Today’s Gospel is one of the most powerful moments in the whole of Scripture.
A man is dead. Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days.
His sisters are grieving.
The village is mourning.
The stone is already in place.
From every human point of view the story is finished.
Death has spoken the final word.
And yet the whole Gospel today is about this truth:
with Christ, death never has the final word.
When Jesus arrives, Martha runs to meet Him.
Her first words are full of pain and faith at the same time.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
It is a sentence many believers recognise.
It is the cry of faith struggling with sorrow.
Martha believes in Jesus.
But she does not yet understand how great His power really is.
Jesus answers her: “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha thinks He is speaking about the resurrection at the end of time.
And that was already a great hope in Israel.
But Jesus is about to reveal something even greater.
He says: “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”
Notice what He does not say. He does not say merely, “I can give resurrection.”
He says: “I am the resurrection.”
Life itself stands before Martha.
The power that created the world stands before the tomb.
But before the miracle happens, something deeply moving occurs.
St. John tells us that when Jesus sees the grief of Mary and the others: Jesus wept.
The shortest verse in the Bible. But one of the most revealing.
Christ does not stand at a distance from human sorrow.
He enters it. He shares it.
God is not cold toward human suffering.
He stands beside us in it.
Then Jesus goes to the tomb. He says: “Take away the stone.”
Martha hesitates. “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.”
She is thinking in purely human terms.
Decay has already begun.
The situation is beyond hope.
And that is precisely the moment where Christ acts.
He prays to the Father and then cries out: “Lazarus, come out!”
And the dead man walks out of the tomb. Alive.
Wrapped in burial cloths.
The impossible has happened.
This miracle is not only about Lazarus.
It is a sign.
A sign pointing to something even greater.
Soon Jesus Himself will enter a tomb.
Soon the stone will be rolled in front of His grave.
Soon His enemies will believe the story is over.
But the raising of Lazarus shows us something:
Christ is stronger than death.
Not even the grave can silence the life that is in Him.
The other readings help us understand what this means for us.
In Ezekiel the Lord promises His people:
“I will open your graves and raise you from your graves.”
At first that promise spoke to Israel in exile.
They felt as though their nation had died.
But God promised restoration.
And the promise goes further.
It points to the ultimate victory of God over death itself.
St Paul takes that promise and brings it even closer.
He says: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you… he will give life to your mortal bodies.”
This is the astonishing claim of Christianity.
The power that raised Christ from the dead now lives within believers.
Through baptism we share in Christ’s life.
Through the Spirit we already begin to live the life that will one day conquer death.
But the Gospel today is not only about physical death.
There are other kinds of tombs.
People can become trapped in fear.
In resentment.
In addiction.
In despair.
In habits of sin that seem impossible to escape.
These too can feel like sealed tombs.
Places where life seems buried.
But Christ still stands before those tombs.
And His command is the same: “Come out.”
Come out of the darkness.
Come out of what holds you captive.
Come out into the life God intends.
Notice something else.
Before Lazarus comes out, someone must move the stone.
Jesus says: “Take away the stone.”
Sometimes God asks us to remove what blocks the entrance.
Perhaps pride.
Perhaps fear.
Perhaps the refusal to ask forgiveness.
We remove the stone.
Christ gives the life.
As Lent draws toward its final weeks, the Church places this Gospel before us to prepare us for Easter.
Because Easter is the ultimate answer to the human problem.
The world tells us that death is the end.
Christ tells us that death is not the end.
The world says the grave wins.
Christ says life wins.
The world says the story is finished.
Christ says the story has only begun.
So today the Gospel leaves us with a question.
Not only the question Jesus asked Martha — “Do you believe this?” —
but a harder one.
Where, in my life, have I allowed something to die that should still be living?
Not the final grave. But the quieter ones.
A conversation that never happened.
A word that should have been spoken.
A forgiveness that has been delayed.
This happens in homes.
People living side by side — but something has gone cold.
Silence where there should be love.
Distance where there should be trust.
And over time it settles in, like a stone across the entrance.
And after a while we begin to think, “This is just how things are now.”
But Christ does not accept that.
He stands before those places
just as surely as He stood before the tomb of Lazarus.
And He says the same thing: “Take away the stone.”
That might mean speaking first.
It might mean letting go of pride.
It might mean saying the word we have been avoiding.
It will not feel easy.
But neither did moving that stone.
And then Christ speaks the word that only He can speak: “Come out.”
Come out of what has grown cold.
Come out of what has become closed.
Come out into life again.
Because the voice that called Lazarus from the grave
is not a voice of the past.
It is a voice that still speaks.
Still calls.
Still gives life.
And the question is very simple:
Will we leave the stone in place?
Or will we let Christ bring life
where we have settled for something less than life?
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 