The Sánchez Archives FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR A

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

Come out!

EZEKIEL 37:12-14
ROMANS 8:8-11
JOHN 11:1-45

Several years ago, a series of methodology worships were offered throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and South America. In an effort to make the biblical text speak more vividly and effectively to modern readers of scripture, the workshops invited participants to “find themselves” in the particular parable or narrative being studied. The readings selected by the church for our consideration today provide an excellent opportunity for the implementation of this methodology. As each of the readings is proclaimed, with what character do you associate yourself? Where do your sympathies and aspirations lie? In whom do you find your spiritual posture most reflected?

As the gospel unfolds, do you align yourself with Mary, distraught over her brother’s illness? You have loved Jesus for years; his frequent visits to the home you share with Lazarus and Martha have led you to know him intimately. You anointed his feet with oil and dried them with your hair; you know he can do something for your ailing brother, so you send word for him to come quickly!

Or, do you see yourself in Martha, running out to meet Jesus as he approaches Bethany? You believe in the resurrection on the last day and regret the fact that Jesus did not arrive in time to prevent Lazarus’ death. Even when Jesus begins to act on behalf of your brother, you cannot imagine that he could live again. Your warning, “surely there will be a stench,” reveals that you have yet to truly understand the person and mission of Jesus.

Perhaps, you find yourself in the disciples; fearful of what seems to be in store for Jesus in Judea, you urge him to steer clear of the area and thus avoid the conflict which could bring harm to both him and you. Or are you like Thomas, sensitive to the inevitable confrontation which lies ahead but filled with good intentions and a desire to be with Jesus, no matter what. Soon your bravado, “Let us go along, to die with him,” will be replaced by confusion. . . “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:5). . . by doubt. . . “unless I see. . . I refuse to believe” (John 20:25). . . and then, by faith. . . “My Lord and My God” (John 20:28).

Maybe, you can identify with the friends and neighbors who mourned the death of a friend and reached out to console his sisters. Perturbed at the fact that Jesus came too late to help his friend, you complain, “He opened the eyes of that blind man. Why could he not have done something to stop his man from dying?”

Taking a cue from the authors of today’s readings, perhaps there are still other places for us to find ourselves in the text. Ezekiel (first reading) challenges us to see ourselves in the grave which sin has dug, waiting for God’s summons to life and for his spirit which revives and recreates us. Paul (Romans) would keep us mindful that disciples are required to be continually identified with Christ. Turning away from flesh, we are to live in his Spirit which brings life. John (Gospel) invites us to recognize ourselves in Lazarus, the one whom Jesus loves, and to whom he revealed himself in word and work as “the resurrection and the life.” Like Lazarus, we are subject to death; part from Jesus and the life he has come to offer, we would lie forever in the grave. But, with Lazarus, Jesus calls loudly to each of us, today and every day, “Come out!” of the darkness of sin and death and “go free.”

EZEKIEL 37:12-14

In 1921, British Army soldiers, digging trenches near the bank of the Euphrates in modern Syria unearthed some ancient frescoes. Further excavation and investigation by a team of French, American and Belgian archaeologists led to the discovery of Dura-Europos, a city occupied by waves of successive civilizations from the third century B.C.E. until its destruction in the third century C.E. Among several buildings which have been identified are the palace of the military commander, the acropolis, numerous temples to Persian, Greek, Babylonian and Palmyrene gods, as well as a Christian church and Jewish synagogue. Located near the city wall just north of the main gate, the synagogue consisted of an open courtyard and a single 25 X 40 feet room. The walls of the synagogue were adorned by rows of 30 paintings depicting themes from the Hebrew scriptures, including Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones (37:1-14), from which this first reading has been excerpted. Offering a pictorial remembrance of a particularly dark period in Israel’s history (viz. the Babylonian exile), Ezekiel’s vision calls to mind similar killing fields in Kampuchea (Cambodia), mass graves of Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc., etc. In a word, the prophet’s vision of dry, lifeless bones, strewn aimlessly across an arid plain, portrays the sorry predicament of humanity without God.

But, as is indicated in this pericope, at a word from God, even lifeless bones can be called forth from their graves. Ezekiel and his contemporaries, the restoration of the dry bones to life signified their return from exile in Babylonia to their homeland, Israel. Whereas the exile had been a taste of death, the return would be an experience of rebirth by God’s own Spirit. Told in terms reminiscent of the first creation by the Spirit of God (Genesis 2:7), the return home of the exiles was not an end in itself; nor was it merely a shifting of Israel’s political fortunes. Rather, the restoration of Israel was to be the occasion of a profound spiritual renewal marked by a more fervent commitment to their covenantal relationship. This would be accomplished, not when all the exiles were safely within Israel’s borders once again, but when each returning sinner began once again to know the Lord (vs. 13).

Ezekiel, who summoned his people from their graves to life in order to know the Lord is a type or prefigurement of Jesus, who in today’s gospel calls to Lazarus “Come out!” and who teaches all who seek eternal life that it consists in knowing the only true God and the one whom he sent, Jesus Christ (John 17:3).

ROMANS 8:8-11

Whereas Ezekiel envisioned the faith life of a believer in terms of dry bones being called out of their graves to be enlivened by God, Paul spoke of coming out or departing from the flesh in order to live in the Spirit of Christ. In order to understand Paul correctly, however, it is necessary to appreciate what the apostle meant by flesh (sarx in Greek) and spirit (pneuma in Greek). Unlike the philosophers of the ancient near eastern world who divided humanity into the wise, or the enlightened, and the foolish, and in contrast to Judaism which divided humanity into Israel and the gentiles, Paul regarded the Spirit as the factor which differentiated people from one another. Living in, or according to the Spirit, meant that a person was open to communion with God, and oriented toward God’s will. Living in, or according to the flesh, meant that person chose self-centeredness over God-centeredness and self-sufficiency over grace.

As F.F. Bruce (Paul, Apostle of the Heart Set Free, W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids: 1991) has explained, Paul’s varied uses of the term flesh may occasionally confuse his readers. For example, Paul used flesh in the ordinary sense of corporality, bodily flesh or mortal body (as in Romans 2:28, Galatians 2:20). He also used flesh in the sense of natural human descent or relationship, as when he wrote of Christ as David’s descendant or a member of the people of Israel (as in Romans 1:3, 4:1, 9:5,8; Galatians 3:7, 4:23). In a third sense, Paul used flesh to describe humankind (as in Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:20).

But, Paul uses flesh most distinctively in the sense of moral weakness and susceptibility to sin. Given all these uses of the term flesh, Paul could say that Christ became flesh, i.e. incarnate (John 1:14), but not sinful flesh, i.e. degenerate, sinful and morally weak (Romans 8:3).

Because of Christ, humankind has been raised to a new level of existence. Therefore Christians may no longer live in the flesh which breeds sin, death and alienation from God but in the Spirit which produces life, light, and goodness.

JOHN 11:1-45

During Jesus’ day, Bethany was a village on the lower eastern slope of the Mount of Olives about fifteen stadia (ca. two miles) east of Jerusalem. Today the town is called El-Azarieh, the Arabic form of the name Lazarus. When he was in Jerusalem or the nearby vicinity, Jesus stayed in Bethany at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. From there he began the triumphal procession to Jerusalem which ended on the cross and it was there that he manifested the sign which provoked the plot against his life.

The seventh and greatest sign of the fourth gospel, the raising of Lazarus was the climactic culmination of Jesus’ public ministry. Like the other six signs, the Lazarus event was intended to challenge and encourage the faith of those who witnessed it and those who continue to hear it proclaimed even today.

Told with a reserve and discretion intended to downplay their marvelous character, each of the signs of the Johannine gospel is a revelation of the power of god at work in Jesus in whom God has made his most important intervention in human history. Moreover, in his narratives of the seven signs the evangelist has offered his readers an escalating christology, with each successive sign detailing more clearly and fully the person and purpose of Jesus. In this seventh and final sign, Jesus is manifested as sharing the divine prerogative over life and death. The raising of Lazarus offered a vivid affirmation of Jesus’ identity as “the resurrection and the life” and proferred the invitation, “whoever believes in me, though he should die will come to life; and whoever is alive and believes in me will never die” (vss. 25-26).

In his excellent second volume, A Marginal Jew, John P. Meier (Doubleday, New York: 1994) explains that the Lazarus event forms a literary and theological inclusio with the first sign which Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. In both signs, the leitmotifs of glory and belief are present. Recall the evangelist’s comment after Jesus had changed the water into wine at the wedding, “and so Jesus revealed his glory and his disciples began to believe in him” (John 2:11). Here in his seventh sign, Jesus announces that Lazarus’ illness “is for God’s glory, that through it the Son of God may be glorified” (vs. 4). Then in verse 15, Jesus expresses his joy that he was not present at Bethany when Lazarus died, “I am glad I was not there, that you may come to believe.” Woven throughout the Lazarus narrative, the themes of glory and belief appear again and again (see vss. 25-26, 27. 40, 42) inviting the reader to recognize the glory of God revealed in the words and works of Jesus and so to believe.

In addition to revealing Jesus as the Lord of life, G. Rochais (“Les Recits de Résurrection des Morts”, SNTSMS, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1980) suggested that the Lazarus story presents Jesus as the one whose ministry: (1) fulfilled the servant prophecies, e.g. “I the Lord have called you to bring out prisoners from confinement and from the dungeon those who live in darkness” (Isaiah 42:7), “saying to prisoners: Come out! to those in darkness: Show yourselves!” (Isaiah 49:9), and (2) gave answer the psalmist’s confident prayer, “You will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption. You will show me the path to life. . .” (Psalm 16:11-11).

Earlier in his gospel the evangelist had prepared his readers for the Lazarus sign by the discourse in John 5. Therein the Johannine Jesus promised that “whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation but has passed from death to life” (vs. 24). The discourse also warned that “the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation” (vss. 28-29). Notice Jesus’ insistence that eternal life is not relegated to a far off future; he who believes has eternal life, i.e. now, in the moment of believing. “Here we touch on the center of John’s theology: high christology produces realized eschatology.” Because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, “all the dramatic events of the last day envisioned by Jewish apocalyptic -- resurrection from the dead, eternal life in heaven -- have collapsed into the present moment and into the person who dares to say simply” ‘I am.’ In effect, Jesus says to Martha, ‘Martha, the resurrection you are looking for is looking at you.’” (John P. Meier, op. cit.)

Each time the good news of our salvation is proclaimed and with every sharing in the Bread of life, Jesus renews his summons to sinners, “Come out!” and promises the experience of resurrected glory to those who hear his call, leave the grave of their sin and self sufficiency and look to him for life.

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