Resurrection of Lazarus, James Jacques Tissot,
1886-1894, Brooklyn Museum
Jesus told her,
“I am the resurrection and the 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.”
(John 11:25–27)
Fr. Smith’s Commentary on the Second Reading
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Romans 8: 8–11
March 26, 2023
We return to Paul’s letter to the Romans. We have read this letter twice before this Lent and examined it in some detail during the summer of 2020. Indeed, most of this reading we saw before on July 8, 2020. We will use some of the same material today but focus on our Lenten themes and practices.
Today’s reading answered a question from the previous chapter:
Miserable one that I am!
Who will deliver me from this mortal body?(Ro 7:24)
To our modern ears this may seem as if Paul is dividing the human being into body and soul: body, physical and bad, soul, spiritual and good, this reflected the prevailing Greek ideas of Paul’s time. Paul did not believe this, nor did his readers in Rome who were born Jews and maintained a “Jewish anthropology”. As such they would have understood and appreciated the modern philosophical statement that “we do not have a body; we are our bodies.” We are not naturally immortal. Immortality means that the true and important part of us—spirit, soul—leaves the body at death. The body ultimately deteriorates into ashes, it was just a necessary shell. Jews and Christians believe that human beings are composed of “Body and Soul” and that we need both to be human. Thus, we experience the resurrection of the body. This is the new life promised in the scriptures and can only be given by God. Paul realized that this is now accomplished through Jesus. A body is in our future, but it is one totally dedicated to the work of God.
Continue reading “5th Sunday of Lent – Walking in Charity”
