Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent, April 6, 2025. Gospel of John 11:1-45. Theme: Come Forth! Be Unbound!
Today’s Gospel about the raising and unbinding of Lazarus conveys a two-part message to us. The first is that physical death is not an end to our existence. It is a kind of “sleep” from which our bodies will awaken in the resurrection of the dead and be united with our immortal souls to live a glorious eternal life. And second, is that Jesus has the power to set us free to live a new life, not just at our future resurrection, but right here and right now.
This story is also telling us that if Jesus can raise up, unbind and set Lazarus free, then He is also able to do the same for us, but in a different sense than just physical death. I think many people tend to forget, and perhaps some have never been told, that there is more to us than just our mortal bodies. We also possess immortal souls and so we can also experience spiritual illness and death. But this serious and potentially fatal spiritual condition is not always obvious to us. We can look and feel great physically and yet be spiritually sick or dying inside, really only half-alive. We can walk this earth as part of the “living dead”, that is, as people who are enclosed in tombs, not made of stone but built of our own making. We can be spiritually and emotionally bound up like a mummy by the destructive choices we have made. We can enclose ourselves in spiritual graves, so to speak, being trapped in habits of sinful behavior, shackled by various addictions, struggling with grudges or being caught up in the web of greedy consumerism.
And Jesus, seeing us trapped in our self-made tombs, is deeply distressed and weeps over our condition as he did for Lazarus. And he doesn’t want to leave us there where we will only degenerate further into our moral corruption. And so, He speaks to us the same powerful words that He spoke to Lazarus, “Come forth! Be unbound!” He calls us to step out from the tomb of sinful behavior and be released from spiritual slavery. To come forth from the tomb of materialism and be unbound from the lies that tell us we are only worth what we look like and what we possess. To come forth from the tomb of isolation and be unbound from loneliness. To come forth from the tomb of anger and grudges and be unbound from broken relationships. To come forth from the tomb of anxiety and panic and be unbound from fear and worry. To come forth from the tomb of addiction and codependency and be unbound from sadness and self- destruction.
Now, if we’re not totally sure that we have the faith it takes for us to hear Jesus, come forth from our tomb and be unbound, we can draw hope from the example of Lazarus’ sister, Martha. Did you notice that the Gospel tells us that she had to “come to believe” that Jesus was Who He said He was? Those three words “come to believe '' should give us great encouragement! They tell us that, though Martha had some faith, she was still growing, open to Jesus and willing to trust Him, but yet not quite there. And I am sure the same can be said of us. Perhaps we too believe but are “not quite there.” Perhaps we have more to absorb, more to experience about Christ so that we can “come to believe” more fully as Martha did? But be that as it may, even if our faith is weak or little we can still come humbly before him saying, , “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
Martha shows us that we can begin to say this prayer and trust in Jesus’ power even before understanding fully who He is; even before really grasping the extent of what He wishes to do for us. She demonstrates that our faith grows as our experience of Jesus grows. She shows us that our relationship with Christ, like all relationships, is a dynamic ever-deepening reality. And now through this gospel she invites each one of us to come to believe as well. She invites each one of us to reach out to Jesus and trust in Him. She invites each one of us to listen to Christ when he tells us to come forth from our tombs and be unbound.
Let’s follow her example.
Let’s ask the Lord to grant us the liberating grace of hearing His voice in our hearts and taking those all-important first steps forward so that we can exit our self-made tombs and receive a new lease on life! Martha never gave up deepening her understanding of Jesus and she encourages us to do the same. If we persevere in faith we will be able to finally proclaim, like her and with her, “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God. You are the Resurrection and the Life!”
