5th Sunday of Lent

My brothers and sisters, I welcome you to the 5th Sunday of Lent. This Fifth Sunday of Lent brings us to the threshold of Holy Week, where the Church places before us two (2) tombs: the first is in the valley of dry bones from Ezekiel—a national grave of exile, hopelessness, and spiritual death scattered across the land. There, God Himself declares through the prophet: "I will open your graves and have you rise from them... I will put my spirit in you that you may live." It is God's promise to a people who felt utterly finished—bones dried up, cut off forever.

THE FIRST TOMB: The Condition of the Israelites

The condition of the people of Israel was one of despair; they felt like a nation that had died and was without hope. The hopeless condition of the Babylonian exile left them with no words, and help seemed very far away. In fact, in Ezekiel 37:11, they explicitly said: "Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, we are cut off." This reflects their sense of irreversible loss. Therefore, God gave the Prophet Ezekiel the dramatic vision of a valley full of dry bones—lifeless, long dead, and forgotten—depicting the true condition of the people of Israel.

WHAT GOD DID TO THAT HOPELESS SITUATION

God asked Prophet Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?" highlighting the impossibility from a human point of view. God was aware of this perspective, yet He commanded Ezekiel to prophesy life to them. God said, "I will open your graves, and put my spirit within you."

IMPLICATION OF GOD’S WORDS

The words from God above are no fairy tale. It is God getting involved and practical about death; our death—both the little and big deaths that bury us alive every day. Think of the graves in your own life right now: the grave of a marriage that has gone cold, where love once danced but now only silence echoes; the grave of a son or daughter who has drifted far from faith, where every prayer feels like it is bouncing off the ceiling; the grave of addictions that chain us tighter every year; the grave of shame from sins long confessed but never quite forgiven in your own heart; the grave of loneliness in a crowded world; the grave of illness that steals your joy bit by bit; or the grave of a lost job. There are many graves hidden in our hearts. God has come to open them, whispering the same words to us today: "I will open them, I will bring you out, and I will breathe my spirit into you, and you will live."

THE VISION AS OUR VISION

My dear brothers and sisters, the vision of Prophet Ezekiel is our vision too, especially in these last days of Lent. God reminds us that He is not yet done with us. He knows what we are passing through and will see us through. Remember also the words of God; He called them "O my people." He did not address them as strangers, nor as statistics or aliens, but as HIS OWN. This means that He equally feels the weight of your pain and knows your name, just as He knew that of Lazarus in the Gospel pericope.

St. Paul, in the second reading, made this practical, especially regarding the Spirit and what it will do in us—the same Spirit that God promised to breathe into the Israelites in their rotten graves. Let us hear St. Paul: "The Spirit will give life to your mortal bodies."

THE SECOND TOMB

In the Gospel, we are presented with the second tomb: the tomb of Lazarus. Imagine for a moment a tomb sealed tight with a heavy stone. Inside lies a man who was once full of life—laughing, loving, walking the dusty roads of Bethany. But now? Only darkness, decay, and the stench of death. Four days dead. His sisters, Martha and Mary, are shattered.

Into that heartbreak steps Jesus—the same Jesus who weeps with them, who feels the weight of their tears in His own eyes. Martha meets Jesus with raw honesty: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Jesus was deeply moved; He was troubled in spirit and He wept (the shortest verse in Scripture). This means our Lord enters our grief, shares our tears, and feels the sting of loss as we do.

He enters your sorrow with you. That divorce you are walking through? He’s weeping beside you. That diagnosis that terrifies you? His tears fall with yours. That child who has wandered from the faith? He feels the ache in His own heart. You are not alone in the tomb. The God who raised Lazarus is the God who stands at the edge of your grave today, tears streaming down His face, saying your name.

He does not stop at sympathy; He commanded the stone to be taken away and Lazarus was brought to life. Oh, how practical this is for us in these final days of Lent! How it touches the raw places in our hearts!

You see, we all have tombs. Not made of stone in some ancient graveyard, but hidden in the ordinary corners of our lives. There’s the tomb of that secret sin we keep locked away: the habit of anger that poisons a marriage, the pornography that steals peace, the resentment we nurse like a dying ember. For some, it is the tomb of grief that won’t let us breathe after losing a child, a spouse, or a partner. The tomb of addiction that whispers, "You will never break free." The tomb of fear that keeps us from forgiving the one who hurt us most.

These have been in our hearts—not just for four days, but for years. As a result, we tell ourselves, "It is too late; the stench would be unbearable if we opened it." Today, as we draw closer to the end of Lent, Jesus commands us to remove every stone that hinders us from coming out of the tomb of sin. He is stretching forth His hands to accept us back. He is not far away, as Martha and Mary might have thought. No! He comes at the appointed time so that the glory of God might be revealed.

May the Lord bless you and keep you always. Amen.

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Tochukwu Igwe, HFFBY