‘Life is changed not ended’

Whenever I am invited for a Mass or to bless the dead, my focus is not on the deceased but on his or her bereaved family and friends, reminding them to meditate on death. Why? Because the person who died is no longer here with us, as they say, “Life is changed not ended.”

Our gospel today wants us to realize that death is a natural part of life. Death ends our life on earth, but only so that we can live somewhere else. Where we live after death is up to God and us.

By contrast, if death is not something natural, what sort of miracle did Jesus work in today’s Gospel Reading? In other words, is Lazarus still walking around the Middle East today? Can you go and visit him? Obviously, Lazarus died a second time at some point after Jesus raised him from the dead.

So does the fact that Lazarus died a second time mean that Jesus’s miracle was a failure? What was the point of Jesus’s miracle? Was he trying to “save” Lazarus from death? No. Instead, this miracle is a sign — it points beyond itself.

Lazarus, raised from the dead, points our attention to Jesus. This miracle is a sign that reveals that Jesus is more powerful than death and that if we believe in Him, He can guide us beyond death. If we don’t have faith in Jesus, death is fatal.

Today’s Gospel Reading invites us to identify ourselves with Lazarus, a dead man. There is nothing spectacular here, nothing is exciting. Lazarus says nothing and does nothing but walk out of his tomb, covered with burial cloth. The past two weeks’ Gospel Readings portrayed two other persons — the Samaritan woman and the man born blind meeting Jesus and being healed by Him. But the problem of Lazarus was not thirst or blindness, but death.

Yet, there’s also another difference between the narratives about the Samaritan woman and the man born blind and the narrative about Lazarus. The Samaritan woman and the man born blind were healed and then brought others to believe in Jesus. But in today’s Gospel Reading, it is not the person who is healed who brings others to put their faith in Jesus. Instead, it was the sisters of Lazarus whose actions led others to Christ.

If it weren’t for the steps that Martha and Mary took, Lazarus most likely would never have been raised from the dead. When Jesus learned about Lazarus’s death, he didn’t go right away to the place where Lazarus was laid out. Precisely, Jesus would want to raise Lazarus from the dead. But in the Gospel Reading, there was hesitancy on the part of Jesus, as if He was waiting for the right circumstances to work this miracle. The intercession of Lazarus’s sisters seemed one such circumstance.

Jesus is teaching us a lesson about faith through the examples of Lazarus’s sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus doesn’t teach us that death and suffering will never touch us. Rather, He teaches us that death is not the last.

In raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus is showing us that there is Heaven. Jesus worked the miracle for us, as it was done for the sake of those who witnessed the miracle. It was for those who realized that Jesus is the Lord of life and death and that if we place our faith in Jesus, the suffering we experience in this world will itself die, ending along with our lives on earth, while we, through faith in Jesus, will rise with Him to eternal life.

As we approach

Holy Week, let us meditate on death.

Are we ready to die?

To meet God who created us? Or can we not let go of the whims of life here on earth? We can only enjoy Heaven if we let go of all earthly things and focus on Jesus’s passion, death, and resurrection.

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In raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus is showing us that there is Heaven.

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Jesus doesn’t teach us that death and suffering will never touch us. Rather, He teaches us that death is not the last.