Sermon for the Holy Week (2005/03/25)

When the match ended, Blatnik didn’t jump up and down, didn’t throw his arms into the air, didn’t make sweeping bows to the crowd. He simply dropped on his knees, crossed himself, bowed his head, and prayed. When the camera zoomed in on his face, millions of viewers saw the torrent of tears pouring down Blatnik’s cheeks.

Blatnik had every right to cry. But this was not because he had taken the gold in an event the United States had never won before. There was a bigger reason. Two years earlier, Jeff Blatnik had contracted cancer. Just eighteen months before the Olympic games, he had undergone surgery. And now, at the Olympics, in the face of great odds, he had won the second biggest battle of his life.

Everybody was cheering and the applause did not want to end, not just because of Blatnik’s victory in wrestling, not just because of his victory over cancer, but because he shared his humanity with the viewers. Suddenly, this 220-pound Olympic athlete was like any one of us: he cried like a child. Olympic athletes look so much like superhuman beings during their performances. But Blatnik’s tears proved that they are humans, just like we are.

We see the same touching beauty in today’s gospel. We see Jesus, the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity cry at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Sometimes we tend to forget about the humanity of Jesus. We forget that he got hungry in the desert, that he god tired on the way in Samaria, that anguish filled him in Gethsemane, that he god thirsty on the cross. Yet, it is important that we always remember these gospel scenes. We should never forget that tears were running down on the cheeks of Jesus because exactly this vulnerability is what we can all identify with. Because Jesus (God Himself) got hungry, and thirsty, and tired as any other human being, because he cried as any other human being cries, we know that He can understand and He does understand how we human beings feel in similar situations. We know that He understands what it’s like to be human.

But in today’s gospel story Jesus shows His love for His dead friend Lazarus not just by shedding tears for him: it shows His love toward him and toward his two sisters also in raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus demonstrated at the tomb not only His human weakness and vulnerability but also His divine power. His tears showed, that, by sharing our humanity, he can experience our anguish; by His powerful and yes, irresistible call, “Lazarus, come out,” He showed that He can also help us in our anguish.

The account of this miracle is taken from the gospel of John. John likes to call the miracles of Jesus “signs”: they were signs, powerful visible indications of the all-important realities of who He was, how much He loved us, and for what purpose He came among us, became man, like any one of us.

We read the story of the raising of Lazarus today, just a few days before celebrating the final days of Jesus, His suffering, death, and resurrection. The death of Lazarus and his being raised from the dead are, indeed, an ominous “sign” of the imminent great events. Also in the text of John’s gospel this miracle is immediately followed by the report on the Sanhedrin’s decision to destroy Jesus when the high priest Caiaphas uttered his famous words: “It is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish;” and the section is concluded with these somber words: “From that day on they planned to kill him.” (Jn 11:53) But the Lazarus incident not only foreshadows what will happen to Jesus within a few days; it shows also the special way, God’s special design, how our salvation will be worked out. St. Paul tells us: “[Jesus] was crucified out of weakness, but He lives by the power of God.” (2Cor 13:4) We have been redeemed by Jesus by a magnificent combination of human weakness and divine power. Jesus entered into the abyss of weakness of total humiliation, torture, and death, and from that unfathomable depth He rose, by His divine power, to new, indestructible life. He took on Himself the plight of our weakness to the point of death, in order to give us, in exchange, His power and life.

We have to realize that salvation is applied on each of us in the same pattern: we have to share in Christ’s utter weakness (suffering and death) in order to share in His power (His risen eternal life). We like to watch stories of invincible heroes like James Bond and others; we like to watch such stories because in our real life most of the time we experience the opposite. We are beset by weakness on every side. We all have either sinful habits, or major or minor physical illness, we have all kinds of handicaps, and an endless list of limitations. We like to think about ourselves and show to others as successful people, yet in reality failure and frustrations are our everyday experience. We try to live a good life, yet again and again we find ourselves unfaithful to our good resolutions. St. Paul speaks for all of us when he says: “I take delight in the law of God […] but I see in my members a different law at war with the law of my mind.” And we also exclaim with Paul: “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” But immediately we hear the answer from the same Paul: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:22-25) It was the Son of God who, by His incarnation, came into our weakness to take our hands and lead us out into resurrection, and life, and victory in the power of God.

St. Paul’s role in the formation of the Christian Church at its very beginnings was enormous and it cannot be exaggerated. He was the one who brought the Christian faith beyond the boundaries of Judaism to the Gentiles, he was the one who single handedly shaped Jesus’ teachings into a theological system, and we know that he did not spare effort and energy to promote the Christian cause. When Paul had to confront opponents within the Church, to justify himself, he made a long list of his many achievements (2Cor 11-12). Yet, at the end of this list he added: “About myself I will not boast, except about my weaknesses,” and he proceeded to tell about “a thorn in the flesh” he had to suffer. But when he asked the Lord to remove this cross from him, he received the Lord’s response: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And so, Paul concludes his “bragging” with these words: “I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me, […] for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2Cor 12:5-10)

Jesus could not tolerate the Pharisees because they were so full of themselves, so self-righteous, so sure about their imagined “holiness”. He said: “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Mt 9:13) Before God who knows our hearts we are all sinners, and so the meaning of His words is: “I did not come to call those who consider themselves righteous but those who acknowledge that they are sinners.” Jesus came to call those “who hunger and thirst for righteousness” because only those can be “satisfied.” (Mt 5:6) Jesus called Lazarus from the weakness of the tomb, from the weakness of death: “Lazarus, come out!” Jesus calls also us by name in the midst of the many kinds of our weaknesses: “Michael, or John, or Mary, - or whatever is our name, come out” so that my power would be made perfect in your weakness.
Amen.

Rev. Julius Leloczky, O.Cist