As the story goes, life is like catching a monkey. All you have to do is to put some delicious food in a big, heavy glass jar with a small opening. The monkey puts its hand in the jar to grab the food. If it holds on to the food it cannot pull its hand out. It will only be free if it lets go of it.

Jesus spent his public life facing death in all its forms, including that of the young 12-year-old girl, a widow’s son, and his dear friend Lazarus. But it is one thing to face the death of someone else and another to face one’s own.

What makes all the difference between the two is that, however shocking this might sound, Lazarus’s death was inevitable, whereas Jesus’s death was a free and deliberate choice. Lazarus died of sickness. Jesus died out of love. Real love is choosing to die to one’s own self to live for the beloved.

The Resurrection is not just an amazing, incredible, one-off experience of a privileged superhero we call Jesus. It is an experience we humans all live in our day-to-day lives. We cannot have life if we do not let go of it.

For Lazarus and those who loved him, death was the end of life. For Jesus, death was the way to real life. “This illness is not to end in death but for the glory of God,” he said. He deliberately took his time to go to Lazarus, knowing the risk he was taking by returning to the place where they had already tried to stone him to death. Which death was Jesus determined, yet in no hurry, to face? Was it the death of his dear friend Lazarus or was it his own death at the hand of the Jews?

Jesus chose to face death – both his friend’s and his own – freely, squarely and fully. He wanted to show that death is just another step towards a fuller, more real life. Things must get worse before they get really better... This is what life is all about. This is what faith is all about.

Like Martha’s, our only hope is to postpone death: “Master, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” What we all pray and secretly hope for is that it can be pushed back as far as possible. So we keep on living as if tomorrow never comes.

Death leaves no place for compromises or denials. Our only hope is faith in a life that goes beyond death. I am not speaking of palliative and alienating religiosity. I am speaking of a daily reality we all live each time we go to bed and wake up for another day of love and service, pains and joys, trials and triumphs.

Living means believing that beyond the worst there is the best waiting for us. Ask an expectant mother or father, young lovers who opt for a lasting marriage, a dedicated doctor caring for a dying cancer patient, or an exhausted parent raising an impossible toddler.

Living means believing that beyond the worst there is the best waiting for us

The key to a real and meaningful life is believing that life is stronger than death. For us Christians, life is always a living person. Jesus has identified himself as the way, the truth and the life. That’s why Easter is rejoicing that, in Jesus, we all have a way leading us to the truth that gives us life.

We just need the courage not to let our earthly food become a deadly trap!

 

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