God Will Help

Gospel: John 11: 1-45

Jesus does not perform signs and miracles to prove anything or to demonstrate power.  Whenever Jesus does intervene in the life of a person it is out of love and concern for people.  That fact is evident in the fact that Jesus weeps in today's Gospel when he visits the house of Martha and Mary and discovers that Lazarus is dead.  It is this concern that moves Jesus to action in today's story.

The name Lazarus means "God will help." Lazarus does not ask to be raised from the dead in today's story, and he will certainly die again for good later.  What, then, is at work in today's miracle? Martha and Mary are devastated by the loss of their brother; they are unmarried women, and not having the help and protection of a man in ancient society makes them vulnerable to to destitution and exploitation.  In raising Lazarus to life again, Jesus becomes the "God will help" in the lives of Martha and Mary who need it a great deal.  

All of us are in need of God's help.  All of us have experienced a feeling of death in our lives.  God has helped each one of us in many ways, and now we are called to be the help of God in the lives of others.  Today's Gospel is a reminder of those facts - that we have been helped by God, and that we are to be the help of  God in the world.