Sunday:       5 TH SUNDAY OF LENT
Date:         March 21, 1999
Year:         A
The readings: [Ezek. 37:12-4; Rom. 8:8-11; Jn. 11:1-45]
The message:  THE SPIRIT OF LIFE GIVES LIFE TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT.
Prepared by:  CATHOLIC DOORS MINISTRY
Total words:  714

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In 574 B.C., Ezekiel, taken as a prisoner to Babylon, was preaching a message of judgment and doom. Twelve years later, in 586 B.C., he began to preach a message of hope and salvation. Why a sudden change of message from judgment and doom to hope and salvation? What was Ezekiel's message of hope and salvation?

God commanded Ezekiel to prophecies and to tell the people, "I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves. I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.

In this prophecy, God made three promises: to open up the graves, to put His Holy Spirit within the people and to place them on their own soil. Did God fulfil those promises? Today's Second Reading from The Letter of Paul to the Romans answers that question.

Paul said, "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness."

Through those words, Paul is teaching us that your eternal life in the Kingdom of God comes through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. He tells us that by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the Church Sacrament of Baptism, we were born again as new spirits, God's new creations that have the living hope of inheriting eternal life in the Heavenly Kingdom. Paul emphasized that our physical bodies will die because of sin but because we have the new spirit of life within us, we were made righteous before God. The new human spirit within us is our first installment towards the inheritance of the Kingdom of God. Paul was repeating the Words of Jesus in John 6:63, "It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless." The letter of James also speaks of the new spirit that is within us, "The body without the spirit is dead." [Jas. 2:26]

The words of Paul confirms that God fulfilled all three of His promises that are found in the Book of Ezekiel. God DID PUT HIS SPIRIT WITHIN US! WE SHALL LIVE because we now have a new spirit of the godly seed within us! WE HAVE BEEN PLACED ON YOUR OWN SOIL through the gift of our new creation, the new spirit within you! Through our human spirits, we now belong to the invisible mystical Body of Christ that is composed of all the living saints of the past, present and future of earth and Heaven. Our soil, the land where our invisible spirits dwell, is the invisible Kingdom of God that has come on earth as it is in Heaven. The Kingdom of God is the one and only Body of Christ, the Catholic Church that was personally instituted by Jesus Christ on earth.

Today's last reading, the Gospel of John, tells us the outcome of enjoying the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the new human spirit that dwells within us.

Death is not death for those who have a living faith in Jesus Christ. What Jesus referred to the "illness" of Lazarus, He said it did not lead to death. It was simply, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the physical body separating from the human spirit that dwells within. The physical body died but the human spirit lived on.

This miracle of Jesus, the resurrection of Lazarus, proves to us that Jesus, as God, can reunite our living human spirits to our physical bodies to bring us back to life. The Word of God, Jesus Himself, is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. He can pierce until He divides the soul from the spirit. [Heb. 4:12] Equally, having the power to separate the soul from the spirit, He can reunite them in the resurrection as He has shown by the raising of Lazarus.

Those who believe in Jesus Christ, they have life. Even though their physical bodies will die, they will enjoy eternal life in the Kingdom of God through their human spirit that is immortal. That is today's message. By persevering in the Christian life, we will inherit the Kingdom of God because the Spirit of Christ gives life to our human spirits.

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The readings...

[The readings were taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (C) 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America.]

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First Reading...

"Thus says the Lord God: 'I am going to open the graves, and bring you up from your graces. O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graces, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,' says the Lord." [Ezek. 37:12-4]

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Second Reading...

"Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who dos not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life (See Jn. 6:63 & Jas. 2:26) because of righteousness. If the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you." [Rom. 8:8-11]

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Gospel Reading...

"Now a certain man, Lazarus, was ill. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, 'Lord, he whom you love is ill.' But when Jesus heard this, he said, 'This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.' Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this Jesus said to the disciples, 'Let us go to Judea again.' The disciples said to him, 'Rabbi, the people there were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?' Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not on them.' After saying this, he told them, 'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.' The disciples said to him, 'Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.' Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him,' Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.' Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said to him, 'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?' She said to him, 'Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.' When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, 'The Teacher is here and is calling for you.' And when Mary heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. Jesus said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him!' But some of them said, 'Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?' Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, 'Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.' Jesus said to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?' So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, 'Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd, standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.' When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out.' The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him, and let him go.' Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believe in him." [Jn. 11:1-45]

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