Fifth Sunday of Lent

By the Diocese of Wollongong, 26 March 2023
'Resurrection of Lazarus' by Girolamo Muziano (1532–1592). Image: Wikimedia Commons

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 129(130); Romans 8:8-11; John 11:3–7, 17, 20–27, 33–45

26 March 2023

 

 

GOSPEL REFLECTION with Fr Mark De Battista

So that God may be glorified

The raising of Lazarus is the greatest sign of Jesus’ public ministry recorded by any of the evangelists. His first sign in John’s Gospel was at a wedding feast, and his last sign was after a funeral (of Lazarus).

The distance between Bethany and Jerusalem was just under two and a half kilometres, and the distance from where Jesus was when he received the news about Lazarus’ illness was around 33 kilometres north of Bethany with Bethany having an increase in altitude of just under 500 metres. Therefore, it was a full day’s journey from Bethany to where Jesus was (going north), but it would have taken a little longer to make the journey south (towards Jerusalem) because of the increase in altitude.

The delay of a further two days before responding to the request from the sisters, Martha and Mary, may at face value seem as though Jesus was slow to respond. Yet, it was not due to any lack of affection towards this family that Jesus delayed, but so that God may be glorified.

By calculating the time to make the journey to and from Bethany, as well as the two additional days Jesus remains in the place where he was when the messengers arrived with the news, then Lazarus would have died the same day the messengers arrived to tell Jesus. We know this because when Jesus arrived in Bethany, Martha tells him that it has been four days since her brother died. According to Jewish custom, Lazarus would have been buried on the same day. Had Jesus responded straight away, then Lazarus would not have died, and the sign would not have been as great. Moreover, according to some rabbinic teaching which may have already been present at that time, the spirit of the person did not leave the body until the third day. Hence, the raising of a man after four days in the tomb would make it a clear sign that Jesus is raising someone from the dead and whose body had already begun to decompose.

The entire dialogues, firstly between Jesus and Martha, and secondly between Jesus and Mary, take place outside the village. In Jewish custom, the first seven days of mourning after a death of a family member were spent at home where neighbours, relatives and friends were obliged by piety to come to console you, bring you meals, and keep you company to assist one in his/her grieving. Hence, when Martha leaves the house, Mary stays behind, presumably so as to keep the visitors company.

Jesus leads Martha in a dialogue about resurrection while her own understanding could well have been resuscitation. Incidentally, though separately, both Martha and Mary repeat the same phrase: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But Jesus wants to lead them into an explicit affirmation of faith in him which Martha gives unequivocally. Translating from the Greek, she answers in the perfect tense: “I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” In other words, Martha has always believed in the power and identity of Jesus even before this dialogue ever took place. This is the high point of the passage: a full and explicit profession of faith in Jesus has been made, and now the stage is set for the greatest miracle of all his ministry.

When Lazarus is called out of the tomb, he comes out still wrapped in cloths with the face cloth (just less than a square metre in size) around his head. The sign speaks for itself, and many came to “believe in him”.

 

ARTWORK REFLECTION with Mgr Graham Schmitzer

Resurrection of Lazarus – Girolamo Muziano (1532–1592).

“Resurrection of Lazarus”, c. 1555. Oil on canvas, 295cm x 440cm. Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani), Vatican. Public Domain.

Girolamo Muziano, a deeply religious painter, was one of the most prominent artists active in Rome in the mid-to-late 16th Century. A nearly autobiographical story written by his confessor — and unpublished until 1954—tells us that Muziano was born in Acquafredda near Brescia in 1532. He left his hometown as a young man and began an apprenticeship in Padua. He then spent some time in Venice before moving permanently to Rome about 1550.

In Venice, Muziano was influenced by Titian, and in Rome by Michelangelo. This gave his paintings an interesting combination—the highly sculptural figures of Michelangelo and the richly colourful landscape of Titian. In fact, in Rome he was called Il Giovane dei Paesi—the young man of the landscapes. His Resurrection of Lazarus, painted for the Colonna Palace in Subiaco, was admired and publicly praised by Michelangelo. It would eventually be placed over the artist’s tomb in St Mary Major’s Basilica (a great honour). Muziano painted two altarpieces for St Peter’s Basilica during the time he served as superintendent of works for Pope Gregory XIII. He also painted The Circumcision for the high altar of the Jesuit Church of the Gesú.

St John’s account of the raising of Lazarus is the last of the Sunday Gospels before we enter Holy Week. You could almost say it is the grand finale for the catechumens’ instruction before they make their great commitment. This Gospel foreshadows the resurrection of Jesus—the supreme manifestation of the power of God the Father who raises Jesus, not just to a renewed earthly life (as with Lazarus), but to a bodily life that is outside the bounds of space and time. It is a pointer of the forthcoming resurrection through Baptism of those preparing for it, as well as a reminder to the already baptised of their own Baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. At all times, it is a promise: “I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (Jn 11:25–26). In God’s time, we also will be raised from the dead, not just to earthly bodily life, but through Jesus to an eternal one.

The raising of Lazarus has a very long iconographic history, commencing almost at the beginning of Christian art. Once it became legal for Christians to worship openly and to bury their dead, the raising of Lazarus was one of the most common images used to decorate the marble sarcophagi that wealthier believers began to commission. Examples can be found in the catacombs, such as the catacombs of Saint Callixtus on the Via Appia outside Rome.

To Martha, and to us, Jesus poignantly asks: “Do you believe this?” (Jn 11:26). We must never underestimate the power of this question. It is asked of us every time we bury a loved one, and it must be central to our thoughts as we prepare for our own death. For the Christian, death is never the end of the road. It is a new turn in the road.

Martha’s confession of faith, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,” (Jn 11:27) is more incredible than that of Thomas. Thomas makes his confession after Jesus’ resurrection. Martha has redeemed herself. In St Luke’s Gospel (Lk 10:38–42), we perhaps tended to look down on Martha who had criticised her sister for conversing with Jesus while there was a meal to be prepared. But here she makes the greatest act of faith in Jesus before his resurrection. It is not beyond imagining that Martha and Mary were part of the group of holy women standing at the Cross.

Raising their brother was not just a personal favour Jesus granted the two sisters. “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (Jn 11:5). Jesus is making a public statement. The darkness of his own death and dwelling in the tomb is drawing near, and just as he was “greatly distressed” (Jn 11:33) over Lazarus, so his friends would be over him. He openly displays his trust in the Father, a trust that will sustain him on the cross. “Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer. I myself knew that you hear me always” (Jn 11:41–42). “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46) says Jesus on Calvary, quoting Psalm 31: “Every moment of my life is in your hands, rescue me from the clutches of my foes who pursue me; let your face shine on your servant” (Ps 31:15–16). Jesus would have prayed the psalms all his life.

St John surely expects us to see some symbolism in Jesus’ command to the onlookers: “Unbind him” (Jn 11:44). In this miracle, Jesus unbinds his disciples from their fragile faith, then calls on them to unbind Lazarus. God knows our struggles and our fears. He weeps over us as he wept over Lazarus, for he sees that our sins are slowly killing us. “We sin against God only in doing what is contrary to our own good,” wrote St Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles III, 22). God has the power to unbind us if we believe in him as the resurrection and the life, especially when something seems to have died in us. Although we were called forth to life in our Baptism, like Lazarus, we needed others to help us go free. We are commanded this Lent to “unbind” one another. It was Jesus’ command to Peter at the last supper: “I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail, and once you have recovered (for his faith would fail), you in your turn must strengthen your brothers” (Lk 22:32).

Fr Mark De Battista migrated from Malta with his family in 1978. He completed his schooling in the Diocese of Wollongong and offered himself for the priesthood in 1988. He commenced his studies at St Patrick’s College, Manly in 1989 and was ordained priest in 1995, serving in various parishes across the diocese until 2002. From 2003–2007, he served in two assignments in the USA with university chaplaincy in the states of Illinois and Colorado. After some years back in the diocese, he undertook post graduate studies in Rome from 2010–2016 in the field of sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute (Biblicum), the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Commission (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). Since his return to the diocese, he has served in various parishes, and from 2018–2021, he was chaplain to the University of Wollongong. From 2018, he has also served in St Patrick’s Parish, Port Kembla, where he is now the parochial administrator. He is currently chaplain to Mass For You At Home broadcast on Network Ten and Foxtel each week.

Monsignor Graham Schmitzer is the retired parish priest of Immaculate Conception Parish in Unanderra, NSW. He was ordained in 1969 and has served in many parishes in the Diocese of Wollongong. He was also chancellor and secretary to Bishop William Murray for 13 years. He grew up in Port Macquarie and was educated by the Sisters of St Joseph of Lochinvar. For two years he worked for the Department of Attorney General and Justice before entering St Columba’s College, Springwood, in 1962. Mgr Graham loves travelling and has visited many of the major art galleries in Europe.

With thanks to the Diocese of Wollongong, who have supplied this reflection from their publication, Triumph – Lenten Program 2023Reproduced with permission.

 

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