Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year A) March 22, 2026
The following transcript of the homily is in the original formatting that was used for the sake of live delivery with all cues, emphasis, and notes included.
Readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent (A)
- Ezekiel 37:12-14
- Romans 8:8-11
- John 11:1-45 [Focus of Homily]
Transcript:
“I will open your graves and have you rise from them” Words from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel.
In the Name of the Father + and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is dark.
In fact, it is pitch-black in here.
A body is wrapped up.
The thick darkness swallows up even the white of the wraps that binds the hands and feet of the man who once moved about freely.
Now this man is beyond dead, lying alone on a slab of stone.
And the smell is his only neighbor.
There is a stillness that utterly stifles everything in this dark room of death and decay.
It is completely quiet.
After four days in the tomb the man lying in it is in deep death.
And yet in this moment there is a strange tension from outside that is beginning to seep into the tomb, perhaps passing through the small crevice between the edge of the entrance and the surface of the giant stone that covers the closed off entrance.
Things are getting intense – even in deep death.
But as for us outside the story:
There is a light that peers through the windows of this church.
In fact, it is broad daylight.
The flames of candles gleam in open space.
They draw the attention of living eyes.
The artificial glow of fixtures in the ceiling shine down upon us who are fixed in pews but can move about freely.
But, for now, as one man speaks to the crowd in front of him there is a stillness, and perhaps there is a quiet among the crowd as he speaks.
After 30 or so days we are beyond the days of Lent – we are in deep Lent.
For, from here on out, every time we come to Mass or pray the Lent Pray40 Challenge in the Hallow app (stay prayed up), there is a strange tension emerging,
– Not from the outside,
But as it were,
From the inside:
– inside the church,
– inside the liturgy,
– inside the human heart of the praying man or woman in are tune with this holy season.
And things are getting intense – in deep Lent.
Even now the liturgy demands more from us,
And will demand even more as we go along.
The gospels are getting longer – and so we stand longer.
And come Palm Sunday, the entire passion of the Christ will be proclaimed.
Feet will tire and some knees will buckle.
And this will be but mere prep work for what is to come on Good Friday after Lent’s technical end,
– Standing and keeling, kneeling and standing.
Will you be able to endure it?
Will you even show your face for it?
For, then, on that day, the Bridegroom will be taken from us, and then we will fast one last time.
But, for now, you come in from the ugly of the world to see the holy of the world to come – and you find that the statues have been wrapped up,
Wrapped up like the man,
in the dark,
in the tomb,
in the gospel.
Wrapped up like the human heart that has died the death of mortal sin.
Wrapped up like the human heart lying in the outer darkness of self-exile from the Sacred Heart.
Wrapped up like the human hearts in the tombs of the chests of those who have given themselves over to hopelessness, despair, and to lives away from He who is the Source of all life.
And then the stone is rolled back, light crashes into the darkness, and Jesus stands at the mouth of the grave and “cries out in a loud voice:
‘Lazarus, come out!’”
And “the dead man came out.”
The dead man who was lying in the pitch-black darkness.
The dead man who was wrapped up.
The dead man who was beyond dead and in deep death.
The dead man who was far-gone,
– But not too far gone for the One who will go to “gone” itself and say “go”,
So that whomever “goes” in Him will never truly be gone forever.
(Now did that make any sense, or have I “gone” and lost my mind up here?)
Well, either way, I am about to “go” in just a little bit from this ambo,
So that He who raised Lazarus from the dead can come stand outside your human hearts.
And as our Lenten penances join forces to roll back the stones of our sins,
He will shout out your name and say, “Come out!”
Come out from sin.
Come out from fear.
Come out from doubt.
Come out from shame.
Come out from despair.
Come out from the lies.
Come out from the world, the flesh, and the devil.
And you shall rise, for He says, “I will open your graves and have you rise from them.”
So come out to Christ!
Come out to Life!
And as we come out into the light of day there may still be many things that bind us like Lazarus was still “tied hand and foot with burial bands.”
Maybe the memories of what we rose from still linger.
Perhaps, the various effects of spiritual trauma still haunt us.
Maybe certain desires, certain feelings, certain wraps of our former death still tie a hand here or a foot there as we hobble out the grave.
Like Lazarus, we were brought back to life through our baptism or later through our confession,
And we do not know what quite to do at the moment
as our faces are still covered with the burial cloth.
But then we will hear Jesus say:
“Untie him, [untie her], and let [them] go.”
And the wraps shall fall from our hands.
And the ropes shall be loosened around our ankles.
And the cloth shall be removed from our eyes.
And the first face we see will be His.
And we shall believe,
because we will know,
That only Jesus can truly
give life,
unbind,
unwrap,
and call out.
And once we have gone out,
Then we shall be sent.
In the Name of the Father + of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Given at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Hendersonville, TN
Cover Image Art: Brian Whelan (Found Here)