March 24, 1996 5th Sunday of Lent John 11:1-45

BACKGROUND

This story of the raising of Lazarus is unique to John's gospel and comes just prior to Jesus' Palm Sunday entrance to Jerusalem. John uses this story, which probably has some roots in the collections of stories about Jesus, to show that Jesus is the Messiah. This event is the prelude to Jesus' own death and resurrection.. The story is filled with significant occurrences. Jesus does not rush to Judea to keep Lazarus from dying. Rather, Lazarus must die so Jesus can show his mastery over death. The disciples are fearful of what will happen to Jesus if he returns to Judea where the authorities are upset with him. When this doesn't trouble Jesus, Thomas encourages the other to go with Jesus in spite of the consequences, a model of discipleship. Many Jewish people are in Bethany when Jesus arrives, so there will be witnesses to this miracle. Jesus' response to Martha's belief in resurrection on the last day gives John the opportunity to have her acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah. Lazarus is not merely sleeping, he has been dead four days and there will be a great stench if they open the tomb. As of result of Lazarus exit from the tomb, many of the Jews believed in Jesus. John presents this as the final insult to the religious leaders which leads them to plot to put Jesus to death.

STORY

A mother, exhausted after overseeing nine seven year old boys at her son's birthday party, decided to take a well-deserved nap. The birthday was a few days after the end of the holiday season, the second one since her father's death. When she awoke from the nap, she remained in bed, deciding to savor a few more moments of peace and quiet. Suddenly out of nowhere, she heard, quite clearly she says, the music to Scarlet Ribbons, a song her father used to sing when the family went for a long drive. At the same time, she felt what she describes as "an incredible sense of peace, along with the feeling that Dad was telling me that the way I felt was how he felt when he died." Later, she told her family that at the time of her father's death it seemed to her that his last breath was one of great agony. Though other family members talked of it as similar to the moment of birth, she had a hard time discarding her image of that moment. She is convinced that her Scarlet Ribbons experience was her father's way of calming her fear and telling her that when he died, he came to life. He was there to tell her that we never really die.

Mary G. Durkin