“I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live.” (John 11 1-45)

This is such an appropriate passage from the New Testament for this fifth Sunday of Lent as we approach the great feast of Easter.

Jesus raised Lazarus after he had been dead for four days. Jesus knew the family. The sisters Mary and Martha sent for him saying ‘Lord he whom you love is ill.’

We read that Jesus wept before going to the tomb where Lazarus was laid. “Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’

“Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.”

Do we believe? Will we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus?

What does the Resurrection mean for us?

In this week’s Gospel for the fourth Sunday of Lent, Jesus heals a blind man. The Jewish leaders of the time, the Pharisees, were annoyed because Jesus healed him on the Sabbath which was against the Jewish law. Moreover, they believed that the man’s blindness like all sickness was because he or his parents had sinned. Jesus told his disciple this was not the case.

This led the blind man to accept Jesus as the “Son of Man” when Jesus told him who he was. I came into the world Jesus said, “that those who do not see may see.” Thus the healing of the blind man may be considered a metaphor for something much deeper.

Jesus lights up the lives of those who accept him as Saviour which these Pharisees clearly didn’t, and so they remained in darkness.

Lent is a time to reflect on our lives.

We can be faced with all sorts of difficulties and challenges and feel that we have lost our way. We just don’t know which way to turn. Catholic churches are open for all genuine searchers in the run up to Lent and at Easter. Why not pop in and sit quietly in front of the Tabernacle where Jesus is truly present.

The honest and heartfelt prayer, “Jesus show me the way to walk,” should light up our day, our week, our lives.

Find a hymn book at the back of the church and read the words of the hymn, “The Spirit Lives (Walk in the Light)” or find it on YouTube (Damian Lundy).

The Gospel reading for this third Sunday of Lent asks us the most important question ever.

Jesus is at a well in Samaria which is amazing as Jews would avoid Samaritans as they regarded them as foreigners and heretics. The disciples had gone to buy food. A Samaritan woman comes to draw water and to her utter amazement Jesus asks her for water. “You are a Jew and you ask me a Samaritan for a drink?” Furthermore, a man would never speak to a woman in public. But Jesus has a purpose in mind. Jesus says, that if only she knew who was asking she would be the one to ask him for a drink and he would give her living water, welling up to eternal life. Jesus is speaking about the Holy Spirit.

“Anyone who drinks of the water I shall give will never be thirsty again.” (John 4:14)

Jesus tells her of the past men in her life. She then sees Jesus as a prophet. Jesus reveals to her that he is the Messiah and she runs back to the village to tell everyone.

Jesus is not offering her something new to believe so much as living water – the Holy Spirit which the presence of Jesus on earth as the Messiah or Christ makes possible.

This message was offered to the villagers when they came to meet Jesus. He stayed with them for two days.

“Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves, and we know that he really is the Saviour of the world.” (John 4:42)

What can we get from this? This experience of the Holy Spirit makes a relationship with Jesus possible and begins in the here and now.  Words cannot describe this.

But it begins as it did for the woman at the well with recognising Jesus as Saviour.

Do we believe this?      

Last Sunday, the second Sunday in Lent the Gospel focussed on an incredible event which is referred to as the “Transfiguration.” Peter, James and John, close disciples of Jesus, accompanied him up a high mountain, “There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.” (Matthew 17.2)

For us today this event is a powerful reminder of why we are here and the ultimate meaning of our life on earth.

The meaning of this is in stark contrast to all who cling to this life as though this is all there is.

So when we see the news about wars and killing and all the terrible things which human beings are doing to one another, the true meaning of life is obscured.

The Transfiguration is a wakeup call for us all.

Sin separates us from our loving Father God. As they were coming down the mountain Jesus says, “Tell no one about the vision until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”