See differently

For some, the people in today’s Gospel (especially the long form – John 11:1-45) may seem to be incredibly clueless.

The most comical acts of apparent stone cold stupidity are performed by the disciples in the first half of the Gospel: misunderstanding the Lord’s euphemism for death.

“Our friend Lazarus is asleep,
but I am going to awaken him.”
So the disciples said to him,
“Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.”
...So then Jesus said to them clearly,
“Lazarus has died.
And I am glad for you that I was not there,
that you may believe.
Let us go to him.”
So Thomas, called Didymus,
said to his fellow disciples,
“Let us also go to die with him.”

Not so comic are the reaction of Lazarus’ grief-stricken sisters. They really do not seem to understand what our Lord is saying and what our Lord is about to do.

Of course, people who have just lost a loved one are sometimes unable to really connect with even normal things that other people say.

In this case, it is even more difficult, because what our Lord is about to do is not only not normal – it was unheard of: bringing to life a man who has been dead and buried for four days.

What our Lord did was a paradigm shift of the most amazing proportions.

To us, it is obvious, but we have heard the recounting of this event so many times.

On the other hand, in our own lives, we are often the ones who are clueless. We ourselves are in the middle of the story and have not seen what happens five verses from now. We ourselves are often stuck in the paradigms of our personal experience and slow to understand the full truth that Christ wishes us to see.

And so, we need to ask Christ continually to open our minds and our hearts to see and understand and follow more quickly the truth that he sets for us and to bring us more fully into the new paradigm in which he calls us to think and to live.

Jesus said to her,
“Did I not tell you that if you believe
you will see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone.