Lazarus was dead. “Dead as a doornail,” one could say. So
dead that, when Jesus told the people to open the tomb, the women were worried
there would be a stench. And then the miracle happens: Lazarus, who had been
dead for four days—four days!—comes out of the tomb, bound hand and foot in the
burial cloths. None of us could do this miracle. Humans cannot bring people who
have been dead for four days back to life. Lazarus was now alive – because Jesus
is God.
And that’s one of the reasons why Jesus delays His
arrival to Bethany. “I am glad for you that I wasn’t there.” Why? So that this
miracle could be done and so boost their faith. “That you may see the glory of
God and believe.”
We are afraid of death, aren’t we? That’s one of the
lessons we have learned over the past three years. But for some people, the
fear of change is even greater.
After Lazarus is raised, and after the feelings of the
spectacular have died down, some of the Pharisees begin to plot to put Lazarus
to death – not just Jesus, but Lazarus
too. That’s amazing to me: how hard does a person’s heart have to be to not
only refuse to accept an undeniable miracle that they could actually touch and
see, but then also to want to destroy it because it doesn’t conform with their
normal way of doing things. It is truly astounding, the fear that some of the
Pharisees had when it came to changing their lives.
But that’s the purpose of Lent, isn’t it? To have our
lives changed. Hear, then, the words of Jesus again when He says:
Do not be afraid of the one who can kill the body. Be afraid of the one
who, after killing the body, can send the soul into Gehenna.
That is to say: Yes, I understand you have many fears,
death and change being a couple of them. But the greatest fear you should have
should be about hell – about the death of your soul.
You see, whenever Jesus does a miracle, there is often a
spiritual lesson that is attached. So, last week, Jesus healed the blind man,
but it also revealed the spiritual reality that people were blind to Jesus the
Messiah. Here, in the raising of Lazarus from the dead, Jesus is also revealing
the reality that many of the people were spiritually dead. And He has come to
not simply give physical life to the body, but eternal life to the soul.
Hence He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
You and I are going
to die. And we don’t like to admit that fact. But the deeper reality is that,
even though we will die in body, we must do everything in our power to make
sure we don’t die in soul.
How could we die in soul?
Just like physical illness, we can have spiritual
illnesses. We can call these “sin.” An illness that can kill you, whether of
the body or soul, would be called a “mortal illness.” “Mortal” meaning deadly –
like mortal combat or a mortal wound. Such things could bring about death. A
mortal illness of the soul is what we call “mortal sin.”
Now I’m not going to get into what constitutes mortal
sin, but rather I just want to point out that it does exist. It is real. And it
shouldn’t be a surprise to us. After all, in our games like soccer or hockey
there are yellow cards and red cards, minor penalties and game misconducts –
offenses that earn us a caution and offenses that get us kicked out of the
game. Even in civil society, we have misdemeanors and speeding tickets, but we
also have felonies and death penalties. Embracing mortal spiritual illnesses
does have consequences.
Like a stench. And death. And hell. That is what hell is: dying from that illness.
We can grow “nose blind” to a certain smell, like
whatever has died in our car. But a good friend may sit in the passenger seat
and go “Phew! What died in here?” You may not notice anymore, but your friend
does. So too in our culture and in our lives, we may have gotten used to
certain sins and bad habits, but God notices. He isn’t nose blind. Sin smells.
And it smells like death.
And that’s no surprise since sin is opposite to God. To choose
sin is to choose not-God; to choose death over the One who is Life. The
Resurrection and the Life in fact.
I say all of this not to condemn in any way, but to tell
you that Jesus comes to us, comes to the tomb of our sin and says, “Lazarus!
Come out!” Jesus comes not to condemn us, but to bring us new life and the
freedom that comes from that.
Have you ever wondered why confessionals feel so
uncomfortable? They are often dark, dank, and have a certain smell to them. It
is uncomfortable to confess one’s sins and to admit having embraced the ways of
death. But then—then when you emerge from the confessional: you feel the cool
air again and you drink in the fresh air and the feeling of being free again.
The confessional is the tomb from which Jesus’ forgiveness calls us forth into
new life.
I love it when a person comes in and says, “Father, it’s
been… years… since my last
confession.” I know, you probably think that is odd that I love that. But I
love that. Because that person has been carrying a weight on their shoulder for
years. Shame and guilt and sadness and anxiety – carrying that for years – and in
this moment I get to remove that weight. I get to cut loose the shackles and
set them free. And I get to see that moment. That beautiful moment when a soul
is brought back to life and restored to the innocence that they had – no matter
how horrible the crime, no matter who deep the spiritual death – I get to see
that soul restored to life and restored to the innocence they had at their
baptism day.
This is why I have heard it said (I do forget which saint
said it), that it is more miraculous for
the soul receiving the new life in confession than the life that was given to
Lazarus that day in the tomb.
I believe that. Lazarus would eventually die again. But
if his soul was healthy—that is, free from the illness of sin—Lazarus would
live forever in heaven. His bodily resurrection is a foretaste of that. It is
also a prefigurement of Jesus’ Resurrection, too – a resurrection that happened
after He entered the tomb.
Which is all to say, not only does Jesus call us out of
the tomb – He enters into the tomb. He enters into the stench and the death of
our spiritual illness and offers us healing; a new life; true resurrection.
That is the joy of Easter. And that is the joy that is
offered to you in the confessional. Do go this week. Especially if it feels like
has been forever. And bring a family member or a friend. We want new life and
we want it for everyone. +
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