Lenten Reflection on Lazarus

Many years ago, in a period of my life when I was feeling particularly lonely, dissatisfied with my work, and uncertain about the future, I found myself thinking a great deal about the story of Lazarus. Instead of drawing hope from Lazarus’ triumphant rise from the dead, I felt no great solace. In fact, much the opposite.  

I decided to explore these feelings in a poem. I wrote a rather cynical sonnet in the voice of Lazarus. What if Lazarus didn’t especially want to return to the dust and drudgery of daily life, I asked. What if he preferred the soundlessness of the grave to the bickering voices of his sisters? What if he chose the dreamland of death over the discontent of a poor man’s life? “No one asked me if I wanted to return,” Lazarus says in my poem. He contemplates the “cruel trick” he is asked to endure. He is the only human being in history who must live and die twice.

There are many ways to read the Lazarus story. On one level, it foreshadows Christ’s imminent crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. It offers one of the clearest portraits of Jesus’ compassion, driven home by the phrase, “And Jesus wept.” It presents us once again with a chance to identify with the clueless disciples who seem incapable of comprehending the amazing events they witness. And it gives us a chance to smile at the distinctions between practical Martha and the ethereal Mary (Mary prays at her brother’s wake; Martha worries about the stench of death).

Once again this Lent, I find myself thinking of Lazarus, but this time in a totally different context. Imagine for a moment just the physical journey the poor fellow faced. There he lies, ensconced deep within the earth in a cave sealed with a stone. His cadaver is not only wrapped from head to toe in burial cloth, he even has a kerchief covering his face. Think of him hearing Jesus’ call to “Come out!” Picture him following the sound of that voice, feeling his way gingerly along the dirt walls of the cave in absolute darkness.

In the course of that underground journey, he must have felt as though he was passing through yet another eternity. (Think about of how slowly time seems to pass when we are caught  in traffic and anxious to arrive at our destination). Finally Lazarus reaches the end of the tunnel. Perhaps his eyes can sense the intense desert sun even through his burial cloths. In that light, the first voice he hears is a familiar one, that of Jesus. “Untie him and set him free.”

At this stage in my life, I doubt I’d write the kind of poem I did when I was younger, questioning Lazarus choice to journey from death back to life. What the Lazarus story says to me today is that life is worth that slow uncertain slog through darkness. It spurs me to consider what ties me in place, what makes me unseeing. Is it my propensity to work too hard? My lack of attentiveness to the sacred all around me? My hoarding of grudges, my inability to let go of hurts, my constant questioning of my own self-worth? This Lent, I vow to peel off the psychic burial cloths of my own making, the soiled rags that bind me in place. There is someone calling to me at the end of my emotional burial ground. Someone who wants to lead me out of blindness, to untie me and set me free. What ties do you need to loosen? What burial cloths are binding you in place?

Holy Thursday @014

"In the Cup of the New Covenant,"
Jan Richardson, 2012.

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In her long poem "Feet"^[1] Denise Levertov¹ wrote:

"I watched a man whose feet were neatly wrapped in green plastic.

He entered a restaurant that advertised a $2.00 special C Sloppy Joes.

And I saw him come out immediately again.

"It was cold and wet, and I was taking shelter under the awning, waiting for a bus.

The man was angry.

"'What happened?'

He looked at me C

'No shoes,' he said.

We all know the rubric C

No shoes, no shirt, no service."

You can drag dirt into an eatery with shoes but not with feet covered in plastic.

On this holy night, we remember the Passover of the Lord.

The readings are a treasury of meaning and hold together in powerful ways.

The foot‑washing scene in John's Gospel has no parallel in ritual meals of the Judaism of Jesus' time.

It is innovation, par excellence.

In the time of Jesus the streets would have been filled with human and animal waste.

The washing of feet was usually done by a slave.

That is why the disciples are stunned when Jesus takes off his outer garment

and puts a towel over his shoulders and begins to wash their feet.

Peter, of course, speaks what everyone is thinking and feeling.

the first level of meaning is that of humble service.

But there is another level of meaning as well.

In biblical times the hands and feet symbolize human activity.

It is with hands and feet that we sin.

in our minds, to wash them, to cleanse them, is to wash away sin, it is to forgive.

When Jesus urges his disciples to repeat this action he is not merely talking about washing of feet.

He is insisting that we forgive one another as he has forgiven us, that we love one another as he has loved us.

What about hands?

We remember Jesus as taking, breaking, giving bread and wine.

The handing over of food and drink became an embodied symbol of that other "handing over,"

the "handing over" when Christ, betrayed into the hands of sinners, surrendered his body to death on the cross.

Human hands connect Eucharist and cross, Holy Thursday and Good Friday;

hands outstretched to take, break and give;

hands cupped to hold, receive, eat and drink;

hands nailed east and west on a cross.

On this holy night, we pledge once again to use our hands and feet for the work of forgiveness,

for the work of loving each other.

We pledge to wash each other's feet, to hand over our lives for each other, for the sake of the world.

We pledge ourselves to do Eucharist, to do this in memory of the One who gave His life for us.

We do so because Jesus is our Passover Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world.

Fourth Sunday of Lent A

"And Open Our Eyes to Behold Love's Face"
© Jan Richardson

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There was a man born blind.

On that point, everyone seems to have been in agreement.

He had become a part of the cultural scenery, so familiar that people forgot to look at him.

As a beggar he received food; but apparently he received little actual attention.

He was born blind.

Everybody knew that.

And that was how he was to be classified for life.

He had been neatly placed in the "blind and helpless" category, so that folks were free to go about other tasks in life.

Even today, society and daily culture depend upon people first being categorized and, then, staying in their place.

But all this changed on the day that Jesus walked by.

Everybody still agreed that the beggar who used to roam their streets was born blind‑there was a man born blind!‑but no one could get straight exactly what had happened to him.

The story of this dramatic event is one of the funniest stories in scripture, told in the entire ninth chapter of John.

The public investigation of how this blind man became able to see sounds like an early story line for the Keystone Cops.

Here is how it goes:

As Jesus walked by one day, he met a man born blind.

Immediately, this man born blind became for the disciples an object lesson.

They treated him, not as a man, but as an example, or a proof text, for their own theology. "Rabbi," they ask, "who sinned‑this man or his parents‑that he was born blind?"

Notice how attention is so quickly diverted from the need at hand, which is the man himself, to a theological or philosophical argument.

We do the same maneuver today.

In the face of human need, many of us prefer to use that need to shore up our own belief system or our own political agenda.

We see a person in need and we systematize.

That person is homeless; he must be too lazy to work.

On food stamps; must be spending money on booze

How can my belief system, or morality system, account for this phenomenon?

The maneuver is inevitable for most of us.

We have belief systems for good reasons.

But if we forget the actual person standing right in front of us, then our belief system‑and moral system‑is useless no matter what our persuasion is.

"Who caused this to happen," we ask, "this man or his parents?

Who is to blame here?

Why is there blindness in the world?

Why is there poverty, illness, or behavior which out and out does not match mine?

Who is to blame, nature or nurture‑this man or his parents?"

Jesus, as he so often does, answers with a third option, one that the questioners did not think of. Jesus said,

"Neither this man sinned, nor his parents.

This man is here, before us blind, so that the marvelous works of God can be shown."

What an amazing way to interpret human need or suffering!

When Jesus sees someone in need, he does not use that person's plight to develop a political or moral agenda.

Jesus sees opportunity, a chance to recognize God's work.

God's work is revealed, not in moral statement, but in an act of mercy, in an act which pays close attention to the need itself.

But, finally, at the end of the story, Jesus finds the healed man again.

Now comes the time for interpretation and reflection.

The act of healing has occurred.

Jesus asks, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

"Who is he?" responds the healed man, just as honestly as he always has.

"I who speak to you am he," Jesus responds.

And the healed man proclaims, "Lord, I believe."

With that proclamation, the healing is indeed complete.

The man born blind sees not only the world around him, with utter and complete honesty.

The man born blind now also sees Jesus himself, the Lord of that world, who can bring clarity even out of the mud made from human spit.

Our scattered speculations, emerging as they do only from a need to defend our own agendas, are only as clear as mud in the eyes of God.

As long as we seek only to fit the acts of God into our human picture, we are blind, unable even to comprehend what God may have for us in the future.

At the end of the ninth chapter of John, some Pharisees begin to see.

The evidence of that sight is their own questioning.

They question whether they can see at all.

They ask Jesus, "Surely we are not blind, are we?"

And Jesus' response is sharp and precise:

"If you say, 'We see,'" Jesus says, "then your sin remains."

Be careful, then, whenever we say, "We see."

Our human speculation, as fun and provocative as it may be, can never comprehend the amazing power of God.

We can never enclose the marvelous presence of God.

God will burst the boundaries and walls of our personal agendas with new light.

That light is Jesus, the Lord, the Light of the World, who shines a new light in our lives.

Jesus does that by focusing not on the reasons for illness, not on the philosophical justifications of reality, but by focusing on human need.

There are people around us whose needs are so familiar to us that we now ignore them.

They were born blind, we say, and that is that.

Jesus, however, refuses to walk right by them, just as Jesus refuses to walk right by each one of us.

Jesus wants to touch each one of us with sight.

And every person‑blind or seeing, Pharisee or disciple‑is an opportunity for Jesus.

Each of us is an opportunity for God to reveal light in utter and elegant simplicity.

Let Jesus touch our eyes today; and we will see the Light of the World

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Image: "Breath Will Come to the Desolate Bones"
© Jan Richardson

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Jesus said: "Lazarus is dead. "

But what exactly is death?

It depends on whom you ask.

To the ordinary person, death is when you stop breathing.

To a doctor, it is when brain waves stop.

Those are reasonable ways of deciding the point of death.

But there is more to us than a physical body.

From the Christian perspective, what happens to us at death is far less important than what we do at death.

For Christians, death is that point when we sum up our whole life, when a whole lifetime of actions has determined who we are,

when a succession of decisions has defined our personality,

when we decide what we want to be for eternity.

Death is the instant when we finally acknowledge precisely who we are and then present that finished self as an offering to the mercy of God.

Even if the body is suddenly killed, personal death is a process.

Even if bodily cessation is accidental, death is purposeful.

That is why the instant of physical death may not be the same instant of personal decision.

It might be that pain or anxiety or drugs or fear may prevent a person from the ultimate personal decision at the point of physical death.

But at some point in life, every person does—or does not — make that ultimate offering of self to God.

Even if they do not know when, even if they do not believe in God. each person at some time decides whether their whole life is sell serving or self-giving,

whether their life dissolves in futility or falls into the mystery of God.

Karl Rahner wrote: "There are so many little deaths along the way that it doesn't matter which is the last one."

Each failure, each suffering, each illness is a lessening of our life, a diminishment of our self.

But we are not created for our own self only.

We are created to live with God forever.

We are given this earthly life to allow us to become that person we want to be forever.

We are given a certain amount of time to create, by every free choice, that unique person who will have a

unique personal relationship with their God.

That relationship with God. as with all other relationships, is based on love.

And love is the desire for union with another.

Which demands that we get out of ourselves and into the other.

Love means that we prefer the good of the other to our own good.

Love means that we defer to the other's wishes, that our wishes coincide.

All of which means that, like the Baptist, we decrease so they increase.

That is how by each act of love we gradually let go of our control of life, that we gradually give in to God.

So that when death finally comes, giving up the rest of our self will not be hard.

Death will he a joyful letting go instead of a grudging holding on to life.

People have difficulty with death because they consider it to be the end of life.

Christians know that death is a transitional stage to a different kind of life.

People have trouble with death because they think it is the destruction of all they worked so hard to accomplish.

Christians know that death is the summation, the culmination of life.

Or, as Jesus called it. his hour of triumph.

If we really believed these things, then death would lose its frightful grip on us

.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Life everlasting

Reading I          Ezekiel 37:12-14 (prophecy of restoration)

Reading II         Romans 8:8-11 (the flesh and the Spirit)

Gospel                                John 11:1-45 (the raising of Lazarus)

Key Passage    Jesus said to Martha, “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?” (John 11:25–26)

Adult:                                  Christ calls us from death to new life. To what new life are you being called during this Lent?

Child:                  How does Jesus help you do what is good and avoid what is not?

Jesus ascends to heaven on no ordinary cloud from the sky but on the magnificent cloud of God's glory. Many times throughout salvation history God has manifested his divine presence to Israel in the form of a cloud. It was in a cloud of glory that God's presence filled the sanctuary in the desert, filled the Temple in Jerusalem, and overshadowed Christ during his transfiguration. Now that same cloud of glory lifts Jesus up and brings him to heaven in triumphant glory (see 1 Tm 3:16).

Christ's return to the Father on a cloud also signals the fulfillment of an important prophecy from the Old Testament. The prophet Daniel had a vision of a "son of man"figure who appeared victorious over his enemies and was carried to God on the clouds of heaven in order to be given a worldwide kingdom that would last forever.

With Christ being lifted into heaven on a cloud, the Ascension scene represents a fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy. Jesus is the "son of man" who in his exaltation is presented before God the Father and is given an everlasting kingdom that will reign over all nations (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 664). As such, Christ's ascension may provide a further response to the apostles' question, "When will the kingdom be restored to Israel?" By rising to the Father on a cloud of glory, Jesus confirms that he is the Son of Man who has emerged victorious and that the restored kingdom Daniel envisioned has finally arrived. It is now up to the apostles to extend this kingdom to the ends of the earth.

Like the first apostles, we, too, share in the mission of spreading Christ's kingdom in the world today. Whether a teacher in a classroom, a businessman in the workplace, a college student on campus, or a mother raising children in the home, all Christians play a crucial role in helping build the kingdom in the specific areas where God has called them to serve. By bringing the extraordinary witness of Christian truth, virtue, and love into our ordinary, daily endeavors, we can help transform our culture into the kingdom of the risen and ascended Christ.

The Creed--continued

The Creed tells us Jesus "ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father."

Christian liturgical tradition has long associated Psalm 68:18-20 with the triumphal entry of Christ into heaven at the Ascension. The original hymn is equally triumphal and probably accompanied a liturgical celebration in which the Ark of the Covenant was brought in procession to the Temple, recalling the Exodus of Israel, the conquest of Canaan, and the establishment of the nation in the land by the power of God.

It is only fitting, therefore, that as Christ entered the heavenly temple of the new Jerusalem to sit in greater glory than David or Solomon, the Church should see the psalm as an anticipation of him. In the Ascension, the day has dawned when man is now present in heaven in the person of the Son of Man, Christ Jesus. Because he is already there, we who are in him are there as well, because God, "who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:4-6).

In the rosary, the glorious mystery of the Ascension is traditionally associated with prayer for the virtue of hope. Hope is oriented not so much toward the future as toward eternity and the fact that the same God we have known and know now is not going to abandon us. It is curious that this faith that Jesus will not abandon us is associated with the moment in the Gospel where Jesus leaves us.

But, as Luke makes clear, Jesus is not really leaving. For his Gospel only tells us of what Jesus "began" to do and teach (Acts 1:1). His entire earthly ministry is only the spark. The Church, filled with his Spirit, is the fire, and he is now to continue his work in a way more intimate with us than it was during his earthly ministry. That is why he himself said, "But now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts. But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you" On 16:5-7).

Biblically, to be seated is to be in repose—not asleep, not watching TV, not "doing nothing," but secure in one's dominion. In antiquity, judges were seated. So were monarchs when they were enthroned. To say that Jesus is "seated" is to say he now reigns.

To be sure, there is still work to be done, but it is in the nature of "mop up," not in "deciding the battle." The worst thing that could ever have happened in the universe has already happened—and God has turned it into the best thing. God has already been killed. Compared to that, everything is pretty small beer. But the death of God on the Cross has led to the life of the world. Jesus has entered on his reign. He is enthroned as King at the Father's right hand—now.

The "right hand" was the "good" hand in antiquity—the hand that pours out blessing; the hand that holds the scepter; the hand that works, acts, fights. The hand is the locus of action. We do not theorize with our hands; we act with them. We do things. Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, does things. And he empowers us to do things, too—by his Spirit.

Thus, when Peter appeals to the crowd at Pentecost, he doesn't tell them God has poured out a concept or an idea. He has poured out that which you see and hear (see Acts 2:33). Catholic faith is still the same today. To be sure, we walk by faith and not by sight. But the fruit of our faith is still visible in the incarnate signs and acts of love we bear to the world. All of these are poured out on us from Jesus, seated at the right hand of God the Father.