Show Notes
Life is a series of deaths and resurrections. Reflecting on these moments can help to prepare us for the Triduum, where we remember and commemorate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: The Lord be with you.
A reading from the holy gospel according.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: To John.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary, and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair.
It was her brother Lazarus who was ill.
So the sister sent word to Jesus saying, Master, the one you love is ill.
When Jesus heard this, he said, this illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the son of God may be glorified through it.
Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.
Then after this, he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea.
The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were trying to stone you and.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: You want to go back there?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world.
But if one walks at night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.
He said this and then told them, our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.
So the disciples said to him, master, if he is asleep, he will be saved. But Jesus was talking about his death while they thought he meant ordinary sleep.
So then Jesus said to them, clearly, Lazarus has died, and I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe.
Let us go to him.
So Thomas called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go to die with him.
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days now. Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about 2 hours away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: She went to meet him.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: But Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.
Jesus said to her, your brother will rise.
Martha said to him, I know he.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Will rise in the resurrection.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: On the last day, Jesus told her, I 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.
Do you believe this?
She said to him, yes Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, the one who is coming into the world.
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, secretly, saying, the teacher is here and is asking for you.
As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him.
For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha and Mary had met him.
So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell 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 had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled and said, where have you laid him?
They said to him, sir, come and see.
And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him.
But some of them said, could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.
It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.
Jesus said, take away the stone.
Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, lord, by now there will be a stench, for he has been dead for four days.
Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believe, you.
[00:06:06] Speaker C: Will see the glory of God?
[00:06:09] Speaker B: So they took away the stone, and Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me. But because of the crowd here, I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me. And when he said this, he cried out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
The dead man came out tied hand.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: And foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: So Jesus said to them, untie him and let him go.
So many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.
The gospel of the Lord being me.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: Has some distinct advantages.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: One of those advantages, and probably the.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: Only one of any significance, is that as I grow older, I don't have a head full of gray or white hair.
But other than that, we all have similar experiences as we get older.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: And I think we all tend to.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Think long thoughts as we realize there's.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: A lot more of our life in.
[00:07:33] Speaker C: The rear view mirror than there is ahead of us.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: And as I've been contemplating this over.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: The years, I've come to the realization that life is continually about death and resurrection.
When we are young, we are dependent upon our parents for everything.
And then as we grow older, that type of relationship with our folks begins to die off and we move on for our own life's sake. And as parents, you raise your children, you protect them, you do everything they need, but eventually you have to let them go, and that part of your relationship with them dies.
We also watch our parents grow older and they die and our life continues to move on.
There are all kinds of experiences we have. Retirement, moving to a new location, losing friends, gaining new friends. And that's all about that life, death and resurrection. It's a continual process.
And in the gospel, Jesus talks about untying him and letting him go, and that's what all of our lives are about. We have to let go of those.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Things we want to hold on to.
[00:09:12] Speaker C: So tight because all things we experience in this life eventually die.
But I think if we're honest, as we look in that rear view mirror, we find that after those experiences of death, there's also resurrection.
There are moments where life becomes new again, from making new friends and new relationships to having new experiences to having new life.
And perhaps for all of us, the hardest thing we have to untie and let go of is this life itself, because it can feel scary.
It can be difficult to realize that we don't have a lot of time left.
But if we do look at our past experience, we recognize that Jesus constantly allows resurrection in our lives and that when this earthly body dies, that doesn't mean we cease to exist, but that we rise to new life in him.
These next two weeks. That is the continual theme we will experience as we walk with Jesus to the cross, as we watch him die, and then more importantly, as we remember that he rose again, he allows us to fully experience life in him and offers us eternal life. It is about death, but more importantly, it's also about resurrection.
