Faith - What is it that you believe?

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died

”When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weepinghe became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said,

“Where have you laid him?”

They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”

And Jesus wept.

So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”

The account of the raising of Lazarus is one of the richest Gospel stories that we read during the year. It is rich in details and therefore it provides many things that we can talk about. Today, I would like to start this reflection together with you by asking you a very personal but important question, “Is there someone or a group of people that you love very dearly and trust with all your life?” Let’s just take a moment to think about this question. [PAUSE]

I believe all of us have at one point or another have had a family member or a friend whom we trust completely, and is someone that we care about dearly. At the same time, I believe we are to someone special, a person who he/she trusts and cares very much about.

The Gospel mentions that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”, this meant that the evangelist, Saint John, knew and wanted all who read his Gospel to understand that Martha, Mary and Lazarus were people that were very close to Jesus’ heart. People who Jesus trusted.

I have a friend like that in my life. I knew him since I was 13 years old and we went to school together from the age of 13 all the way till 18. We served in different army camps for two years, but we always kept in touch. When we entered university, we stay in the same hostel for 4 years. Since then, we have kept in touch even though, I have moved out of Singapore to work and later in the seminary. Besides being very close to each other, our families also knew each other. Our friendship bonded us and our families together in a very special way. Because of how long we have been together as friends, I have a very natural trust with him. If I needed help from him, I am never shy from asking him for help. When I lived overseas, I used to call him to buy my parents birthday treats and he would drop everything he is working on and go out to buy my parents’ favorite food on my behalf and bring them to my parents. Somehow, I never doubted him, like other people in my life. He was someone I trusted with all my heart.

I share this story with my friend because today’s Gospel invites us to reflect on our trust in God. Our faith. What does it mean when we say, like the people in the Gospel say, “I believe” or “We believe”?

Throughout this Gospel account, we see episodes of people around him doubting him. When Jesus said he wanted to go back to Judea, his disciple questioned him. One even mocked his decision and said, “Let us also go to die with him”.

When he arrived in Bethany, Jesus told Martha, “Your brother will rise.”, and Martha said she believed, and proclaimed all the right things about Jesus. Things that Jesus probably taught them. Then Mary came, and told him that she believed that if Jesus had been here, her brother would not have died. Even the Jews who were there were sharing their belief in Jesus. Some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”

So, we get a sense of the many people around Jesus who at some time or another have proclaimed that they believe in Jesus, many of them are close to Jesus, lived with him, ate with him, learnt from him directly. Some of them have witness Jesus’ miracles firsthand, others have at least heard about it. Yet, in this moment, when he is present before them, there is a certain uneasy sense of distrust creeping beneath all these words of assurance of their belief in him.

When Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”, all the distrust was revealed. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”

Jesus said to her,

“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”.

This must be a difficult moment for Jesus, in a span of 4 days, the people around him have over and over doubted him, even though they kept telling him that they believe in him and are his followers. Hence, in the midst of all these doubts, Jesus loudly proclaims, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”, and he raises Lazarus from the dead, meaning Lazarus came back as a living person, not a zombie with a decaying body. Jesus did what he promised.

I believe this Gospel is very important for us preparing to go into Palm Sunday and into Holy Week, because it invites to reflect deeply on what does it really mean for us to believe in Jesus. Is it something that we put on our lips? Is it something that we answer with doctrine we have learnt during catechism classes? Is it something we do, like coming to church every Sunday, so that people can know that we are believers in Jesus’ teaching?

Every bit of the sacred readings is the Word of God. They contain knowledge about our God and God’s promises to us. Do we believe? Do we believe that God will “open our graves and have us rise from them?” Do we believe the last line of the first reading, “I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.”

Can we pray with the responsorial with all the trust and belief in our heart that “With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.”?

My brothers and sisters, I will be truthful to all of you, there are times when the promises of God are hard to trust completely. There are moments in my missionary life that really made me doubt that God is looking out for us. When seven elderly men died in my presence while I was serving them during Covid pandemic, it was hard to believe that we have a merciful God. When one of the holiest Maryknoll priest I know, slipped and fell, and injured himself at 91, I wondered why did God left that happened. When one of my friend got hospitalized and died from cancer, even after I prayed fervently for him, I wondered why God took my friend away at such a young age. My friends, I understand that WE, have moments of weaknesses. Moments when our faith in God is pushed aside because of our human nature. Because our minds can only imagine and therefore believe what we have experienced ourselves. So as much as I believe and trust my best friend, I do not believe that he will be able to raise my parents from the dead. And that is why, we will have those moments when we also doubt what God promises us.

Yet today, Jesus shows us how HE believes, how he overcomes his human nature that is part of him because of the incarnation. When news of Lazarus was ill, came to him. He knew he had the power heal him at that moment so that the people he loved need not suffer the pain of seeing their loved ones dying. However, even though his human nature told him he could help them avoid this suffering, he knew that God had given him this task of raising Lazarus from the dead, so as to glorify God and to glorify him so that people would believe in him. Thus, in accordance to God’s will, he chose the harder part, he chose to suppress his human nature to avoid suffering, in order to bring to fulfillment what God desires.

Another example, is when his disciples reminded him that he would be stoned by others if he entered into Bethany. He knew deep within his consciousness that raising Lazarus would lead to not just the stoning by the people in Bethany, but a more tragic and unjust death on the cross. Human nature tells us to fear the torture and the even death and therefore to avoid doing the good that God desires us to do, and yet again, Jesus denies the power of human nature to take over his will, he pushes it down and goes ahead to Bethany, to fulfill what is needed, so that people may come to believe that the Son of God, become the Son of Man, so that we can come to understand that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

My brothers and sisters, I am not saying that because of our trust in Jesus that we should lead a fearful life and go out to do reckless things. We do not test God by putting ourselves in danger. What I am suggesting is that we will continue to be influenced by our human nature – that we will have doubts, that we will have fears, that we will make mistakes in our decisions… but if we believe, if we truly trust the promises of God, that we know we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, confession, when we make mistakes. We know that we have the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, who will nourish us, strengthen us in our moments of doubts. Yet, all these must be accompanied with a good prayer life, without a prayer life to know God more, it will be difficult to understand what God desires for us to do.

Hence, my brothers and sisters, may God give us the strength to believe and trust in Him, in our hardest moments, may we be the good friend to each other, encouraging and supporting each other, because we have Jesus within us!