Lent, 5th Sunday (A) Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus, then the son of a widow from Nain, then finally Lazarus. The first had been dead a few minutes, the second many hours, and the third was a rotting corpse. Martha and Mary have enough faith to not give up on Jesus even when he seems to ignore them. Jesus wants to give them something more than a healing; he wants to give them a faith that is stronger than death.

Jesus goes right to the place where it hurts. "Show me where it hurts," he says. It hurts Jesus, too. We have to take away the barriers that keep this place rotting within us. We have to let Jesus raise the places we feel dead and hopeless. The human race has always been "tied up" by the fear of death. Jesus unties the human race and lets us go free.

(26 Mar 2023)

Going Deeper: What has died in you? Where have you lost hope? And what are the barriers that keep Jesus from entering those places?

Image by anutalkies/flickr | Over 10