Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production, Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. Share this program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com the fifth Sunday of Lent this program is dedicated to Mary Dick, loving mother and faithful listener, by her loving son. The Opening Prayer by your help, we beseech you, Lord our God, may we walk eagerly in the same charity with which, out of love for the world, your son handed himself over to death to our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit God forever and ever.

Amen. A reading from Ezekiel 37:12 14 Thus says the Lord God, O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord When I open your graves and have you rise from them. O my people, I will put my spirit in you that you may live. I will settle you upon your land. Thus you shall know that I am the Lord I promised and I will do it, says the Lord, the Word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my voice. In supplication with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand but with you is forgiveness that you may be revered.

With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. I trust in the Lord my soul, trust in his word. More than sentinels wait for the dawn, let Israel wait for the Lord. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption for with the Lord is kindness, and with him plenteous redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all their iniquities. With the Lord there is mercy and the fullness of redemption. A reading from St.

Paul’s letter to the Romans 8:11 Brothers and sisters, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh. On the contrary, you are in the Spirit. If only the Spirit of God dwells in you, whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his spirit dwelling in you.

The word of the Lord verse before the Gospel. I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will never die. The Gospel is taken from St. John, 11th chapter, first to the 45th verse. Now, man was ill Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters sent word to him saying, master, the one you love is ill. When Jesus heard this, he said, this illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.

Then after this, he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea. The disciples said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there. Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. He said this and then told them, our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I’m going to awaken him.

So the disciples said to him, master, if he is asleep, he will be saved. But Jesus was talking about his death while they thought he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them, clearly, Lazarus has died, and I’m glad for 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 go to die with him.

When Jesus arrived, he found Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. Martha heard that Jesus was coming. She went to meet him. But Mary sat at home.

Martha said to Jesus, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise. Martha said to him, I know he will rise in the resurrection. On the last day, Jesus told her, I am the resurrection and life Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this? She said to him, yes, Lord. I’ve come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world. When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, secretly saying, the Teacher is here and is asking for you. As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him.

So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, 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 weeping, he 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. But some of them said, could not the one who opened the eye of the blind have done something so that this man would not have died? So Jesus, perturbed again came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, 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? So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me. But because the crowd here I’ve said this that they may believe that you sent me.

And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, untie him and let him go. Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seeing what he had done, began to believe in him. The Gospel of the Lord. Take the next few moments as we listen to this music to ponder the images and the thoughts that come to you as you listen to these readings.

Foreign major teachings we find in the season of Lent. In the early church, these gospels were used because people would be baptized on Easter. And so in a way, you could say that these were the gospels chosen for a person who was entering into a life with God would have to understand these before they could be baptized. And they are powerful teachers. And one of the things I want to start with is that we see very much the notion in these set of readings a progression of how we are to understand our faith. And by understanding it, I don’t mean figuring it out or describing it perfectly.

It’s a mysterious way of being in the world. It’s mystical. And it starts off with just describing who it is that Jesus is a human being filled with divinity, who comes into the world, who pockets his divinity in a sense, and then goes through a process that we all go through in order to fulfill our destiny here. And Jesus destiny was to be there for other people, invite them into being who they really are. The Old Testament was very, very clear and in a way, very oversimplified and not very complex about the way we relate to God. He will give us a rule, a law.

We will do everything he says. 613 laws pretty much covers everything you do during the day. So I know that I’m doing what God wants when I follow his rules and regulations. If I break those, he’ll punish me. So I don’t want to be punished. So I have a motive to do what he wants.

And then when I die, I will go and live with the bosom of Abraham, is what they thought. But let’s just say that they would go to a better place. It’s not that simple. And so what does God reveal through Jesus? He brings someone into the world who is God, and he does this by a miraculous birth, so that we know that Jesus is not simply a human being, but uniquely connected to God. And what we’re taught throughout the New Testament is that Jesus is God.

And of course, that gets very confusing. So back to my image of the danger of oversimplifying our religious life, our spiritual life, as a simple choice between good and evil. Jesus awakens us a new nuance into the somewhat binary world that we live in. And that it’s not about good and evil. It’s about darkness and light, truth and lies. Interesting how different that makes things because we look at this first story and what we see in Jesus the God man.

Now, when I use the word, even God, be careful, because the essence of God is not that he is a male father figure. He’s not male, he’s not female, he’s not a dad. He never named himself. He only invited us to begin to know him by using images that we already knew and take them to a new level. But one of the things that’s interesting about Jesus, God giving himself a name, he said the best name that I think we should all think we are. And that is he says, I am who am?

I am who I am. So let’s take this image of Jesus coming into the world who is fully human, fully divine. The union between the two is the majority teaching of this set of readings. God is not separate from you. He is in you. And he is not a male figure who’s a daddy, but he is being, Fullness.

He is being. And, you know, when you look at yourself, I don’t know if you do this, but, you know, I look in the mirror and I say, well, I was a young man, now I’m an old man. So now my image, my image of myself is, I’m an old man. Or do I think I’m a white man, Therefore I’m not a black man. I’m different. Or that I’m short or tall or, you know, whatever.

I mean, think of it. We have a label for ourselves that is so limiting and really kind of insane. When we look at what God is trying to say to us is that every one of us is a reflection of who God is. We all participate in being, of being human. To see each other as human beings created by God, filled with spirit would do away with all kinds of racism and illusions and lies that we’re told about other people. So we start off with an image then of what it means to be human.

We’re human and divine. And then we think about, well, what are we here for? To obey everything that God tells us? No. Jesus reveals to his disciples in that second Sunday. We’re here to be enlightened, to be the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

And not just to be enlightened, but to be a light that enlightens other people. Darkness is illusion, is lies. We lie about who we are, we lie about other people. We lie about what the world will tell us, things about itself. And it’s not the world. The world is a place for beings to exist and to be engaged in a relationship with one another so intimate and so connected that the only way we can sort of begin to describe that is that we are light.

And this light that is given to us, this truth of who we are, is like a life giving water inside of us. We thirst for it, we long for it. When we see ourselves as isolated and separated and less than or more than, we’re in an illusion, in a lie, and none of that satisfies us. What does satisfy Us. And so we’re told that what God has come to do in our life is to give us this understanding, this life giving water, which then opens our eyes. And where eyes are open, the gospel today makes so much sense.

Then we have life. Look at the first reading. Way back in the Old Testament, God was using this image of light and life. He’s looking at the Israelite people and he’s saying, you know, you live in your humanity. You think you’re human. That’s all you think you are, a person, but you’re so much more than that.

And what I want to do is pour something into you, an awareness, a spirit of understanding, a kind of wisdom that you, when you’re only human, you are like dried up bones in graves. You’re not really fully alive. And so what I want for you to be is more in tune with the fact that I’m putting my spirit in you. He said at the very beginning, I’m putting my spirit in you. And in the second reading is Paul talking about living in the spirit. God lives in you.

God lived in Jesus. Jesus is the model. God lives in us. If you see that, you’ll see life and light. So today’s readings are really wonderfully in, how would I say this? They have the quality of awakening us to something that is so essential.

And if you look at all five of these gospels, you can’t miss it. And so what is Jesus doing? He is doing the very thing that human beings are made to do. We are, we are beings made to bring life into other beings. And that life is something that is absolutely indestructible. It never dies, it never fades.

It always is there. So once he’s opened the eyes of the blind and seeing God more clearly, who he is, we see him as the one who destroys death. There is no more darkness. Only there is always light in darkness. Notice the difference between the image of good and bad and light and darkness. Because light can live in darkness.

You can light a match around a circle of people in total darkness and you see they are enlightened, but there’s still darkness all around them. The world is filled with light and darkness, death and life. And when Jesus is in this beautiful gospel, you see him at one point weeping. The shortest line. In scripture, Jesus wept. He only wept two times in his life.

What did he weep over? One was the temple, and one was this moment when everybody around him was wailing and crying and the people that he loved the most when he wasn’t there to accomplish the task that he hoped they would know he could do. They kept saying, if you were just here, this wouldn’t have happened, Martha, if you were just here, this wouldn’t have happened. And maybe his weeping and his deep. He was perturbed, which is a deep anxiety. Maybe he’s just as a human being is thinking, they still have gotten it.

I’ve been with them. I’ve shown them this. I’ve done all kinds of miracles. They simply won’t look at it. They can’t see it. And maybe he just felt a wave of, it’s not going to work.

As a human being. He could say that because he’s human. And so he shouts it. He shouts out, lazarus, be a symbol for these people of who I am and what I am in them when they have me in them. And it’s, you’re no longer tied up. I love the image at the end of this gospel when Jesus is looking at Lazarus and he’s all wrapped up in all these kind of things, and he doesn’t say, someone unwrap him.

No, Lazarus, you now are an image of who all these people are. And you have the ability to unwrap, untie all those things that keep you from being who you are. You are a being. You’re neither male or female or old or young or tall or short. And you connect with every other living being. Think of that.

Our destiny is to be belonging to one another. How can we condemn or judge or criticize someone else when they are ourselves? Why would Jesus say, when you forgive your brother, you’re forgiving yourself? This oneness is the key message of the gospel. Being conscious, aware. I am who I am.

I am in everyone, and they are in me. In the process of that union and communion, we become together who God intended us to be. His body. It’s called the church. Not a building, not a denomination, but people filled with spirit. Amen, Satan.

Father, we so often don’t really see who you are. And we. We see religion as a burden, something that. That keeps us from being who we want to be or who. What we want to do, and just free us from all the lies that we’ve been told about who you are and who we are, so we can be free to truly enter into this communion, this union with you and with each other, with nature. It’s what we’re made for.

It’s the only thing that can bring us the joy and the peace of a thing that you taught us to believe in, called the Kingdom of God. Amen. This program is dedicated to Mary Deck, loving mother and faithful listener by her loving son. Many of you enjoyed our Reflection series last Lent and now we’re beginning a new series on Ash Wednesday. It’s a more contemplative approach. We’ll be doing reflections on the Scripture of the day following the liturgical calendar.

You can find these reflections on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts or on our website pastorreflectionsinsinstitute.com the music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website Pastoral Reflections Institute. We thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey.

Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.