Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BOAKYE YEBOAH

CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF KUMASI, GHANA

FROM THE GRAVE 

            We are two weeks away from the celebration of the greatest life event in history – the Easter joy. Great men and women may have graced mother earth before the birth of Jesus and the annals of history have their great works in ink but one thing takes them far away from the resurrectional event of Jesus. Jesus did something none of them was able to try.

            Biblically, we have so many stories of people who did the unimaginable: Abraham’s famous journey from the Ur to the promised land. Our father in faith’s hope and absolute trust in God is beyond human understanding. Also, we cannot  forget the stories we read of Moses especially his crossing of the Red Sea on dry land as the sea was parted into two. Joshua blew a trumpet and the strong walls of Jericho came down. In the New Testament we read of stories that take us beyond science. But with all these biblical stories, the Easter event is the event of events. Because it is the event of events, Mother Church every year gives us forty days to prepare in order to celebrate the day with due honor and worthiness of life.

            To celebrate Easter, the event of events, Mother Church has given us readings that seem to give us a foretaste of what we will celebrate in two weeks’ time. As much as the readings give us a foretaste, they possess a redemptive value and give hope to the person in the worse of situations.

Some scholars may try to put fiction to the story in Ezekiel 37 about the dry bones but they cannot deny the prophetic tone in Ezekiel. As I normally tell my students, some biblical stories may carry mythological undertones but one should not overlook the spiritual lessons they bring. Reading the first reading carefully, one can discern that as much as the Prophet Ezekiel was addressing issues of his day, the message had a futuristic dimension. Ezekiel may have prophesized about the works of Jesus – when he will raise the dead to life.

            These were the words of the prophet: “Thus says the Lord: 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…”

            The words of the prophet came to pass in the ministry of Jesus. In raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus demonstrated to the people that he is the Lord of the living and the dead and that he alone can give life.

            As we journey through Lent it is my prayer that Jesus may lift many people from their life’s “graves.” Here I would like to employ “grave” metaphorically. The “grave” can symbolize complete loss of hope which can be likened to Dante’s famous sign post on the gates of hell – “abandon all hope all who enter here”. Some people are living in “psychologically burdened graves.” Some people have lost hope for redemption in their psychological daily torture.

            There is nothing painful than being caught up in a situation when nobody around you can offer help no matter how willing they may be to help. Like the family in Bethany, it may have been the wish of Martha and Mary that they do everything possible to help their brother but, in the grave, they knew they couldn’t help in any way. It is not surprising that when Jesus arrived at their home, Martha welcomed Jesus with a statement of hopelessness though she entertained a faint trust in Jesus.

            Today’s readings are really assuring. We need to bring this message of hope to thousands of people who seem to have lost hope. We need to bring Jesus to the life of people because it is only in Jesus that one can be saved. Jesus wants us to be the people to represent him to bring people from their life’s “graves.” An old man/woman living alone in an apartment nearby may be living in a “grave” of loneliness and your visit to offer a smile and a brief visit of companionship may bring life to him or her. At times because we have people all around us, we fail to see the “bodies in graves” around us. The Akan of Ghana has something they call “living-dead” – meaning: you may see somebody and you may think that all is well and that (s)he has life but internally (s)he may be dead-walking.

            Lazarus had a white bandage all over his body in the grave and there are many people with bandages all over them in their psychological graves. Jesus wants us to visit these people in the hospitals, care homes and regular homes. At times for some people, they just want a “Good Morning!” with a smile and yet the person can only dream of such a thing. We may not need Jesus to move from cemetery to cemetery raising the dead as he did for Lazarus, but what we really want is for him to use us to bring happiness to many people who are living in graves.

            Some people’s lives are really dry like the dry bones Ezekiel spoke of but if we allow Jesus to use us we may give life to these “dry bones.” OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP PRAY FOR US.