Homily for 5^th Sunday of Lent 2008

"Time heals all wounds" the saying goes. A shoe repair shop had a sign: "Time wounds all heels!" Heals are easy to fix. The human heart can take a long time to heal. Sometimes I think God has a lot to answer for in making us so human, so vulnerable, so easily hurt and wounded!

John tells us very clearly in the Gospel today that Jesus "loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus". And Jesus grieved deeply for his friend. We are told that "Jesus wept." Love and grief. Two very raw emotions had a real place in Jesus life. Here we look upon the very Word made flesh weeping for a friend! Such is the mystery of God.

This makes it all the more remarkable that he delayed in going to Bethany to see the family knowing that Lazarus was ill. Maybe, Jesus spent that time praying as he always did before important events. Praying for Lazarus. Maybe praying also because going to Bethany would put himself and his friends in danger. Maybe praying about where God was calling him. So he could say later at the tomb where Lazarus lay, "Father I thank you for having heard me."

We like Mary want to say, "If you really loved us why did you not answer our prayers right away? Why did you delay?"

At weddings the bride and groom are often heard to speak of the change that the partner has brought into their life. In love they find a new identity, a new focus, a new life. We usually think that having been given life we set out in search of love. But really it is the other way around. Because we are loved we find life. Fundamentally God has loved us into existence. Our parents loved us into birth. A person without love is like dry lifeless sand. Love gives us a new life.

In bringing Lazarus to life Jesus is saying, "I am the resurrection and the life." Where he is there is life. Where love is, there is life. Believe in my love and you have life even in your grief. When we place ourselves in the hands of Christ we begin to come out of the tombs we might find ourselves in.

Last Sunday Jesus rejected the idea that the man's blindness was the result of sin. Here he is saying also that suffering and death do not mean that we are forgotten by God even when our prayers seem unanswered. On the contrary God's love is as real as Jesus' tears. Jesus is as human and as easily wounded as we are.

Our Eucharist proclaims God's love for us in Jesus.

Fr Graham