24

5^th Sunday in Lenten Season – Year A

甲年，四旬期第五主日

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF

甘天霖神父

Gospel: John 11:1-45 （若11：1-45）  

Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters sent word to him, saying, "Master, the one you love is ill." When Jesus heard this he said, "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." He said this, and then told them, "Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him." So the disciples said to him, "Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved." But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them clearly, "Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him." So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go to die with him." When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. (But) even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise." Martha said to him, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus told her, "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. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, "The teacher is here and is asking for you." As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Sir, come and see." And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him." But some of them said, "Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?" So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me." And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go." Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.

Homily:  Not Death but Transformation of Life

The resuscitation of Lazarus is not his resurrection because going back to this material world is to resuscitate but to go beyond this material world into the world of God is to resurrect. 

The family of Bethany, consisting only of a brother and sisters, represents the Christian community where there are no superiors and inferiors but only brothers and sisters. This community is faced with an insoluble enigma: the death of a brother. Why doesn’t Jesus prevent death? The death of a loved one, our death, puts faith to a test. It gives rise to the suspicion that he is “not here,” that he does not accompany us with his love.

By allowing Lazarus to die, Jesus responds to this dilemma: it is not his intention to prevent biological death. He has not come to make this form of life eternal but to introduce us to that which has no end. When spirituality is reduced to the pressing demands of miracles, it inevitably results in a crisis of faith and the doubt that “he is not here” where we would expect him to be when we need him most in sickness, sorrow, and misfortune.

Martha believes in the resurrection of the dead. She is convinced that, at the end of the world, her brother Lazarus will return to life together with all the righteous and will take part in the kingdom of God.

This is her way of understanding the resurrection (perhaps similar to that of many Christians today) that does not console anyone. Why would God let one die only to bring him back to life?

The Christian does not believe in a death and a resurrection that will take place at the end of the world. He believes that the person redeemed by Christ “does not die.”

As an example, let us suppose that in the womb of a mother there are twins. They can see, understand, speak to each other during the nine months of gestation. They only know their own little world and cannot imagine what life is like outside. They have no idea that there are animals, plants, flowers, beaches.

After nine months, the twins are born by turn. And the one who was born a few seconds later and remained, even for a short time, in the womb of the mother, would certainly think: “My brother is dead. He’s not here anymore. He disappeared and left me….” and he cries. But the brother is not dead. He only left a restricted, short, limited life and went into another form of life.

In the Christian perspective, therefore, life in this world is a gestation, and death is verified by one who remains, not by one who dies. The judgment of Lao-Tze is known: “That which for the caterpillar is the end of the world, for the rest of the world is a butterfly.”

证道：无论生死耶稣都在，破茧成蝶复活生命！

拉匝禄生命的恢复并不是他的复活，因为回到物质世界是恢复（resuscitation），而离开这物质世界进入天主的世界才是复活（resurrect）。伯达尼的家庭是由一个兄弟和两个姐妹所组成，代表了基督徒团体中没有高低贵贱之分，只有兄弟姐妹。这团体面对的是一个令人费解的难题：就是一个兄弟的死亡。耶稣为什么不阻止死亡呢？况且这是耶稣所爱的一位，而我们的死亡让信德置于试探的境地。这令人怀疑耶稣“不在这里”，也没有以他的爱来陪伴我们。

因着允许拉匝禄死去，耶稣回应了此种困境：阻止身体的死亡并不是他的目的。耶稣来并不是为了让这种生命形式永远持续下去，而是向我们介绍没有尽头的事情。当灵修弱化成了对奇迹的迫切需求，这不可避免地导致信德的危机，当我们在疾病、痛苦和灾难种最需要他，期待他在我们身边时，会怀疑“耶稣不在这里”。

玛尔大相信死者的复活，并坚信在世界末日她的兄弟拉匝禄将与所有义人一起重获生命，并进入天主的国。这是她理解复活的方式（或许与今日很多基督徒相似），却不能安慰任何人。为何天主让一个人死亡，只是为了让他重获生命呢？

基督徒并不相信在世界末日会发生死亡和复活，而是相信人被基督所拯救，就“不再死了”。举个例子，让我们设想在一位母亲的腹中有一对双胞胎。他们在九个月的妊娠期间，能够看见、明白和彼此交流。他们仅仅知道他们自己的小世界，却不能想象到外面的生活像什么。他们不知道外面有动物、植物、鲜花和海滩。

九个月之后，这对双胞胎轮流出生了。而那个晚出生几秒钟，在母亲的子宫里多呆了很短时间的孩子，肯定会思考：“我的小哥哥死了。他不在这里了，消失了，离开了我……”。然后，他就哭了。不过，这小哥哥并没有死，只是离开了有限的、短暂的、有限的生命，而进入了另一种生命的形式之中。

然而，在基督徒的观点中，今世的生命就是一段妊娠期，死亡则是由留下的人而不是被死去的人所证实的。老子的看法是众所周知的：“为毛毛虫来说的世界末日，为蝴蝶却是余下的另一个世界。”（译者：杨绛说：“换个角度看问题：毛毛虫所谓的世界末日，恰恰就是蝴蝶破茧而出的充满阳光的时刻”。）