Bound in Love

The story of the death of Lazarus is a wonderful opportunity to dwell on the reality that is at the heart of our faith. It is given to us on the Sunday that in the old calendar opened the two-week period called Passiontide. We are approaching the summit of Jesus’s earthly ministry of redemption and the source of our salvation. Jesus came at Christmas as a baby to enter Jerusalem as a king but to be killed just a few days later as a criminal. And on Easter morning, that cross of death is revealed to be the tree of life. That is the reality of what we believe, and there is no greater reality.

Our modern age emphasizes the subjective dimension of reality as it places the focus on how the individual experiences things. Everything that is subjective depends on how it is received by an individual. There is an old saying that in matters of taste there can be no argument, because everyone recognizes that something that tastes good to one person may not taste good to another person. In our modern day, we have extended that inability to argue to ideas that in the past were unassailable: that there are only two sexes, for example. Now a person can claim to be a woman when he is clearly a man, and vice versa. And our culture squashes the person who steps up and points out the objective reality of the situation.

But God is the ultimate objective reality. He simply IS no matter how we feel about it. As Christians, our goal of life is to die in a state of grace and thereby have the chance to see him as he truly is. When St. Paul says in his letter that, “now we see dimly — as in a mirror — but then we will see clearly,” he is referring to our earthly limited participation in the fullness of God’s reality. He IS but we don’t see Him as he is; yet we have the hope of Heaven, when we will see him as He is.

When Moses encountered God at Mount Horeb, he asked God what name he should use when he told the Israelites at the bottom of the mountain what had just happened. And God said, “tell them I am.” When Jesus offered his bread of life discourse in John’s gospel chapter 6, he emphasized the phrase “I am” five times, in Greek, ego eimi. With our subjective reality glasses, we tend to emphasize the word I (ego) in that phrase, but the emphasis really should be on am (eimi). God is. He is whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not, whether I understand it or not.

The telling of the death of Lazarus, and his subsequent reanimation, emphasizes the objective reality of the story. Lazarus is truly dead. That’s why we are told that he is going to smell really bad when they open the tomb. He’s been dead long enough to begin to decay. But Jesus brings Lazarus back to life. It may not fit my subjective understanding, but it is, nonetheless. God does not need to fit my subjective reality. He is sufficient unto himself. He desires my response, of course, but he still is even if I deny it.

The pious Lenten practices that modernists find so unnecessary, like fasting and stations of the cross, are really gifts to us to prepare for the passion. The God who made us has come to us as one of us. He has come to us to die for us. He has come to die for us because without his sanctifying death, we are headed inevitably to hell. Only by his gift of himself on the cross do we have a chance to be with him when he sits on his throne in heaven. That’s the objective reality of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Praying the stations of the cross during Lent gives us a chance to prepare to be fully present at the foot of the cross during the holy time of Good Friday. And having been present at Good Friday, we can honestly sing with joy on Easter Sunday.

God does not insist that we understand everything about him. It is we in our modern minds who make that a condition of obedience. God insists that we believe him and that what he has said is true; that is what faith is. So it can be true even if I can’t quite make sense of it. And when I accept a truth of the faith I cannot quite explain, I have put on Mary’s cloak of humility. When I don’t insist that I understand everything, then I can stand with our Lady at the foot of the cross.

We are in a few minutes about to experience objective reality that conflicts with our subjective assessment. When Father prays in the correct form with the correct matter, what was bread and wine will become the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. Subjectively, it will still look and taste like bread and wine, but it won’t be bread and wine. It is really the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. We couldn’t stand with our lady at the foot of the Cross, but we can kneel at the foot of the altar as Father in the person of Christ re-presents the sacrifice of the Cross. Let us enter into that reality with the humble posture of our Mother Mary.