Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent 2024
Today the Church gives us powerful Scriptures that help us to prepare for the holiest week of the liturgical year, so much that we call it “Holy Week.” The psalm is part of the prophecy of Jeremiah, and is exceptionally optimistic: “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.” We all know Jeremiah as a prophet of doom and gloom, so these lines may surprise us. But Jeremiah, like all the prophets, speaks to his people Israel to turn them away from evil toward good. And the good is a time when history is reversed. So let’s for a minute look at the word “devil” and ask what it means.
Yes, “devil” implies evil and wickedness. But the root meaning of that and words like “diabolical” is a verb that means to divide or separate. Dante’s vision of Satan in hell is of a self-centered, self-absorbed being totally alone. Look at what the kingdom of evil has done to our country. People are afraid to speak out against evil actions, like biological men invading women’s private spaces, competing athletically against true women. Families will get together over Easter this year and hope that nobody brings up the two most important issues in society–religion and politics. Satan separates, and uses fear to do so. Look at the campaign ads you’ve seen. Aren’t they causing fear across all kinds of groups? That fractures societies.
Ezekiel sees just the opposite happening in the time of the Messiah. When he was prophesying to the Babylonian Jewish exiles, they had been away from Jerusalem for a long time. The northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed and the people scattered over a century earlier. Judah, the remnant, was starting to lose memory of their time in the land of promise. But Ezekiel said: “Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all sides, and bring them to their own land.” He predicts union under David–really one of his lineal descendants–and forgiveness of sins, with no more idolatry, with obedience to the ten commandments. Moreover, this reunion will be so public, so obvious, that all other nations will be jealous, and attracted to become part of the miracle of reversing the separation. There’s a yearning in the human heart for union with other human beings. That’s what God wants for us, too.
So we see in the Gospel the Christ-centered fulfillment of these prophesies. Lazarus had died. He was so dead that by the third day he was beginning to smell dead. Jesus came, too late to prevent the death. He did that on purpose so He could reveal the glory of God. After a dialogue in which Jesus revealed that He Himself is the Resurrection and the Life, He raises Lazarus from the grave. This was just outside Jerusalem, so within a day it was well-known everywhere.
That’s when the elite class, jealous of their own power and wealth, meet to discuss how to get Jesus out of their lives. Caiphas inadvertently prophesies about one man dying for the life of the whole nation. That would do it, wouldn’t it? Well, it did, and by dying on the cross, freely and in love for us, Jesus not only earned redemption and forgiveness of our sins, our real problems, but attracted the entire human race to the foot of that cross. I love to look around in our churches all over the nation. All ethnicities, all backgrounds, poor to rich, educated and not, male and female, all united in Christ. And when it’s all over, in God’s transformed world, men and women of every era in human history, glorifying God, to whom we give praise and honor forever and ever, Amen.
