00a0 Death from sin means we are eternally separated from God.<\/p>\n

The reality is that physical death is natural.\u00a0 We do not know when it will come, but it will come<\/em>.\u00a0 It is inevitable.\u00a0 We might delay it but we cannot stop it.<\/p>\n

Sin might seem inevitable.\u00a0 On our own we struggle against temptation but there is a remedy from the death that comes from sin.\u00a0 It comes on Good Friday when Jesus freely gives his life on the Cross so that our sins can be forgiven.\u00a0 All we have to do to receive the remedy is to confess our sins and believe in Jesus as our Savior and redeemer.<\/p>\n

Then we will have eternal life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5th Sunday of Lent, Year A Ezekiel 37:12-14 Psalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 Romans 8:8-11 John 11:1-45 April 2, 2017 Last week we heard the story of the man born blind and how Jesus gave him physical sight and then the man came to see Jesus as the Messiah. Ezekiel speaks for the Lord, \u201cI …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘5th Sunday of Lent, Year A – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82,260],"tags":[274,273,31],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-xH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2089"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2091,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions\/2091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}