My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, have you ever sat in a hospital waiting room? It is one of the hardest places in the world to be. Th...
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, have you ever sat in a hospital waiting room? It is one of the hardest places in the world to be. The clock on the wall seems to barely move. Every time the door opens, you look up, hoping the doctor is finally coming with news. Waiting, especially when someone we love is hurting, is agonizing.
Today, on this Fifth Sunday of Lent, we step into a waiting room with two sisters: Martha and Mary. They have sent an urgent message to Jesus: "Lord, the one you love is ill." And then, they wait. They look down the road to Bethany, expecting to see Jesus hurrying over the hill. But He doesn't come.
When we look closely at today’s readings—from the dry bones of Ezekiel, to the theology of Saint Paul, down to this tear-stained road in Bethany—we discover a powerful journey. It is a journey that speaks directly to the hardest moments of our lives, unfolding in three profound movements: Delay, Decay, and Deliverance.
Let us begin with the first movement: Delay.
The Gospel tells us plainly that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Yet, when He receives the news, He deliberately stays where He is for two more days. To the sisters, this must have felt like a betrayal. I imagine Mary crying by her brother's bedside, whispering, "Where is He? Why isn't He here?"
How many of us have prayed that exact same prayer? Lord, if you had been here, my marriage wouldn't have fallen apart. Lord, if you had been here, the biopsy results would have been different. Lord, if you had been here, my child wouldn't be struggling with addiction. We pray, and heaven seems completely silent.
But Jesus' delay was not a denial of His love. In the Jewish culture of that time, people believed the soul of a deceased person hovered near the body for three days, hoping to re-enter. By the fourth day, all hope was gone. Jesus deliberately waited until the fourth day so that no one could say Lazarus was just in a coma. He waited until the situation was mathematically, scientifically, and completely hopeless. My friends, God’s delays are not His absences. Sometimes, He allows the situation to reach the "fourth day" so that when the rescue comes, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was the hand of God.
This brings us to our second movement: Decay.
When Jesus finally arrives, Martha runs to Him. Jesus asks them to roll away the stone, and practical Martha panics. "Lord, by this time there will be a stench; he has been dead four days." She is stating a brutal biological fact. After four days in a warm climate, rigor mortis has passed, cells have broken down, and the terrible process of putrefaction has begun. Lazarus is a biological ruin. It’s messy, it’s ugly, and it smells. Martha is essentially saying, "Lord, don't open that. It's too late. It's too far gone."
Don't we do the exact same thing with Jesus? We all have a "tomb" in our lives—a place where we've buried our deepest shame, our oldest grudges, or our secret sins. We roll a heavy stone over it to look good on the outside. And when Jesus draws near and says, "Roll away the stone," we panic. We say, "Lord, don't look in there. It's a mess. It stinks. I've been this way for years, it's too late for me to change."
But notice what Jesus does. He doesn't hold His nose. He doesn't run away from the mess. He stands before that tomb and He weeps. He weeps for our pain, and He stands unafraid of our decay. Jesus is never intimidated by the messes we have made of our lives.
And that leads us to our final movement: Deliverance.
Standing before that open grave, Jesus cries out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The voice that created the universe now speaks into the darkness of a tomb. And the impossible happens. Decaying cells regenerate. A stopped heart beats. Lungs draw breath. The dead man shuffles out into the light.
God fulfills the promise He made in our first reading from Ezekiel: "O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them."
But the story doesn't end there. Lazarus is alive, but he is still all tied up in his burial cloths. He can't see clearly, he can't walk freely. Jesus turns to the community and says, "Untie him and let him go."
My brothers and sisters, through our Baptism, Jesus has already called us to life. But how many of us are walking around the church today still wrapped in our grave clothes? We are alive, but we are bound tightly by the bandages of past mistakes, old resentments, crippling anxiety, or the hurtful labels other people have put on us.
This is why Jesus gave us the Church, and especially the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In Confession, Jesus tells the priest exactly what He told the crowd that day: Untie them. Let them go. As we leave Mass today, and as we look toward the joy of Easter, remember the God of the fourth day. No matter how long the delay, no matter how deep the decay, His final word is always deliverance.
Do not be afraid to let Him roll away the stone this week. Let Him look at the mess. Go to Confession and let Him unbind you from the things holding you back. Hear His voice calling your name, inviting you to step out of the dark, leave the bandages behind, and walk freely into the glorious daylight of the Risen Christ. Amen.
No comments