Jesus Our Life and Our Resurrection
Introduction
Martha. To serve without being asked, to be ready for others. To be given little publicity but to work backstage. Not to ask for honours and pass on the shoulder but to do one’s work quietly. This is how she followed the Lord. And her faith was deep and strong in Christ as the Son of God who could raise the dead back to life.
1 Reading: 1 John 4:7-16
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11
R. (2) I will bless the Lord at all times.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad. R.
Glorify the LORD with me,
let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears. R.
Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,
and your faces may not blush with shame.
When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,
and from all his distress he saved him. R.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Taste and see how good the LORD is;
blessed the man who takes refuge in him. R.
Fear the LORD, you his holy ones,
for nought is lacking to those who fear him.
The great grow poor and hungry;
but those who seek the LORD want for no good thing. R.
Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
whoever follows me will have the light of life.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: John 11:19-27
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.”
Commentary
A little beyond the end of today’s reading there is the shortest emotionally laden verse in the Bible. It is John 11:35, and it says simply, “Jesus wept.” It shows sensitivity in the people who first divided the Scriptures into chapters and verses. They could easily have put these words with the following verse; it would even have been logical: the following verse is, “So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’” When someone weeps you just have to give them time to weep. Weeping says a lot. And for the fact that it conveys emotion, it’s a language, very universal. But it doesn’t require an answer, though, every so often, it is contextually self- explanatory. It may also come suddenly. My old aunt tells me that when I was a kid, I weep for leisure. I have tried to understand what she means. Don’t be indifferent when someone weeps. However, there are two occasions in the gospel when Jesus told people not to weep (Lk 7:13; 8:52). On both occasions there was an error of fact: the persons being mourned were not dead. But in today’s story there is no doubt about Lazarus being dead. So Jesus wept; he did not take death lightly. He is sometimes made to seem a sort of magician who “leaped up on the third day.” If we make little of death we make little of the resurrection.
Nor can we to make little of Martha. She is not playing second fiddle to Mary (especially not in this passage). With Peter’s, hers is the most explicit confession of Jesus as Messiah—which is the whole purpose for which the gospel was written (Jn 20:30,31). A scholar says that this points to the prominent women like Martha.
Blessing: Jesus reassures Martha saying, “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.” He requires us to believe. As we celebrate one of the people of faith today, may your faith in Jesus Christ be strengthened in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!