Friday Coffin Break # 20 -- Jesus vs. the Zombies

Happy Friday, Everybody!

On this second to last Little Lenten Triduum, before the Great Triduum begins in two weeks on Good Friday, we are given for the Sunday Gospel the familiar story of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus. I thought last week’s reading was long, but this one is longer! Including the full text is making my emails too extensive, with not enough space left for reflecting on the Gospel in the Light of the Grave. If you would like to read the Gospel in its entirety, you can do so here:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032226.cfm

I have a confession to make regarding this reading. We had a Halloween party almost twenty years ago and I think I might have scrambled up the faith a wee bit for a few of the children. My wife read the story of Lazarus and when she said, “Lazarus, come out!” I popped out of a coffin/blanket chest that she was sitting next to and that nobody knew I was in. That much was okay, but along with being wrapped in some linens I was also wearing a pair of weird rubber zombie gloves to give a more startling effect. One 6-year-old attendee swallowed his gum.  I shouldn’t have worn those gloves.

Now, for today’s Friday musings, I would like to simply pull-out Jesus’ question to Lazarus’ sister, Martha, when he says to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus speaks these words to Martha after she professes faith in the resurrection to come at the last day. He tells her that he is the resurrection and that anyone who believes in him shall never die. I highlight this to gently suggest to you, and to me, that the fright of death we experience is largely borne of our fallen, terror-fed, imaginations and not based in what is actually taking place. And I would say that our imaginations have been corrupted by our lazy acquiescence to an unbelieving culture in what we read, watch and listen to – manufactured for us by a despondent, misery-loving-company anti-communion of a culture of death.

As a thought experiment, let’s reverse Jesus’ words:

“…he who doesn’t believe in me, though he live, yet shall he die, and whoever dies and doesn’t believe in me shall never live…”

We were created for True Communion-- to be fully alive with God and through him, heart to heart, with each other for eternity, and more intimately than we can imagine. So intimate are we meant to be with each other that the very Resurrection and Life himself wept over witnessing the pain of the brief, four-day, separation of Lazarus from his kin. That is Heaven. But, in this fallen world, under the rule of its prince, the anti-communion that I write of is one where it often happens that the closer we are together, the more alien we become to one-another. So, back to those gloves – let’s fix our attention on Jesus and not the living dead, that way our startled stomachs will not be so full of bubblegum that we have little room for the Bread of Life who came to feed us, together, at his eternal banquet table.

Coffin Break #19 Unblinded by the Light

Happy Friday before the fourth Sunday of Lent, Everybody. At this beginning of another Little Lenten Triduum, let’s ponder the upcoming (long) account of Jesus’ healing of the man born blind in the Light of the Grave:

This Sunday's Gospel is John 9:1-41 (from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

As he passed by, he saw a blind man from his birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” As he said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Silo’am” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is he”; others said, “No, but he is like him.” He said, “I am the man.” They said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

            They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been born blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” There was a division among them. So they again said to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight, and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind; How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself. His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if any one should confess him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age, ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been born blind, and said to him, “Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you too want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Why this is a marvel! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.”

  He said, “Lord, I believe”; and he worshipped him.

  Jesus said, “For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘we see’, your guilt remains.”

That is a seriously long Gospel! I am guessing that most pastors will opt for the shorter version, which is too bad because the edited reading cuts out just how hard the Pharisees worked to discredit Jesus’ miracle -- and how miserably they failed in their attempt. We can trust the vision that God has given us and that he sees us and that through our own remaining blindness his works will be made manifest in us.

Lord, I believe.

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