5 Sunday Lent, Year A, John 11:1-45

There are a few aspects of our Christian faith that many of us find difficult to understand. Some of the moral requirements that are made of us can at times feel like a burden. And then there are aspects of our faith that we can find ourselves wondering about. Resurrection is one of those things. Sure, there may be moments when it is crystal clear, but by and large we don't fully understand it: either what exactly it means or why it would happen.

This Sunday we gain an insight into the resurrection. In our first reading from Ezekiel we are presented with the Jewish understanding of the resurrection on the last day. The image given is of God opening the graves of the chosen people and returning them to the soil of Israel. For many of us, this is an image of the resurrection that we can at least imagine. It makes sense, even if it is a supernatural image.

The second reading from St Paul's letter to the Romans offers us a dimension of the Christian understanding of the resurrection. Here, St Paul tells us that if God's holy Spirit dwells in us, then God will come looking for his holy Spirit and we will be resurrected because of that. Kind of like turning up with a VIP to an important event, because we are friends with this most important of people, we will be allowed in.

And then, in the Gospel we hear a story of love. This story is of Jesus' particular and personal love for Martha, for Mary, and for their brother Lazarus. One of the beautiful lines of our Gospel reads:
'Jesus said in great distress, with a sigh that came straight from the heart, "Where have you put him?"'

This tells us something further about the resurrection promised to us in Christ: it is because God loves us that he comes to bring us out of death.

And so, today, we have three images for the resurrection:
1.God opening the graves of his people and leading them back to Israel
2.God's holy Spirit, dwelling in us, the VIP that ensures our entry into the resurrection
3.The personal love that Jesus has for each one of us that causes him to sigh with distress and weep, but most of all it causes him to raise us up.