What does your heart break for?
Homily
5th Sunday of Lent A
St. Lawrence Center KU
29 March 2020
Lazarus was a dead man. Dead dead. Deader than dead. Stinky dead. In the age of the coronavirus, we’d love to sanitize this story. The Gospel refuses. Lazarus is stinky dead. Jesus made sure of it.
Jesus is an epic fail as a first responder in this case. Has he never heard of 911? Upon hearing that his best friend was ill, he does nothing. He waits for two days, until he is sure he will be too late. Jesus has nothing to learn from KU students who get masters degrees in procrastination. He puts things off quite well himself. And for his best friend. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
Lazarus would be the third person Jesus resuscitated. But he was clearly the most dead. Jesus made sure of it. The first was the little girl, Jairus’ daughter, who had just barely passed before Jesus arrived. The second was a young man on the way to his burial, the only son of the widow at Nain. Lazarus was old. And deader than dead. He had been in the tomb four days. Jesus made sure of it.
Jesus also weeps three times in the Gospels. The first was for a city - Jerusalem - and its loss of faith. The last time was for himself, at his terrible agony in the garden. This time was for a friend.
To shed tears is another reason Jesus waited. Because to cry for a friend who is really dead is different than for a friend who will be fine. And to feel the great tragedy that real life is not Disney, and not every story has a happy ending, and that death can be the final end. It’s enough to bring Jesus to tears.
In this penultimate sign before he goes to Calvary just a few miles away, Jesus avoids nothing and feels everything. He waited two days because Lazarus had to be dead. Deader than dead. Stinky dead. If the ultimate mission is to enter deeply into the reality of death and transform it with divine love.
Jesus wanted to teach his disciples how to follow Him courageously right into the heart of death, for only after a disciple wishes to lose his life will he find it. Thomas gets it right this time - let us go to die with Him.
Today’s penultimate sign prepares us, Jesus’ disciples now, to enter into Holy Week - to go the short journey from Bethany to Jerusalem. The tomb, the stone, the shroud, the Marys . . will reappear there in two weeks time.
Jesus waits. Then he enters the scene, the story and the mystery. He calls us to follow Him. Let’s not panic, not sanitize, not run away, prevent or avoid, the chance to let His story rewrite ours.
Jesus waits, then he feels everything. He weeps. What does your heart break for? This is our pivotal question this week. What does your heart break for?
In this I must confess feeling more like Lazarus than Jesus. My heart feels dead, looking for ways to be safe from reality. The bad news is that once you’re dead, you can’t do anything about it. If you’re thirsty like the woman at the well, you can keep trying to find a drink that will satisfy. If you’re blind, you can still pretend to be able to find your own way. But if you’re dead, you’re screwed. There are no self-help books for that. I bet most of you know what I’m feeling and talking about. Your only chance is to be touched by a love that is stronger than death.
But here’s the good news. Some stories do have happy endings. Prophesied in Ezekiel today, and actualized in the Gospel, is the desire of God for you. I will open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people.
That would be a coronavirus Holy Week and Easter worth entering into. It’s the one that Jesus desires for me, if only I might desire it too - to raise a heart that is dead into one that can be broken.
Where are you most dead? There, I changed the pivotal question. Where are you most dead?
Wherever it is, Jesus waits to meet you there this Easter.
