Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died]. 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 anyone 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 Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
What makes this Gospel scene so heartbreaking initially is the fact that Jesus knew his friend, Lazarus, was dying. But he waited until Lazarus was dead for four days to visit.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
A crushing truth spoken by Lazarus’ sister, Martha.
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Is she rebuking Jesus for his delay? Or is she demonstrating her faith in Christ’s power to save?
Probably both.
In that moment, Martha represents so many of us. She’s wavering between certainty and uncertainty, between fear and faith. She knew that Jesus had the power to save her brother physically prior to his death; Jesus healed many others.
But he chose not to.
Now she’s struggling to understand why.
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It’s only with hindsight that we see Christ’s reasoning.
The raising of Lazarus becomes the final miracle that Jesus performs before the Last Supper, leading to his own death and resurrection.
Before being laid in the tomb like Lazarus, the Lord wants to firm up his disciples’ faith, that he has power over life and death.
What the resurrection will teach them is that Jesus can not only bring people back to life physically, but also eternally.
In the words of Saint Paul, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?”
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When we struggle to understand why things happen in life, or when we stand at the graveside weeping, we’re invited to deeper faith, remembering that Christ has power over all things.
Most importantly, because of him, we shall be raised into life eternal. There, and perhaps only there, will all that’s happened in this life make sense.
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, pray for us.
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Image credits: (1) LDS Blogs (2) First Baptist Thomson (3) Property of Jesus, Blogspot
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.”
He spoke to them another parable. “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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One of the most difficult things about having faith in God is talking about it. When someone without faith asks us, “Why do you believe?” Often we are left tongue-tied, as if no answer is sufficient.
Faith is deeply personal, residing in the most secretive part of ourselves, where we ponder, hope, question, and dream. It can feel like a place beyond reason – to the point that, often our most honest answer boils down to something like:
“You just have to experience it.”
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I wonder if Jesus felt the same thing when trying to talk about God. How could he distill the great mysteries of the universe into language that people could understand?
Ultimately, he turned to parables.
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed; a pinch of yeast; a treasure buried in a field; a lost coin.
Each parable points to an eternal truth, bridging the gap between the mind of God and the mind of man.
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In the case the mustard seed or a pinch of yeast, neither is worth much on its own.
But when the seed works in tandem with the soil, it becomes the largest of bushes. When the yeast is mixed with flour, it turns to bread – enough to feed a family, even a village.
So, what might Jesus be trying to say to us?
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God desires to transform our world from a dark and gloomy waste into an extension of his kingdom. But, like a seed in soil, or yeast mixed with wheat, we must work in tandem with grace.
Together, we can turn this world into what it was created to be – a place where God is found – just beneath the surface, hidden in you and me.
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Image credits: (1) Knit Pray Share (2) The Sermon on the Mount, Carl Bloch (3) Catholic Preaching
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”
And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.
“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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My mother was sick with pancreatic cancer for nine months. I prayed every day for her healing, until I realized it was not going to happen.
Then I prayed for peace, which, mysteriously, has never left my heart.
Much like the fate of my mother’s health, we’ve all had prayers go seemingly unanswered.
Perhaps one of our most common prayers is for young people, that our children and grandchildren would come to faith. We pray every day… We plant seeds… And we wait.
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Prayer is a spiritual practice as old as humanity itself. It’s the way Christians and non-Christians alike have tried communicating with the Divine.
In the ancient world, even the pagans prayed. Whether you were in Athens, Alexandria, or Rome, temples abounded. But pagans believed that, in those temples, they could manipulate the minds of the gods.
The lengthier a prayer was, or the more generous an offering, the likelier it was that a prayer would be answered. God was like a gumball machine; insert a shiny coin, turn the knob, and hope you get the color you want.
Aware of this practice, Jesus instructed his disciples, “Do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
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However, we are to pray with persistence, like the friend who knocks on his neighbor’s door at midnight. Pray, pray, pray until you get an answer.
“Ask and you will receive,” Jesus says, “seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
This, of course, sounds misleading when a person we pray for is not healed from cancer; when our children or grandchildren haven’t yet returned to Church; or when anything we ask for with persistence isn’t granted.
But the Lord never promises to give us exactly what we want – although, at times, he does.
What he does promise to give us every time we ask is the gift of the Spirit. “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children” he says, “how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
Thus, prayer doesn’t lead directly to things; it leads to a Person – the Holy Spirit – who will guide, instruct, protect, and nourish us on our journeys.
With the Holy Spirit come the gifts of divine strength; wisdom; understanding; peace; patience; kindness; gentleness; love; and faithfulness. Gifts that not only allow us to accept God’s will for our lives, but also to carry it out.
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Thus, at the very heart of this Gospel teaching, Jesus changes the nature of prayer, from, “God, please do what I want,” to, “God, help me to do what you want.”
This is why prayer is necessary for every Christian. Without it, we cannot understand God’s will for our lives; nor would we have the strength to do it. Humanly speaking, this was even true for Jesus.
The one time he is recorded in the Gospels as asking for something for himself, he doesn’t receive it.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed while sweating blood, “Father, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus wanted to be spared from his crucifixion and death, but he wasn’t.
What his Father gave him, instead, was the strength to endure it, because an even greater good came out of it. If the Lord hadn’t died, then he never would’ve been raised – and by extension, neither would we be raised.
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So, what is my own prayer life like?
Do I pray hoping to change God’s mind? Or do I pray for God to change me, to soften my heart to understand and to do his will?
How do I feel about Christ’s promise that, not every persistent prayer will be answered, but anyone who asks will be given the gift of the Holy Spirit?
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May God grant us the grace to pray the Lord’s prayer with both sincerity and surrender: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
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Image credits: (1) Christ in Gethsemane, Heinrich Hofmann (2) The Methodist Church in Singapore (3) Christ Follower Life
