Hearing the Voice

Gospel: John 5: 17-30

Jesus states that whoever hears the voice of God will rise and live.  We often take this statement to mean that the physically dead will rise, and that is one possible interpretation.  Another interpretation heard less often is that these words refer to us, that we are the ones who are dead inside, and that upon hearing the voice of God our spirits are raised from their tomb in order to live the life they were created and destined to become.  

Consider how many of us are entombed within a life of self-interest and egoism.  We are so concerned about the pursuit of wealth, influence, and accolades that we have become dead to the life of the spirit.  We are consumed with the affairs of everyday living and things of the earth that we have unwittingly created a tomb that has encased the spirit within us, incapable of the life of love and mercy for which it was created to become.

But the voice of God calls us out of this tomb of the ego, and if we hear and heed that voice we can come forth from the tomb just like Lazarus.  And this is the entire point of all Jesus' miracles: that we might live and be free to cultivate the life of the spirit, to become agents of love and mercy in the world once freed from our tombs and prisons.  This is the journey of Lent, the journey that takes us to the tomb, our realization of being dead, and coming out risen anew to live a new life of grace. 

A Day of Healing

Gospel: John 5: 1-16

Once again we find Jesus healing someone on the Sabbath, and once again the religious authorities of the day protest this action.  They argue that to heal someone on the Sabbath is an act of work that goes against the law of not working on the Sabbath day.  So, once again, rather than rejoicing in the good fortune of the man who has been cured of his ailment, the religious authorities are upset at him and at Jesus for this act of healing and mercy.  

The religious authorities then and now forget the actual purpose of the Sabbath day.  It is in itself a day of healing and restoration.  Six days of labor take a toll on body and soul.  The Sabbath day is designed to heal both body and spirit.  Rather than violating the law, Jesus in fact acts in the best tradition of the Sabbath day in what was intended for people to experience - refreshment, rest, and healing of body, mind, and spirit.  

When religious authorities perseverate on the minutia of Sabbath observance - what is work, what is not - and when they repeatedly seek to find fault with anything and everything others do - they themselves violate the Sabbath.  For now it becomes not a day of rest and healing for body, mind, and spirit, but rather one of pain and difficulty, just like the other days of the week.  May all our days be ones where we seek to heal others in body, mind, and spirit.   

Our Common Fear

Gospel: John 4: 43-54

A royal official asks Jesus to heal his son.  Jesus is irked by the request, bemoaning the fact that unless people see signs and wonders they do not believe.  We are taken aback by Jesus' impatience.  But consider: Jesus will heal this person and many others, some being spared even death.  What do all these people have in common?  They are now all dead, and this boy Jesus will heal today will live to die another day, just as we all will.  

And yet we search the world for miracles - apparitions, miraculous healings, incorrupt corpses, rosaries turning to gold, and all sorts of things.  Why? We claim to have faith, but do we? Are these things necessary for us to believe? If that is the case then we do not have authentic faith. If we need such things and a strong man in government to protect our tribe to boot, then we have not faith at all.  We instead have an elaborate cult of insecurity.

Authentic faith is not afraid of life or death.  It doesn't need the miracles to know the presence of God, nor does it need a strong man government.  The authentic person of faith needs God alone for their assurance and security.  Death is not to be feared but rather embraced as any other fact of life, for God is present in death and in life.  Lent is a time to face the reality of death for ourselves, to do away with our insecurities that lead to false faith, and to embrace the wood of the cross to follow Jesus toward our own tomb.