23rd Sunday after Pentecost 4.11.07 Resurrection
They laughed at Jesus when He said the girl was only sleeping. But who had the last laugh? We have since learned to call death ‘sleep’, as when in each Mass we pray for those who have gone before us and ‘dormiunt in somno pacis.’
Jesus has power over life and death and to Him it is just sleep. He can call forth life as easily as waking someone up. Death might look permanent to us but to God it is no more than falling asleep.
We have to let our view of death be absorbed in His and let ourselves be freed from the prison of lack of faith.
In that prison we are overcome with fear and doubt, but once outside in the sunlight we can see a lot further, and we see that death dissolves like morning dew in the face of God’s majesty.
Death looks permanent because it is as far as we have experienced so far, but that is just our limitation not God’s.
God has times and places for His miraculous work. He had told us clearly that we will rise again, and He has made it known that this earthly pilgrimage is only a short phase to a much longer eternity. It is therefore not His normal plan to bring people back to life on earth. There has to be a time to leave this life and go to the final place.
When He does work a miracle of resurrection or healing it is to remind us of His power. He could easily go through the entire local cemetery and bring everyone there back to life, but that is not in the best interests of everyone. (especially not the ones who are already in heaven - they would definitely not want to come back).
So we should not wish the dead back with us, but rather wish we were with them. All in due time.
The main point for us now is to realize that God has complete power over life and death. Death is no more of a stumbling block to Him than it was to create the universe, which He did by a mere word. If He can create from nothing just by a word, then bringing back to life is another mere word.
Many sceptics would say there can be no resurrection (because they have never seen one). But looking around at all the other signs of God’s creative power we can infer that resurrection is highly likely to be within God’s reach.
If it did not happen it would not be because God lacked the power, but simply that He did not want to raise people.
As we see He does not generally want to raise people back to this earthly life, but He does very much want to raise them to eternal life.
And He wants us to believe in His power and desire to do so. So that we do not let the sadness of death diminish our faith in Him nor our desire to reach heaven.
Our problem is just that we cannot have everything all at once, and we are like children impatient for their birthday gifts as we wonder why this, and why that; instead of just letting God take control.
As the woman in the crowd demonstrates, it only takes one touch to receive a blessing from God. He is not difficult to extract favours from; the difficult part is getting us to believe in Him and not be imprisoned in worldly thinking.
So as we begin November let us believe in God as Lord and giver of life: cf Creed… Dominum et vivificantem. And pour out prayers for life to return to those who sleep in death, that they will not only rise in body but in soul, free from sin and every form of suffering. And for the living that they will rise in soul. Death in any form can be overcome and will be if we but ‘touch the hem of His garment’, approaching in simple faith.
