So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.”

Today is Passion Sunday. The veils over the images in the church starkly remind us that we stand at the doorway of Holy Week, of those sacred days when we will contemplate the Passion and death of the Savior of the world. The chants of the Mass cry out with the voice of those who are suffering. The opening words of the introit, “judica me,” admit of multiple interpretations: “Judge me, vindicate me, give me justice, O God, and plead my cause against a nation that is faithless. From the deceitful and cunning rescue me,” we heard in the entrance antiphon, which sets the theme for each Mass. And in the collect prayer at the beginning of Mass we prayed that “we [might] walk eagerly in that same charity with which, out of love for the world [the] Son handed himself over to death.”

We arrive today at the greatest of the fears we must confront this Lent: the fear of death, and the fear of suffering that goes hand-in-hand with our fear of death. Christ has a very different attitude towards suffering, and even towards death. He Himself does not flee from suffering nor even death. Last Sunday we read from John chapter 9, and today from John chapter 11. In Chapter 10, the Jews confront Christ in the Temple and take up rocks to stone Him, but slips out of their midst, crossing the Jordan river to safety. Thus, His words, “Let us go back to Judea” today are full of weight and premonition. The disciples are right to be concerned: “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?”

The Lord waits two days before crossing back over the Jordan after hearing of Lazarus’s illness. But He does not tarry out of fear of death, but to reveal the greatness of the Father’s works in Him. His resolution inspires great faith in His disciples as well. What could be more moving than the words of Thomas, who gives his fellow disciples the ultimate encouragement: “Let us also go to die with him”?

The plea in the introit today surely resonates with us. “The nation that is faithless,” or “godless,” in another translation, is all around us. But the perspective of the saint is not just to see a challenge and cause for despair amidst the godlessness that surrounds us, but an opportunity to embrace the Cross, to grow in holiness. We have so many opportunities to become saints, we have so many chance to likewise go to die with Him.

We should be willing to die with the Lord in the face of the cultural affliction of relativism. That is, when people claim that there really is no such thing as absolute truth, when right or wrong are determined by each person’s feelings, when people claim the right to define their own identity as they see fit and not as God made them, will you stand up for the truth? Will you be willing to be ridiculed as intolerant, prejudiced, or being on the wrong side of history? Will you be willing to go and die with Him there?

When others succumb to materialism and selfishness, making material things and their own pleasures their life’s pursuit rather than serving others, what will you do? When your children, victims of powerful commercial forces that alter their desires and values, pressure you for the latest gadgets, do you cave to their pleas, or teach them discipline and sacrifice? When others place their IRA balance or vacations ahead of generously welcoming children into their families, what will you say and do? Are you willing to be ridiculed as boring, uninteresting, or behind the times? Will you go to die with Him there?

Our Lord will tell the Apostles that they will drink from His chalice, that they will endure the suffering and martyrdom of imitating His death. But first, they will be strengthened. Thus, on the same Sunday on which the echoes of His coming Passion build into a chorus of foreboding and fear, we receive the tremendous sign of Him raising His dear friend, Lazarus.

“Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.” A second “let us go” now resounds. As Thomas manfully encourages his brothers, “let us go to die with Him,” the Lord Himself says, “let us go to the one who has died.” “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.”

We ask God to judge and vindicate the rightness of our cause against a faithless or godless nation, but what is His response? He comes that the world might have life! The Cross reveals His judgement upon sin, and His Resurrection reveals the solution to sin and death. His judgement, His vindication, for those who will confess their sins and accept the great offer of salvation, is not revenge, but mercy, new life, the Resurrection.

“The one who raised Christ from the dead,” St. Paul tells us, “will give life to your mortal bodies also.” We have strengthened ourselves as a parish to enter these holy days of Passiontide with Forty Hours of Eucharistic Adoration, as day and night we adored the Risen Body of the One who died once and for all as a judgement of mercy upon sin. Giving us the gift of His risen Body to receive and adore, this promise to give life to our mortal bodies is fulfilled.

Today, Christ comes to you, His friend, to wake you up. He invites you into these final two weeks of contemplation of His passion and death to prepare yourself to receive the gift of new life. As we contemplate Christ’s death, we pray with the beautiful words of the Stations of the Cross: “My dying Jesus, I devoutly kiss the cross on which You would die for love of me. I deserve, because of my sins, to die a terrible death; but Your death is my hope. … You have died for love of me; I will die for love of You.”

Today we join the Lord’s cry, expressed in the forty second Psalm: “Give me justice, O God, and plead our cause against a nation that is faithless,” against a world that proposes material goods and earthly satisfaction instead of the love of Christ, and we take comfort in His promise to His chosen people: “I will put my spirit in you that you may live, … thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

V Sunday of Lent, A.D. MMXXVI