Faith is tied to love, because love itself creates insight - John 11:1-45

Kaalagad Gospel Reflection- 5th Sunday of Lent
March 29, 2020
John 11:1-45

Faith is tied to love, because love itself creates insight.

 But what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus' love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but eventually caught some other disease. He fed the ten thousand, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember his love. It wasn't that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers. - Shane Claiborne

 If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

 We have the story of the raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45, the gospel story for the 5th Sunday of Lent.  It is a story of resuscitation or coming back to life after an experience of death.   The reality of death comes to haunt us. All will die. We are reminded of the celebration of Ash Wednesday - we are dust and unto dust we shall return.  Our existential angst. Death leads to decay.  Decay leaves behind only dust.  Human life is basically earthly.  Steve Jobs, co-founder, chief executive and chairman of Apple Computer powerfully said: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

 The words of both the Martha and Mary, and the words of some of the Jews are anxious words of mortality, of fears of death and of the clout of skepticism. The sisters say, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."  Some say, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying!"  The sisters speak of our fear of abandonment by God.  The Jews speak of our doubts about God's saving power.

 Martha and Mary are grieving what they rightly perceive as the unnecessary death of their brother Lazarus. A delayed arrival in Bethany is not what they expected from Jesus, with whom their family has a close relationship. Martha is resentful of Jesus’ delay, and in the same breath she trusts in the power of his compassion. Mary blames Jesus and at the same time kneels at his feet. Jesus himself is deeply moved and troubled; he weeps alongside the beloved sisters. This is friendship and intimacy; this is mercy and love in one sweeping gesture.

The interchange between Jesus and Martha shows the pain and loss of the sisters of Lazarus. When she says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died," I hear a very familiar tendency among those who are grieving. It is a time of denial, of regret, of guilt and disappointment.  Those regrets are part of grieving, not in a way of condemning, but in a way of accepting the pain of losing a loved one and coming to terms with his death. 

Jesus' response to Martha’s grief and pain is, "Your brother will rise again." She hears this as Jesus’ act of care and mercy.  She hears Jesus’ love for Lazarus. Martha is consoled by her faith in the future resurrection and her brother's place in it. Jesus responds to this statement of faith by challenging her with a deeper revelation of himself.  Jesus says to Martha, and to us, “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?” Martha responds: “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.” It is Martha’s confession of faith. It’s about giving Him all her fears and hopes. It’s about total trust even when life-changing events are tough especially in moments of despair and death. Martha’s discerning faith in Jesus, made without the advantage of witnessing miracles, made in the midst of grief and disappointment, is striking for its insight, strength and depth.

The confession of Martha is a confession of faith and love or a powerful testimony of being a friend and a disciple of Jesus. Pope Francis reflection on Lumen Fidei (the light of faith) is illuminating when he connects faith to love and truth. This is the depth of Martha’s confession.

 If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to create life and bear fruit. If love needs truth, truth also needs love. Love and truth are inseparable. Without love, truth becomes cold, impersonal and oppressive for people’s day-to-day lives. The truth we seek, the truth that gives meaning to our journey through life, enlightens us whenever we are touched by love. One who loves realizes that love is an experience of truth, that it opens our eyes to see reality in a new way, in union with the beloved. In this sense, Saint Gregory the Great could write that "amor ipse notitia est", love is itself a kind of knowledge possessed of its own logic. #27

Sometime in each of our lives, Jesus is going to basically ask us the same question – do we believe in Him and have faith in His words and deeds? Do we still trust and love him in moments of suffering and doubt? Often it will be at a time of trial, struggle and grief, like it was for Martha. It will be the moment of truth and love; have we just been paying lip-service to Jesus, just mindlessly going along with what we have been taught about Him and His Church, or will we make our belief in and love of Him real and personal?

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist, author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying (1969) said with profound insight: It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.

Fr Percy Bacani
Missionary of Jesus

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John 11:1-45 New International Version

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11 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” 4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” 8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.” 11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” 12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. 14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

 17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles[b] from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. 21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

 28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.


32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

 38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” 40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” 45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.