You Will Look for Me

Gospel: John 8: 21-30

It is often said that the aim of religion and spirituality is the quest for God.  We undertake a search that takes us to many places - through religious texts, to shrines and temples, amid various theologies and schools of thought, and even membership in various religious communities.  Some claim to have found God in one or more of these places, while others go from place to place not finding what they are looking for in any of these places.  Jesus here says that you will look for me but die in your sins.  

It is recorded that in the beginning God created human beings and declared them to be made in his image and likeness.  We later read that human beings are temples of the Holy Spirit.  We have looked for God in all sorts of places - all of which are places created by human beings, and yet we fail to look for God in the one place God created - within ourselves an within one another.  We go about killing one another claiming to defend where we claim God dwells in these places of our invention.  So we die in our sins.  

So perhaps this Lent we search for God within the depths of our own hearts and in the companionship of other people whom God as created as a divine image.  We might find God in these other places, but only if we recognize the fact that they will only point us back to the place within and to the presence of others where God truly dwells and communicates fully to us.  Only then will the tomb be opened and the presence of the Lord fully known to us.

Put Down Your Stone

Gospel: John 8: 1-11

A woman caught in adultery is brought before Jesus.  The crowd has stones at the ready for her execution.  Her guilt is not in question.  The religious leaders ask Jesus to pass judgment, to take part in her execution.  Jesus will have none of it.  He writes on the ground, causing the crowd to drift away in silence.  He then tells the woman he does not condemn her, and encourages her not to commit this sin again in the future.

In the book of Ezekiel, we read time and again the following statement:  "As I live, says the Lord, I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but rather in the sinner's conversion."  Throughout his ministry and most poignantly in this scene, Jesus exhibits this mercy and patience of God.  Time again he extends mercy and forgiveness.  He repeatedly invites to table fellowship prostitutes, tax collectors, Pharisees, and his own disciples who betray, deny, and abandon him.

Meanwhile, we who claim to be Christian have callous hands from holding the stone of execution, always waiting to hurl it at someone.  We cling to and defend a death penalty system Jesus clearly rejected here.  We do precious little to extend mercy, forgiveness, and restoration to those who have offended.  The stone in our hand is our heart.  Let us lay it down and allow the Lord to soften it so that we may be people of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness just as he was. 

God Has Helped

Gospel: John 11: 1-45

The raising of Lazarus is a curious story and we wonder what to make of it.  Jesus raises the man from the dead, only to have him die again.  Imagine dying twice in a lifetime!  One wonders what the point of the miracle was to be.  Was it merely an antic of apologetic to demonstrate power and get people to believe in Jesus?  This seems unseemly and unbecoming of an authentic spirituality.  Lazarus merely becomes a pawn in a game and not a person as an end in himself with dignity.  

It is perhaps best to see ourselves in Lazarus, just as we are to do in the Samaritan woman at the well and the man born blind.  Jesus tells his disciples that Lazarus is asleep and we must go and wake him.  We too are asleep, dead in our tombs of self-interest and egoism.  Our spiritual death can only be cured by an appeal from the Lord: arise! Unbind him.  We hear this voice of the Lord and come out of the depths of our tomb and slumber.  

We are now awake, alive again.  The name Lazarus means 'God has helped.'  God has helped us to arise and break free from our self-interest and ego.  We have been given a second chance at life again.  How will we respond to this gift? We do not know how Lazarus spent that time, but that is not important.  What is important is our own life and how we will now spend it.  Will we spend it as we did before, or will we follow the Lord in a life of mercy and care for others?