There is a striking honesty in today’s Gospel: Jesus arrives late. Lazarus is already dead. Martha even says what many of us quietly feel: “Lord, if you had been here…” We know that sentence. We have prayed it in hospital rooms, in grief, in moments when God seems delayed.

Yet the heart of the Gospel is this: Jesus is not late, He is revealing something deeper. He does not simply prevent death; He conquers it. Jesus re-affirms: “I am the resurrection and the life.” He did not say, I will be, but I am. Resurrection is not just an event; it is a Person standing before us. Jesus is the Resurrection!

Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones speaks into every place in us that feels lifeless, relationships gone cold, faith grown tired, hope buried. And St. Paul reminds us that the Spirit who raised Jesus already dwells within us. The problem is not God’s absence, but our resistance to letting Him breathe.

In many homes, especially after a long day, someone forgets to plug in the phone. By morning, it is dead, not because it is broken, but because it was not connected to a source of life. Many Christians live like that, good people, sincere, but unplugged from the living Christ.

This is why the Eucharist matters. Here, Jesus does not stand outside the tomb; Jesus enters into us. The same voice that cried, “Lazarus, come out,” now whispers, “Receive me.” And in receiving Him, we are reconnected to divine life.

So, when we come forward to receive, do not come casually, we are not performing a ritual. We are stepping out of the tomb. We are saying: “Lord, call me again. Breathe in me again. Live in me again.” So, come as one who wants to live again. Place before Him whatever feels broken and buried. And hear Jesus say, not in the past, but now, “Come out.”

Jesus will make you live! Because His words are always effective: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Your Priest,

Fr. Charles Enyinnia