Fifth Sunday of Lent 2023
It’s very easy for us to be so taken with today’s Gospel that we push aside the short Epistle taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome. So let’s look at what he is telling this relatively young community of Jews and Gentiles who have believed in the Gospel of Christ, and, like all of us, are having some trouble living as Jesus commanded. His core teaching tells us to love God above all things, and to treat our neighbor–everyone around us–with compassionate love. In a real sense, Christ wants us to put the good of other people at least equal to our own.
So the first sentence may slap us upside the head: “those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The Greek word sarki here, with its root, sarx, even sounds a little troubling. When we Westerners think of “flesh,” we pinch some skin on our forearms and think, oh, “flesh and bone,” our physical bodies. But St. Paul, here, is contrasting life in the flesh against life in the Spirit, the pneuma, which came on the disciples at Pentecost and over and over on new believers in the Acts of the Apostles. Flesh is, we see here, opposed to the Spirit of God. So the sarx is the state of original sin that drags us away from a spiritual life of the obedience of faith. This flesh of ours, when given the choice of visiting a prayer chapel or going to a wild party, pushes us to choose the party. It causes us when we are complimented for some action, to think and maybe even say, "you're right, I am wonderful." It’s the tendency of our whole person to please ourselves rather than God and neighbor, to act in selfish manners.
We know, however, that Jesus lived in exactly the opposite manner, even laying down His life by crucifixion for our salvation. He was truly the “man for others,” and attained vindication and glorification in exactly that manner. He calls on each of us to do the same.
What is our reward for doing so, for mortifying our flesh and following the promptings of the Holy Spirit as that Spirit changes us into images of Christ and His Mother? Ezekiel hints at the reward, the recompense for our trouble. The Holy Spirit will raise us up, with glorified bodies, on the last day. Don’t you look forward to being here on that day, rising up from your burial place with a body and soul that are totally liberated, glorified, radiant with God’s life? And rising to the heavenly throne room with billions of others in the same state, all united in Christ with the Blessed Trinity, and in company with all the saints who passed before us?
Because we also know that Lazarus was not glorified when he came forth from his tomb at the word of Jesus. He probably still had the stink of death around him. He was raised, healed, given back his life, but would have to die again later. The Resurrection of the Dead in Christ will be like Christ’s own rising that first Easter of the Christian age. We who have believed in Him and lived a life of love, and died in that attitude, will participate in the very Resurrection of Jesus.
