Why not invite God into your dead situation? 

During Israel’s darkest moment in history when there is no glimmer of hope in them while still in the Babylonian exile God raises the prophet Ezekiel who foretells a rebirth and restoration. This is a metaphor for death and resurrection which the Lord uses to demonstrate to us that His plan is to restore the fullness of life to us His people. Away from Him we are like exiles far from our homeland where there is milk and honey, just as good as dead. However, to reassure us of His unending love, in a vision God shows Ezekiel a valley full of dead bones and commands him to breathe on them and they will come alive once again and be resettled in their home land. No matter our situation, when we invite God into our dysfunctionality, He brings about a rebirth and a total restoration. Whatever is dysfunctional in our lives becomes the ‘dead situation’ God wants us to bring and surrender before Him for transformation. What is that dysfunctional aspect of your life, your marriage and family, your relationship, your occupation or business, your education and career? Such situations humanly speaking may seem to be without cure but the spirit of the Lord can give life even to dead bones as He did to the dead Lazarus in the gospel reading today. Why not invite God into your ‘dead situation’ today?

What does the Lord do when we invite Him into our ‘dead zones’? He breathes new life into them. Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus sent word to Him, ‘Lord, the man you love is ill,’ but He did not show up until Lazarus had passed on. Like we ourselves often do when sick, we first seek medical attention before turning to God for spiritual help only when medi-care has failed to satisfy us. And when even the desired spiritual help sought fails us, we feel disappointed and become devastated. This was how the sisters of Lazarus also felt at this time because it was too ‘late’ for anything to be done to change their situation. But as long as we invite God into our ‘dead situations,’ He comes and He is never late. That is why God’s time is always the best. He does same to the ‘dead situation’ in this family today even when it seems too late for anything to be done. Lazarus had already being in the tomb for four days already, bound, and the tomb sealed with a stone. Martha even reminded Christ that ‘by now he will smell’. Yet the Lord called him back to life again since He is the author of life and time, and with Him every time is the right time. What ‘dead situation’ are you in at the moment, and you feel it is a hopeless case? Remember, with the Lord nothing is impossible.

We may however wonder why Jesus would have to wait for Lazarus to die before coming to his rescue. God’s delay is to test our faith and patience for a greater benefit. Aside the fact that Christ had said Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death but in God’s glory, He permitted Lazarus to first die in order to teach us that His mission was not to prevent physical death. Physical death is a consequence of the natural law which must surely take its course on all living things. Therefore, we must be conscious of the fact that this life has an end yet that end is only a change which is inevitable. Hence, it is not to make what is inevitable to become evitable that Christ came, but it is in fact to give us another form of life where we transit into the life in abundance which comes into force only after this earthly life ceases. And that is the eternal life He has promised us which has no end. This is why the early Christians celebrated death as birthday into heaven, a culture which we still preserve to this day in the custom of celebrating the saints of the Church on the days that they died. Therefore, a person who does not believe that death is another birth cannot be a true Christian since baptism itself signifies death with Christ first of all, so that we will be raised up to everlasting life in Him. Lazarus’ resurrection was a sign of God’s promise to raise up all who have died in Christ to everlasting life. Are you ready and willing to die in Christ? With St. Paul in the second reading, let us pray that as Jesus offered Himself in loving obedience to His Father, may His Spirit justify us too who follow Him by giving life to our mortal bodies at the end of time. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

First Reading: Ezekiel 37:12-14
Psalm: 130
 Second Reading: Romans 8:8-11
Gospel: John 11:1-45