|
Dear St. Christopher’s Family,
Coming into the fifth week of Lent, it may seem like our journey is coming to an end. After all, there are only two weeks left of this season before we come to the great festival of the Easter Triduum. I won’t pretend that the preparations for that week aren’t intense: getting palms ready and flowers ordered and changing out all our altar appointments are no joke. But even then, I wouldn’t call it an end. This weekend we have the familiar story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. All of us know how much Mary, Martha, and Lazarus meant to Jesus. And as much as it has become a punch line in jokes about how feckless so-called ‘holy’ people can be, we need to remember that Lazarus’ death is context for that famous verse: “Jesus wept.”
The lessons this week (Ezekiel’s ‘Dry Bones’ passage and this story from John), don’t really point to an ending. In fact, they represent what I’d call a couple of “False Starts” in the Resurrection. Ezekiel saw bones return to being living, breathing bodies, but only, of course, in a vision. Lazarus walked on his own out of a tomb, but we presume that he truly died a natural death yet again. It is only by following Jesus through his passion and resurrection that we can ever realize our own. And I don’t know if we can even imagine how much more glorious that will be than what Ezekiel and Lazarus saw.
The Lenten Journey is not coming to an end. In fact, it isn’t a journey at all. If we are to live into the mystery of Easter, Lent is merely packing our bags the night before.
|
