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Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of confessions. As you all are aware…every Advent and Lent brings with it our parish wide communal penance services. A couple hundred people come together to hear the Word of God and then to celebrate God’s Grace and Mercy through individual confession. I was at St. Joseph in Killen last week…Greene Family Camp last Saturday…I’ll be at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monday evening…St. Luke’s Tuesday evening…and right here Wednesday evening…finishing with St. Paul’s next Monday evening. As bizarre as it may seem…hearing confessions is one of the most enjoyable things I do as a priest. And I’ve heard the very same thing from so many other priests. I wonder why that is. Because you would think it would be just the opposite…people’s problems…their dysfunctions…their addictions and obsessions. But it’s not…it’s one of the most beautiful things about being a Catholic and about being a Catholic Priest.
It’s beautiful because it’s so honest…to see people’s faces when I give them Absolution and then say, “Your sins are now forgiven…washed way…now go filled with grace.” I don’t know about you…but when I’m on the receiving end of this…there’s just nothing better…it’s amazing. I actually think it has a physical component too. It’s obvious in people’s faces…in their shoulders…their posture…the way they walk out…their voices…in their eyes. When their sins are forgiven…they’re somehow lighter then they were when they came in…more alive…raised up.
Here we are deep into Lent now. And we move with Jesus toward Golgotha and the Tomb and the Resurrection. And the more I think about Lent the more it becomes apparent that Lent is like an extended Sacrament of Confession. It’s a forty day confession where we bear our souls to God and each other…we admit to our sins…we try to come to grips with who we are and who God is…all in preparation for humanity’s perfect Absolution…the Resurrection…that moment when we come to realize that our confession of sins…the death we experience each time we sin has a destiny…Resurrection. So in a sense…our sin sets the stage for Resurrection. It was no different for Lazarus.
That’s really what this gospel is about. It’s a story of sickness…death…God’s sadness with that condition…and then His refusal to allow it to continue. Sounds oddly similar to the Sacrament of Confession. The Sickness and death of our sin…God’s sadness with that…then his refusal to let it dominate our lives. The Lazarus story is our story of Confession. You and I need the Lazarus story in our lives. And I think Jesus knew this all along. He could have gone to Lazarus the minute he heard that he was sick. But he didn’t. He waited so that he could teach us.
Eugene O’Neill was one of the great American Playwrights of the last century…many of you might have heard of him…and he once wrote a play entitled LAZARUS LAUGHED. The play deals with the Biblical story of Lazarus but the plot focuses on what happened to Lazarus in the years after Jesus raised him from the dead…after the four days in the tomb. Curiously…in the play Lazarus comes out of his grave laughing...which is totally not what we would expect. We expect him to be sleepy…barely able to move…like someone just waking up from a deep cold winters night sleep. In the play it’s just the opposite. It’s almost as if he’s giggling like a little child. There is a radiance emanating from Lazarus that makes him actually look younger than when he died. In the play…As soon as Lazarus gets home and the drama of the Miracle has settled, his sisters, Mary and Martha, ask him the inevitable question: What is it like beyond the grave? What is Death like? To which Lazarus replies, it was great because there’s only life. There’s a lot of laughter...the laughter of God soaring into the heights and the depths of all that is. The Laughter of God that is so palpable that it pervades all of existence. There is no death. It’s eternal Joy. Death isn’t the end…It’s just a portal, a passageway into an unimaginable brighter life. Colors so vibrant that have no name. Sounds so pure that they make digital radio seem painfully analog. Sight so clear that you can see without your glasses. It’s Picture perfect. That is what lies ahead, says Lazarus. As the play unfolds Lazarus goes on to live a full life here on earth in which he is totally freed from the fear of death. Now wouldn’t that be great! No more fear. Total assuredness of the things hoped for. What would life be like if we really believed this? I can remember when I first arrived here at Christ the King. There was a young girl..7 or 8 years old…and she asked me…Father James…if heaven is so great then why are people so afraid of dying? That right there’s a homily in itself.
Today…the Church in her wisdom gives us the Lazarus story…this last week of Lent in preparation for the Terrible Greatness of Holy Week. And it’s a story that connects with us on so many levels. It’s a story that most assuredly happened in time…some two thousand years ago in a dusty suburb of Jerusalem called Bethany. But it’s also a story that sets the stage for THE STORY…the Resurrection of our Lord. It’s like Jesus was giving us a theatrical trailer of what was to come very soon. And in that way it’s one of the great ironies of all time. In giving life to Lazarus the wheels are set into motion for Jesus’ own death. And it only seems right that Jesus knew this and intended this for the express purpose of his own resurrection. Jesus is telling his story in Lazarus’ story. But on another level it’s a story that happens to you and me…every single time we are called forth from the grave of sin through the Sacrament of Penance when we go to Confession. The result of each of these readings of this one Gospel is the same. Life…God’s Laughter combined with our laughter…the kind of laughter that takes away the anxiety lines from our foreheads and eases the muscle tension in our shoulders…the kind of laughter that wells up from the bottomless joy in knowing God will never forget you…and that he does forgive you. Lazarus certainly must have felt this as he made his way back into the light. Jesus himself must have felt this as he rolled the stone away and emerged into His own Light. And you and I can feel this when we bathe ourselves in the redeeming light of the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Penance. So, if you haven’t been to confession in a while…this is what awaits you. If we can combine this with THE RESURRECTION on Easter…then our whole perspective on life would certainly change.