Death is a Doorway to Eternal Life

Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A

There are few things in life more permanent and guaranteed than death. Some would add taxes, but I think Malaysians can tell you that tax evasion is far easier than postponing and avoiding death. Despite the certainty of death, that doesn’t stop us from imagining what life would be like if death was only temporary, if one could actually rise from the dead. The Covid-19 pandemic, which has brought the whole world to its knees, brought global economies to a halt, caused nation-wide lockdowns in countries ranging from first world superpowers to third world nations, got me thinking about the scenario painted by post-apocalyptic zombie movies: reanimated human corpses roaming the world seeking to devour living flesh, a scenario that could one day actually become a reality. It was a frightening thought indeed.

Take that in for a second.  You have just witnessed a guy get up from out of a tomb (that reeks) all wrapped up in linen (though that may imply a mummy sooner than a zombie – regardless; he’s undead). Or, he is Lazarus.  Well, it is good to note that he is not the first case of a reanimated corpse reported in the gospels. There are three resurrection miracles - the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus (Lk. 8:41ff), of the son of the widow of Naim (Lk. 7:11 -15), and of Lazarus. In the first miracle, the girl had just died when Our Lord resurrected her. In the second miracle, the dead man was being carried in his funeral procession, presumably to his tomb. But Lazarus “had been in the tomb for four days already.” He was already stinking. So picture the reaction of the onlookers – here was a man who was already dead for four days, and before you know it, he’s up and about.  Macabre. But unlike zombies who become mindless, flesh-feasting, and soulless creatures, Lazarus came back alive and went on with his normal ordinary life until his “second” death. I guess for him and for so many others who had returned from near-death experiences, life would be forever transformed. For better or for worse. We can choose to become better people, become more human, or continue to live as the walking dead.

The resurrection of Lazarus isn’t so much about the reanimation and resuscitation of a corpse as it is about a sign pointing in the direction of the One who openly declares, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Those are words with most profound hope and joy for all of us. Those words are also a reminder that our focus is on the Lord’s own resurrection because it is the source of great power and favour, a power so great that it will one day raise up the bodies of all believers to Eternal Life! This is why Jesus allowed Lazarus to die in the first place. If our Lord had come earlier to heal him and prevent his death, what would that have achieved? No, our Lord who is the Resurrection and the Life deliberately chose to wait, so that the miracle which He would perform would not just be one that delays and postpones the inevitable, but a miracle that will mark the final defeat of death. But this demonstration of our Lord’s power over death was a sign of His own coming resurrection, and of Lazarus’s and ours as well.

This is at the heart of the Christian gospel, the good news we proclaim today, every Sunday and in fact every day of our lives. It is not just pointing to a historical event, but the resurrection of the Lord is primarily a saving event. The Lord may have defeated death momentarily in the case of Lazarus, but Lazarus would have to meet this fate once again. More than just this temporary reprieve from the sentence of death, is the final and ultimate defeat of death. The Resurrection of our Lord is more than a miracle and motive for faith. It is a saving event in its own right, since the dying and rising of Jesus together constitute the victory over sin and death. It is only through His risen life that we are brought into that “newness of life” which constitutes the fullness of our salvation. We have a share in this through our baptism, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4). And in the second reading, Saint Paul assures us, “though your body may be dead it is because of sin, but if Christ is in you then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then He who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies, through His Spirit living in you.”

The miracle the Lord performed in raising Lazarus from the dead was not just for the benefit of Mary and Martha.  His miracles were for the whole community and for us to know that He really was the Son of the living God, and that God’s true presence is among us.  The gospel said that after this miracle, many of the Jews who had come to be with Mary and Martha, and had seen Jesus perform this miracle, came to believe that He truly was the son of God.

The raising of Lazarus is the last recorded miracle or “sign” in John’s gospel. Our Lord knew it would be. You and I might expect that the news of this miracle, brought back to Jerusalem by numerous eye-witnesses, would lead to the acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Messiah. But the Lord knew it would have the exact opposite effect. It demonstrated to His enemies just how great a threat He was. It would set into motion the events of Holy Week, the events which we commemorate in our solemn liturgy next week. Our Lord’s gift of life to Lazarus would ultimately lead to His own death. This part of the great divine commerce – Our Lord took upon Himself our humanity so that He may share with us His divinity; Our Lord died for us so that we may have life, abundant life, eternal life. Our Lord went to His death because He knew that this would accomplish more for us than what He had done for Lazarus – not just a simple resuscitation, miraculous though it may be, but a final victory over death that would last forever.

Death is but a doorway into eternal life.  We need not fear the other side. We need not live in fear of dying from some incurable virus, or a sudden heart attack or a freak accident (like being crushed to death by the pulpit whilst preaching). We should not fear death because we don’t have to imagine how life would be like after death, or postulate a post-apocalyptic zombie scenario. No, we have it from the Lord Himself. We have seen it in the miracle of Lazarus. Death is not a dead end, an impenetrable breakwall. It is the doorway to eternal life with our Lord waiting for us on the other side.  He proved to all of us that there is life after death, by bringing Lazarus back from the dead and by rising from His own grave on Easter morning.  This is the Good News that all of mankind longs to hear.  Death does not have the final say.  Covid-19 does not have the final say. Jesus Christ does.

What's wrong with the world?

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A

I guess most people would be expecting me to say something about the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m going to disappoint you. A problem will not go away no matter how much you plan to be fixated on it. Sometimes when we are too focused on the problem, it blinds us to the solution. It’s always much better to focus on the solution. And this is what the Church invites us to do.

Though we often think of ourselves as being objective and rational people, our perception frequently slips like a faulty transmission into auto mode. Without realising it, this shapes our world-view, our judgment of others, our perception of ourselves and gives rise to every prejudice and bias we have of another. What we perceive is what we want to perceive, without recognising that others see something quite different. This is the “blind spot.” By its very definition, people are unaware of their blind spots because they wouldn't be blind spots if people were aware of them! Yes, our blind spots create lots of problems. What we see clouds our judgment; what we don’t see bias our behaviour. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” So, how could we possibly be liberated from this self-imposed prison? Well, today’s gospel gives us an answer – His name is Jesus.

Today’s passage speaks of the encounter between the man who was born blind and our Lord. After being healed, this man emerged from a tunnel of total darkness that had lasted a lifetime, not just a two weeks modest quarantine. But here is the irony of the story, as the man regained his physical sight and was slowly led to grow in his spiritual sight, the other actors in the story continue to display their blindness, their respective blind spots.

Our Lord sees the problem faced by the blind man, but He also sees the solution. The others, however, the disciples, the man’s neighbours, his parents and the Jewish authorities see a problem too, but rather than seeing a solution and a reason to thank God, they each saw additional problems. They all suffered blind spots.

First, the disciples see the blind man and they think the man has a problem of sin. They believe he is being punished by God either for his own sins or that of his parents. Rather than seeing a way out, they are more concerned with the cause. “Why” may be an important question to ask but sometimes the “why’s” in life lead us no closer to the truth but rather to greater frustration. “Why did this happen?” eventually leads to “why did God allow this to happen?” and finally evolves into “well, if this man didn’t deserve it then either God is not a good God or He doesn’t really care.”  Rather than asking “why”, we should begin to ask, “what must I do?”

Next we have the man’s neighbours who see a different problem. They recognise him as the blind man who used to sit and beg. But now he’s no longer begging and, in fact, he’s not blind anymore. They begin to suspect that this man was never blind in the first place; he could be a con-artist, and so this could have sparked off outrage in having been cheated. That is why they decided to bring him to the authorities for trial and judgment.

Now, the Jewish authorities see another problem. Instead of marveling at the apparent miracle that had taken place, the clear hand of God at work, they are only obsessed with the fact that this could have been a violation of the Law. It’s the Sabbath – and if Jesus indeed did heal the man on the Sabbath, then He was breaking the law. They could not see the forest for the trees.

Finally, the parents of the blind man are called in as witnesses to confirm that this man is actually the same man everyone is talking about. But here again they see yet one more problem – fear of being dragged into this mess, fear of being implicated together with their son, charged as accomplices to this grand scheme of fraud. They’re afraid of testifying to the truth and so they decide to throw their son under the bus. They pushed the responsibility back to their son, “He is old enough, ask him.”

And now we see the man born blind, giving his testimony of what he had seen. This is the greatest irony of all. For a man deprived of his eyesight for his entire life, until now, he sees clearer than all others. We see, that though he suffers the trial of being judged, accused and rejected by the Lord’s disciples, neighbours, family members and the religious authorities, this man gradually grows in faith. It is as if the trials he is experiencing helps him to see clearer rather than impede his spiritual eyesight. In the beginning he thinks of Jesus as merely a “man” among others, then when he is questioned, he speaks of the Lord as being a “prophet” and finally, his eyes are opened and he proclaims Him “Lord” and falls down in worship. From hopeless darkness he grows into the light of faith, entirely through the power of a gift of grace he never asked for; a faith whose logic he follows obediently; a faith that, like a mustard seed, grows in him until it becomes a huge tree.

But remember this story isn’t only about the blind man, or the other characters in the story, it’s also about all of us. This is our journey, moving in stages to confront our own blind spots in order to see Jesus more perfectly. How do we see again? How do we allow our Lord to heal our blind spots? Well, a good start would be to admit that we are part of the problem, if not the problem itself. If we can only see the problem as “something out there”, if we are constantly complaining, blaming, and finding faults with others, then most likely we have missed the massive blind spots lurking behind the periphery of our physical, moral, spiritual vision. Unless I admit that I am blind, then my blindness remains. That is the essence of repentance, the prerequisite of Christian discipleship. Venerable Fulton Sheen gives us this important reminder, “Two classes of people make up the world: those who have found God, and those who are looking for Him - thirsting, hungering, seeking! And the great sinners came closer to Him than the proud intellectuals! Pride swells and inflates the ego; gross sinners are depressed, deflated and empty. They, therefore, have no room for God. God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless 'saint'. Love can be trained; pride cannot. The man who thinks that he knows, will rarely find truth; the man who knows he is a miserable, unhappy sinner, like the woman at the well, is closer to peace, joy and salvation than he knows.” Whether we wish to admit it or not, many of us don’t see our blind spots, because we are too proud to admit that we have them.

This finally leads me to a little story, which is most likely apocryphal, concerning the great GK Chesterton, but it very much captures his wit. It is said that, when a London newspaper asked Chesterton to contribute a piece addressing the question “What’s wrong with the world?” he sent a simple reply: “I am.” I guess we could give the same answer to an entire list of questions: “What’s wrong with the Church?” “What’s wrong with my BEC?” “What’s wrong with my family?” If only there was less blaming and greater humility in acknowledging, “I am … I am what’s wrong.” If that was true, then the answer to the next question, “What must change?” the answer should simply be, “I must.” If you can’t get around to saying that, if you continue to insist that you can see, well, “your guilt remains.”

When the well runs dry

Third Sunday of Lent Year A

Compared with the generation of our parents and grandparents, today we own twice as many cars per person, eat out twice as often and enjoy endless other commodities that weren't around then--big-screen TVs, microwave ovens, tablets, smart phones, handheld wireless devices, to name a few. But are we any happier? Certainly, happiness is difficult to pin down, let alone measure. But I suspect that we're no more contented than we were then--in fact, maybe less so. Compared with our grandparents, our most recent generation have grown up with much more affluence, slightly less happiness and much greater risk of depression and assorted social pathology, So many today suffer from that gnawing spiritual thirst for more and the next best thing, but the next best thing always seems elusive.

This spiritual thirst is indicative of an awareness that something is missing in one’s life – a feeling of ennui, of listlessness and dissatisfaction, mundane boredom, an inner longing, but one can’t quite put your finger on the reason for the emptiness within. Several years ago, Prince Charles of England spoke of his belief that, for all the advances of science, “there remains deep in the soul a persistent and unconscious anxiety that something is missing, some ingredient that makes life worth living.” He may not have been aware of how prophetic his words were but I believe that he is referring to the persistent and unconscious anxiety and thirst of the soul.

This emptiness often feels like a bottomless pit. We try to fill the emptiness with sex, drugs, work, fashion, cars, houses, jobs, and many other things, but the truth is, nothing but God Himself can quench our spiritual thirst. As St Augustine so eloquently described it in his autobiographical confession, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in” God. Science fiction writer, H. G. Wells, writes that every person has a “God-shaped vacuum in his heart - a void that only God can fill.” God has “hard-wired” us for a relationship with Himself, a God-shaped void, and until we are united with Him by repenting of sin and receiving Christ, we will continue to have this inner longing unfulfilled.

The story of the Samaritan woman is such a story – a story of someone thirsting for love, for meaning, for peace and until now, she had found it in all the wrong places. The story begins with this remark that our Lord had to pass through Samaria as He was going from Judea to Galilee. Did He have a choice? Yes, most certainly. There were three routes between Galilee and Jerusalem. The fastest and most direct route required travelling through Samaria, if speed was the main concern. But because of the ancient antagonism and tension between Jews and Samaritans, many Jews, especially the religiously observant, would avoid the route to prevent contracting some kind of ceremonial uncleanness. To the Jews, the Samaritans represented the two worst abominations: schism and idolatry. But it would seem that our Lord decided to choose this route. It was deliberate, not just coincidence. During His encounter with the woman at the well, our Lord broke three Jewish customs. Firstly, He spoke to her despite the fact that she was a woman. Second, she was a Samaritan woman, and as mentioned, Jews traditionally despised Samaritans. And, thirdly, He asked her to get Him a drink of water, although using her cup or jar would have made Him ceremonially unclean.

If one finds our Lord’s behaviour strange, at least from the perspective of a Jew, let us now consider that of the Samaritan woman. Saint John tells us that this encounter took place at the sixth hour. The sixth hour would have been our modern-day noon. It would have been the heat of the day and most people during that time would have been resting. As the story progresses, we learn that this woman regularly comes to the well at this time of day. As our omniscient Lord had discerned, she has been married five times, and is currently living in a scandalously sinful relationship with a man who isn’t even her husband. These circumstances point to her desire to avoid the shame of being in the company of other women. And yet, our Lord sought to meet this specific woman at this specific time. We may be ashamed to approach God and others because of our sinfulness, but there is nothing that can get in the way of the Lord approaching us, not even sin.

Through conversation with the Samaritan woman, we see Our Lord reveal Himself three times throughout the story. First, Our Lord is revealed as the Living Water. After asking the Samaritan woman for a drink, He responds to her by offering her something greater, “the living water” that will ultimately quench her thirst. This was a water that did not only sustain life but bestowed everlasting life. What is this living water but our Lord Himself - He is the Living Water that she needs, the well spring of life.

Next, our Lord is revealed as the prophet that the Samaritans had been expecting. He does so by exposing her matrimonial history – she had had five husbands and a current live-in lover. To which she immediately responds, “I see you are a prophet!” Shocked by the truth of His words and exposure of her own sin, her eyes are beginning to open to the truth of who He is.

Finally, we see our Lord revealed as the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah – that is, Christ – is coming; and when He comes He will tell us everything.” “I who am speaking to you”, said Jesus, “I am He.” The terms Messiah (Hebrew – Moshiach) and Christ (Greek - Christos) both mean “anointed.” In the New Testament and early Judaism, “Messiah” combines many Old Testament expectations about an “anointed one” who would lead, teach, and save God’s people. Here, our Lord reveals Himself as that Messiah. He has now explicitly told the woman that He is the final anointed King that has come to seek and save the lost.

Our Lord’s encounter with this woman brings to light a core belief in our Christian faith: Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the unique and universal Saviour of the world. He is not one prophet among many and Christianity is not just one way among many paths that lead to Salvation. We desire a fulfillment, rest, and joy that cannot be found in another person, place or project. Only our Lord Jesus Christ is the Living Water that can fill the void in our lives, He is the source of that well that will never run dry. He is the unending source of peace, joy, love, truth and satisfaction. Abundant life, truly abundant life, can only be found in Him.  He is the One who “reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” It is only in Him that we will be saved from our sins and made new again.

This world is filled with wells that promise to provide love, acceptance, and self-worth but never fully satisfy. Many of us turn in desperation to the fountains of the world seeking a drink; where alcohol, food, outside relationships, addictions, entertainment, money or constant busyness fill our cup. And, yet, like the Samaritan woman, we still thirst. Only Christ can fill our empty souls for eternity and provide for our essential emotional needs now. Don’t wait till your soul is empty and the well runs dry. Look for Jesus now. Thirst only for him. He alone can quench the thirst of your soul. Saint Augustine was right when he said that our hearts will remain restless until we rest in Christ.