The themes for the second Sunday of Easter set the tone for the entire Easter season. They are all directed toward mystagogical instruction, primarily of those baptised during the Easter Vigil, but also of the whole Christian community. The readings for this season provide us an extended meditation on the resurrection and on our own incorporation into it through the mysteries of initiation. Most of us are like Thomas who looked for some tangible evidence of the resurrection. We do not find it any easier to live by faith than he did. However, when we do live by faith, we actually discover our capacity, as a Christian community, to reach out in care and support to others. Jesus extends his wounded hands to us as he did to Thomas, and the community is invited to touch his wounds as we touch the wounds of our world. Although the blessings that we derive from the resurrection are clearly gifts from God, they are nonetheless gifts that came at a cost.
John’s Easter story is closer to our real experience than many of the other Resurrection stories. Here we have no angels announcing ‘He is raised’; no Jesus present to change sadness into joy. Resurrection is more subtle in this Gospel. Mary and Peter miss the signs. They remain locked in grief still carrying the painful burden of Golgotha. It is the disciple named ‘beloved’ who first experiences resurrection in his openness to believe in God’s power to raise Jesus. Easter calls for faith. Those who know the loss and pain of death know too well the hard, long search to find signs of life. We don’t experience a sudden glorious moment of life returned. Like the anonymous disciple, we often stay some time within the tomb before finding grace to turn and enter into life. Such grace is found in simple signs of a love that does endure. Perhaps this is why ‘the beloved’ disciple first reaches Easter faith.
In this final Lenten Sunday we look again at the significance of Christ in our lives. We recognise him as our saviour, but we look more closely in order to discover just what kind of saviour he is. He has taken the form of a slave; he has been glorified with a name above all other names; he continues to suffer with us. We have not been saved through military might, but through the self-offering humility of Jesus. Though he was really in the form of God, Jesus came in the form of a slave. We have a saviour who was crushed for our iniquities, nailed to a cross as a convicted criminal, and there endured the sense of abandonment. In the face of this, we must ask a fundamental question: Why does God love us with such abandon? Our Saviour was lifted up and exalted precisely because he emptied himself of his divine prerogatives. He became one of us in order to show us how we are to live. Unlike conquerors who triumph by putting down their opponents, Jesus was raised up because he himself was first willing to be put down. Our Saviour first offered himself for us and continues to offer himself to us as an example to follow. As he was willing to empty himself for our sake, so we are told to empty ourselves for the sake of others. The Passion narrative leaves us up in the air. It leaves us in a better position than the disciples because we know the end of the story!. Jesus’ disciples were downcast by what they felt was the defeat of Jesus, however we know that out of this darkness, light and hope will emerge!
The pure human emotion of Jesus in this text attests to the love he had for Lazarus, but this human affection is nothing compared with the future promise to which the actions of Jesus towards Lazarus will lead. For those without faith, the tomb is simply a place of human corruption and decay. Death has ultimate power over people. But for people of faith, the tomb holds no fear. It is ironic that in raising Lazarus to life, Jesus is ensuring his own death at the hands of ‘the Jews’. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the power of sin and death is broken, and instead, resurrection and life are offered to all who would attest with Martha that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It is Jesus who is the resurrection and the life! There is a fundamental difference between the death and resurrection of Lazarus and that of Jesus. Lazarus will return to death, symbolised by the fact that he still wears the clothes of death when he comes forth from the tomb. Jesus’ death, however, will lead to a glory that lasts forever, symbolised by the fact that his death clothes are neatly folded and placed to one side when he emerges from the tomb. The resurrection of Jesus brings eternal life.
By means of the water that washed away his blindness, the blind man is made a new creation. He progresses from knowing the name of the one who cured him, to professing that Jesus is a prophet, to proclaiming that he comes from God. The struggle between darkness and light, between blindness and sight runs throughout this account. Jesus is the light of the world. The man, who is gradually brought from physical blindness to sight, also progressively moves from spiritual blindness to religious insight. The Pharisees were blind to the truth that the newly cured man saw so clearly. The one who was blind sees, and those who can see are blind. The move from darkness to light describes the radical change that takes place in the lives of Christians as a result of their commitment to Christ. The three qualities that are produced by the light – goodness, righteousness, truth – are merely symbolic of the complete transformation of character that this light can effect. Christians have entered into a new state of being, which will require of them a new way of living.
The Gospel reading this Sunday very clearly lays out the choices between water that quenches thirst and water that does not. Jesus identifies himself as the source of water that guarantees eternal life. He places before the Samaritan woman a choice that requires a step of profound faith. She knows the thirst-quenching quality of the water from Jacob’s well, but she is not acquainted with the water promised by this stranger who is also an enemy of her people. The choice is not an obvious one. A similar choice is placed before us. We know the demands of our culture and the circumstances of our lives. Are we able to acknowledge the sins of which we are guilty, recognise the grace that is being offered to us, and make the right choice?
Jesus’ Transfiguration puts our sacrifices in context, reminding us that Lent is more than a season of self-denial . The only reason we deny ourselves anything or commit ourselves to actions of service for these 40 days is to grow more deeply in love with the God who loves us into life. Penance is not meant to attack our self-esteem, it’s intended to help us sort out what really matters, to cast some light in the darkness of our lives and to focus on the relationship which gives meaning and purpose for this world and the next. The God of Mount Tabor is not interested in each of us feeling isolated as we fulfil the letter of a legal code. He wants all of us to have hearts that listen to the Gospel of love so that we can gain the power to transform the world through the sacrifices of our daily lives. On a much gentler scale, Sunday Mass is meant to be a weekly mountaintop experience for us where we hear God call us by name and confess his love for us; where we feel re-energised for the commission we have to bear his light to the world. In this context anything we can do this Lent that helps remove the blocks in our full response to his love, must be worth the effort.
At the beginning of Lent we are invited to acknowledge honestly and realistically our fundamental human weakness. Despite our weaknesses, the situation within which we find ourselves is not hopeless. Somewhere deep within ourselves we know that we are not helpless prisoners of our limitations. God has not deserted us to our guilt. The form that God’s compassion takes is outlined in the reading from Romans. It is in the death and resurrection of Jesus that we see the extent of this divine compassion. Its scope is first measured by the yardstick of human sinfulness, and then it outstrips those dimensions. God’s gracious gift far exceeds the effects of human transgression. As we look to Jesus, we see humanity at its best, tempted but not overcome. There will certainly always be human limitations, human weaknesses that will open the door to temptation. But Jesus shows us that we are not thereby doomed. Jesus is a model for our own journey to new life.
Jesus instructs his disciples to offer no resistance at all when someone tries to take advantage of them. He then reinterprets the law of love in an even more radical manner, insisting that his disciples’ love must be patterned after God’s love, which is given unquestioningly to the just and the unjust alike. Those who would be known as children of God are expected to love as God does. Jesus tells us to go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, outdo ourselves in generosity and rise above the fray. He is not suggesting that we allow ourselves to be abused, but that we not perpetuate the antagonism out of which the mistreatment arose. He is not advocating passivity, but he is saying that we should not retaliate. Jesus is describing what we today would call active non-resistance. We are also told that the neighbours whom we are to love are those people who do not like us. We are to love those who deliberately exclude us from their social circles, who talk about us behind our backs. We are to love those who make us feel that we are not good enough for them, those who resent us for our accomplishments. We are to love those who exploit us or do us harm. This is indeed a radical teaching.
The readings focus our attention on the nature of true wisdom. It is this true wisdom which prompts us to choose the right course of action and directs us in our interpretation of the law. The longer we live, the more we realise that life experiences open up for us a series of choices. With these choices we chart the path that we will take. Circumstances might be thrust on us, but we can still make choices about how we will deal with them. Obedient people do what they are told; wise people choose what good they will do. True wisdom calls us to choose life and whatever enhances life. If we are truly wise, we will come to realise that what was acceptable and life-enhancing in one situation may not be appropriate in another. Life is fluid, and our thinking and acting must be flexible enough to adapt when necessary. True wisdom, which comes to us through the Spirit, will enrich us with insight into life in ways we never thought possible. We will realise where and how we fit into the vast and interrelated ecosystems of the universe, and we will be overawed with the majesty and intricacy of its workings. We will understand once and for all that the value of anything is determined by its capacity to enrich life, and we will commit ourselves to and cherish every manifestation of that life.