5th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A (2026)

This is a hard reading to hear, not only because the narration is challenging to follow, but perhaps mostly because it’s about a subject that makes us uncomfortable—death of a loved one. It’s a story full of people who are upset.

We’re told that Jesus took his time before going to Bethany and respond to the news of Lazarus’ illness. To them, and perhaps to us, it might seem like he is indifferent to a great concern.

By the time he arrived, not only had Lazarus gone from sickness to death, he was four days dead. And Jesus saw the power of death over all those he was trying to lead to faith. So troubled was his heart that he wept. Some say he wept because he grieved the death of a friend. But I believe it was primarily because death was destroying their faith in God.

When we think about Martha’s words: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died…” Like her, we’ve all asked, “God, why are you not answering my prayer? Why do you do nothing?”

Again and again, as people of faith—or who at least desire to have faith—we must remind ourselves that God answers our prayers, but sometimes his response is different than what we asked for. And sometimes his solution comes on the other side of this life.

We might think of this story is simply about Jesus restoring life. But it’s more than that. This story is about Jesus’ declaration and demonstration that he is the Resurrection. I remind us that Resurrection is not life simply life restored to what it was before. The Resurrection is life transformed, dialed up to a higher pitch. Jesus came not to abolish death as we experience it, but to help us transcend to another life.

In his conversation with Martha, Jesus performs a miracle greater than raising her brother: he raised her faith. It’s greater, because Lazarus’ dead body had no power to resist him, but a living soul does. When God created the universe from nothing, that was a great act. But understand, the nothingness from which He created, had no power to resist his word when he commanded it to become something.^[1]

Greater than that act is when God makes a saint from a sinner, or a believer out of one who does not believe, because a human soul has free will and can resist. It can be double-minded…mistrusting, as well as trusting.^[2]

Eventually, Jesus speaks directly to her: Martha, I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die…Martha, do you believe me…not just this general theological statement, this abstract, impersonal concept…Martha, do you believe in me?^[3]

I can imagine that Martha had to think for a moment. But then she answered: Yes, Lord, I believe. Jesus raised Martha’s faith, and it was only then that he raised Lazarus.^[4]

This Gospel has a connection to the Eucharist. In a few minutes, in his Eucharistic presence, Jesus will beckon us forward from these pews, out of whatever ways we are dead in faith. Like Lazarus, commanding death to “Untie (us) and let (us) go”. Are we ready to wake up(!) and to allow him to unbind us? Do you believe in him?

^[1] Kreeft, Peter. Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle A) (Food for the Soul Series Book 1). Kindle Edition.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.