Lectionary Commentaries for March 22, 2026
Fifth Sunday in Lent

The story of the resurrection of Lazarus begins in a very human place: Two sisters tell Jesus that one “whom you love” is sick (John 11:3). They do not tell him what to do; they tell him what they know. And then they wait.

In the Gospel of John, it makes sense that Jesus delays coming to these sisters and Lazarus not because he does not care (11:5) but because Lazarus’s resurrection will reveal the glory of God (11:4) and therefore lead directly to Jesus’s own death (11:45–53). Because of that context, this story does not answer the questions on our hearts: Why does Jesus delay—for Martha and Mary, or for us? Why does a healing need to wait, or never come?

In the face of those important questions, this story simply proclaims Jesus’s love, even in his absence. It is that same love that undergirds his presence when he arrives. As Jesus initiates this journey with his disciples (11:7), Thomas tells the others that they should go with him, “that we may die with him” (11:16). John’s audience will meet Thomas again (John 14, 20). Here, Thomas’s words seem in good faith: He understands the risks of Jesus’s return to Judea, where others have sought Jesus’s life before (7:44; 8:59; 10:31–39). He is saying they should follow Jesus to the end. Later, readers hear that it is Jesus’s love that sustains to the end (13:2). This love creates the context for the ways that Martha, Mary, and Lazarus react to Jesus, each modeling different types of faithful responses.

Faithfulness and proclamation: Martha

Martha does not wait at home when she hears that Jesus is coming; she goes to meet him (11:20), and she speaks first. She addresses Jesus as “Lord,” claiming that his presence with Lazarus would have prevented her brother’s death, and that she does not doubt that God will give Jesus whatever Jesus asks for (11:21–22). This remarkable statement combines grief for her brother’s death and faith in Jesus’s relationship to God. As Jesus does with other interlocutors throughout John’s Gospel, he makes a statement (“Your brother will rise again”) that is both true in the context of the narrative (11:44) and also easy to interpret in ways that are different from that meaning (11:24). 

Martha’s response leads to Jesus’s disclosure: “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25). Jesus proclaims “I am” statements in 14 passages in John’s Gospel. Nowhere else does someone respond to the proclamation with a statement of belief. Martha not only says, “Yes, Lord, I believe,” but she places that language of belief in the context of the Gospel’s proclamation about Jesus: Jesus is the Messiah (3:28; 4:26; 9:22, 35–38), the Son of God (1:34, 49; 3:16–18), “the one coming into the world” (1:9; 3:31; 6:51; 8:23; 18:37). 

Martha’s confession of belief is one of the three central confessions in John’s Gospel, joining Peter (“You are the Holy One of God,” 6:69) and Thomas (“My Lord and my God!,” 20:28). Her courageous faith in the face of grief and disappointment is remarkable in this proclamation.

Faithfulness and mourning: Mary

Mary quickly goes to Jesus, who is calling for her (11:28), as a sheep hears the voice of the shepherd (10:4). Mary greets Jesus with the same words as Martha: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” but she is in a different posture, kneeling at Jesus’s feet (11:32). 

John’s narrative introduced Mary at the beginning of the account of this family: “Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair” (11:2). Even though that story is yet to come in John’s Gospel (12:1–8), Mary’s posture is the same in both stories: She is at Jesus’s feet. Mary’s faithfulness is characterized not by what she says but by what she does. She kneels at Jesus’s feet, and she weeps publicly for her brother (11:33).

While Mary’s words begin in the same way that Martha’s did, she does not follow them with statements of belief but, rather, with actions of faith. She draws near to Jesus in her grief, even though she attributes her brother’s death to Jesus’s absence. It is Mary’s grief that provides an opportunity for Jesus to respond differently. Jesus loves Lazarus (11:3, 5, 36) but is “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” 

Often, the Greek word translated as “deeply moved” is used in contexts to communicate anger (see Mark 1:43; 14:5). Jesus could be angry about the presence of the crowd of mourners, or at death itself, but it is also possible that to isolate emotions surrounding death is a fool’s errand. Jesus is deeply moved due to Mary’s response and his own. In this way, Mary’s actions show her devotion to Jesus, and his mirroring of her response illustrates how he values her faithfulness.

Faithfulness and listening: Lazarus

Each of the siblings indicates something about what faithfulness to Jesus looks like. This seems profoundly difficult for Lazarus, who spends most of the story in a tomb. This tomb sounds like it is very much like Jesus’s own tomb, with a stone that could be positioned in front of its cave-like opening (11:38; 20:1). Similarly, people approach the tomb expecting death (20:1–2) and finding life. 

Lazarus demonstrates his faithfulness to Jesus by emerging from the tomb when Jesus calls him (11:43–44), because a sheep hears the voice of the shepherd (10:4). Of course, this makes an additional theological point: Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and therefore, death has no hold on him or those who are his (11:25–26). 

There is one final difference between Lazarus’s resurrection and Jesus’s resurrection. John’s Gospel emphasizes that Jesus’s linen grave clothes (loose wrappings, not mummification) are left in the tomb on Easter morning (20:5–7). Lazarus’s grave clothes, on the other hand, emerge from the tomb with him. Of course, this could signal that death will come again for Lazarus. However, given Jesus’s command (“Unbind him, and let him go,” 11:44), the focus here is on the community gathered. Jesus gives them work to do to welcome Lazarus. Resurrected life needs a community; Jesus restores Lazarus to his, and Lazarus will provide them an opportunity to grow in their trust in God (11:45).

The Valley of Dry Bones is perhaps the best-known text from the book of Ezekiel. In it, the Spirit of the Lord leads the prophet back and forth throughout a valley filled with bones. Or perhaps the Breath of the Lord leads him; the word is the same in Hebrew, rûaḥ. The Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, and they respond; bones come together, tendons and flesh appear on them, and skin covers them (Ezekiel 37:4–8a). But still “there was no breath [or spirit] in them” (verse 8b). So the Lord commands the prophet to prophesy to the breath (or spirit), and he does. “I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered [the slain]; and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude” (verse 10a).  

If the Dry Bones text is the best-known passage from Ezekiel, the runner-up comes from the directly preceding chapter. This chapter also contains a kind of “Bio Rebuild”: The Lord promises there to remove the people’s heart of stone and to give them a heart of flesh. Many Christians have heard the phrase “heart of flesh” through its repetition by the apostle Paul, who quotes it, from the ancient Greek translation, in 2 Corinthians 3:3. This body imagery, like the enfleshment of bones, testifies to a radical divine restart. 

Like the Dry Bones, the Bio Rebuild process of this (second-best-known) Heart-of-Flesh prophecy climaxes with the endowment of breath or spirit—or perhaps Breath or Spirit, since it is the Lord’s Spirit. The Lord says: “I will put my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:27–28). 

The Bio Rebuild in both Ezekiel texts thus follows three distinct steps: The fleshly human avatar is put together. It is animated by breath. Then, once enlivened, it takes up residence in the place God created to be its home. Indeed, both prophecies, the Dry Bones and the Heart-of-Flesh, attend to the land. In Ezekiel’s view, Israel, the people, does not—cannot—experience vivification outside the land of Israel. 

The very final verse of the Dry Bones passage presents the threefold sequence: “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil” (37:14). The Heart-of-Flesh prophecy similarly pictures Israel’s thriving in terms of life on the soil—agricultural abundance: “The land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by” (36:34; see also 36:29–30). In fact, the Heart-of-Flesh prophecy compares the thriving of the land to the garden of Eden: “They will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified’” (36:31). 

This reference to the garden of Eden draws forward the creation quality of the national restart that both Ezekiel prophecies envision. The tripartite process parallels that of Genesis 2: There, in the beginning, the Lord God fashions a human body out of the soil; he breathes into its nostrils the breath of life; and he settles the human, now a “living being,” in the garden (Genesis 2:7–8). 

The prophet Ezekiel accesses this creation memory in order to declare the sheer divine source of Israel’s hope. The Lord alone can replace one heart with another and put flesh on dry bones. The Lord alone can gift breath or spirit; the Lord alone makes the earth livable; the Lord alone can take a scattered and demoralized nation and bring them home. 

This thoroughgoing insistence on the Lord’s power is a deep caution and a deep encouragement to us in this Lenten season. It is a caution because both creation and re-creation lie fundamentally beyond human ability. We cannot form our own bodies; we are, rather, “knit together in [our] mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13b). So likewise, we cannot create a new “heart of flesh” that is ready to follow God’s will. We cannot regenerate desiccated bones. 

Whether it is our own breath or the Spirit-Breath of God, we cannot produce it; we must receive it. These cautionary considerations hang over any efforts we make: to improve ourselves; to follow through on resolutions; to intensify our spiritual practice. However much or little these succeed, they simply do not amount to the radical divine restart that the Dry Bones and the Heart-of-Flesh imagine. 

The encouragement these prophecies offer consists in this: The Lord has committed to doing it, and the Lord will follow through. “I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it” (36:36b; compare 37:14). The book of Ezekiel emphasizes that the Lord accomplishes these recreative acts for the sake of the divine name—and that the Lord personally undertakes them and does not rely on any understudies or delegates. “I myself will search for my sheep and will sort them out” (35:11b); “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep” (35:15). The Lord promises: “I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you” (37:6). 

God’s power and God’s promise are our surety as we consider our limitations and infirmities: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely. … The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this” (1 Thessalonians 5:23a, 24). 

In Psalm 130, the writer calls out to God from the depths of human suffering, hoping for, expecting, and insisting on God’s hearing.¹

The psalmist has every confidence that God will hear and respond to every cry of pain because mercy, the writer insists, is who God is.

The lament of Psalm 130 is familiar to our hearing and our living. The psalmist cries out to God from “the depths” (verse 1), from the darkest abyss of human suffering. That abyss takes different shapes in individual and communal human life, but we all have had or will have some experience of it, and not always tangentially.

Grief, depression, illness, poverty, abuse—any of these experiences, and so many more, can plunge us into a darkness so deep that it can feel almost like death. That the abyss, the pit, the deep is so centrally and universally a part of human life is reflected in the Psalms’ repeated reference to it, as in 16:10; 40:2; and 69:2. Augustine, in his exposition on Psalm 130, likened the abyss to the belly of the whale in which Jonah was trapped: Jonah’s abyss was deep in the water, in the yawning center of the whale’s body, tangled in the very “entrails of the beast.”²

In verses 1 and 2, that cry is a demand to be heard, an insistence that God listen to the voice of torment: “Pay attention to my suffering, and for heaven’s sake, have mercy on me!” Often such a demand issues from a sense of God’s absence in the depths. Pain, whether physical, psychological, spiritual, or some combination, can be so isolating that we feel abandoned to our misery, even by God.

But the careful structure of Psalm 130 indicates that the demand here issues not from a sense of abandonment but from a certainty that God will hear. The writer cries out from the sure conviction that God cares. Verse 5 states that the psalmist trusts in the promises God has made and waits for their fulfillment, and twice in verse 6 the psalmist describes his or her soul as waiting for the Lord “more than those who watch for the morning.” This phrase may refer to those who, after a night of prayer, receive confirmation of God’s redemption with the new light of dawn. The psalmist is asserting that he or she lives with even greater certainty of God’s attention than these.

Is this the pious boasting of a holier-than-thou jerk, eager to show us up in the faithfulness department? Actually, this text is a careful statement about God’s character, not the psalmist’s, and the key to this understanding is found in verses 3 and 4. “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.”

The psalmist is not asserting the power of God’s judgment or even the extent of human sin, as these verses are often read. The writer is telling us that God is not the kind of God under whose judgment the sinner withers. Rather, there is forgiveness with God. Forgiveness, in other words, is who God is.

This psalm is about the very character of God, which remains steadfast even in the abyss. God is not to be feared because of the wrath of God’s judgment, but God is revered because “with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem” (verse 7). God’s unchanging love is the essence of who God is, and God’s power is precisely the power to redeem.

It is this God, the writer argues—the God who is mercy and love—who will redeem the people. In similar laments, like Psalm 25:6, the psalmist must call upon God to remember God’s mercy. Not here. Here the writer calls on us to remember that God is mercy. We need this reminder especially in the depths of misery. Augustine says that Jonah’s prayer, uttered from the depths of the whale’s body, was not contained by that body. Jonah’s prayer “penetrated all things, it burst through all things, it reached the ears of God.”³

Even the prayer that issues from the utter abandonment of human suffering reaches God’s ears, is heard and answered by the God whose very being is love. What’s more, Augustine continues, that love not only hears, but becomes a companion who leads us on our way.⁴ God hears the cry from the abyss, meets us in the depth of our pain, and accompanies us in and through it, sharing in our suffering and leading us toward the light of God’s redemption.

The sad truth is that human beings can be downright unmade in the depths. The deepest suffering not only can tear at our flesh and our hearts; it can strip us of all that makes us who we are, such that we feel that our very selves are lost. To someone in this state, whose stolen self is unable to issue the prayer for God’s hearing, what does Psalm 130 offer?

Together with the gentle companionship of others who have known suffering and redemption, the words of Psalm 130 can be a healing balm to the shattered soul, offering assurance of God’s endless mercy and of the divine companionship that will remake all that is broken. Psalm 130 issues a calling to the assembled to claim for each and all of us the vast mercy of God and to companion one another through and out of the myriad abysses we each and all encounter.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for April 6, 2014.
2. Augustine, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm 130, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 614, par. 1, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.ii.CXXX.html.
3. Ibid., par. 1.
4. Ibid., par. 3.

Romans 8 presents a rather somber narrative. In verses 18–30, Paul depicts creation as subjected to futility, characterized by a search for hope amid purposelessness. I see this passage as deeply realistic, highly relevant, and intriguingly paradoxical. Let me explain. First, it resonates with realism because, from both philosophical and theological perspectives, finding meaning is among the most difficult human tasks. Second, Paul’s view is relevant because we are ourselves in a crisis of meaning. And finally, it is paradoxical because, despite the perceived difficulty of finding grounding principles in our context, as humans we cannot aspire to a life worth living without some form of meaning.

Romans 8 begins with strong references to the flesh and the spirit. Paul compares the flesh without the spirit to creation without the Creator. Similar to how the Spirit redeems the flesh, creation’s suffering waits in the hope of God’s glory (verse 21).

In the Christian context, Paul’s mention of flesh often brings up sexual sin, lust, or generally giving in to “negative influences in the world.” The term “flesh” refers to the physical part of our bodies, the very core of our being. Physicality appears related also to moral corruption and spiritual decline. As Paul explains, living according to the flesh is very different from living according to the spirit, even though the exact meanings of these concepts are somewhat unclear. In Romans 7:25, he says that with his mind he serves God’s law, but his flesh serves the law of sin.

It is hardly surprising that “flesh” has become linked with immorality, leading to a long-standing ascetic tradition. Punishing the flesh, if we follow this development, is a way to force the body to submit solely to the soul. Many scholarly works have examined Paul’s dualism—or lack thereof—and explored the possible influences of Plato, Neoplatonism, and other Hellenic philosophical traditions. These are indeed important issues that require careful thought to interpret Pauline anthropological assumptions accurately. However, my focus here is on a somewhat different question: What are the implications for communal living when we see the flesh as material? What are the implications for our sense of belonging when we see creation unhinged from meaning?

Some scholars have argued that the term “flesh” in Paul’s writings may encompass not only the physical body, with its accompanying passions and emotions, but also the seemingly insatiable desire for material possessions and the inclination to adhere to the societal norms that imperial powers impose. When applied to contemporary society, living according to the flesh could be interpreted as embodying a capitalist ideology. Similarly, Paul’s portrayal of creation as “suffering” and “waiting eagerly for the revealing of the children of God” (8:19) echoes our contemporary global context where creation is at the service of exploitative ideas and practices.

There is considerable consensus that our current unchecked capitalist mindset fundamentally contradicts core biblical values. In this interpretation, Paul’s assertion in Romans 8:8 that “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” could be seen as a reiteration of the sentiments expressed in Matthew 6:25 and Luke 6:13. Similarly, the idea that creation “will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21) functions as warning against those who identify Christianity with unfettered free markets.

So, what is the valence of the flesh and the material world as we think of how to live according to Paul’s ethical invitations?

It is prevalent in cultural narratives, both past and present, to ascribe specific values to individuals based on their identities. For example, within North American culture, African Americans have often been subject to sexualization, while their physicality is frequently viewed as more resilient to suffering. Similarly, women seem inherently more sensual, with their sexuality often carrying negative connotations. The concept of purity is also differently construed between men and women. These phenomena, while significant, are less about the idea of “flesh” itself and more closely connected to the societal frameworks and ideologies that shape our understanding of what is considered material.

The letters of Paul are not immune to these cultural dynamics, as they reflect the prevailing societal attitudes toward the body and its role. We must remember, for instance, that first-century Rome operated within a slave society that regarded slaves as mere “flesh” devoid of spirit and similarly viewed free women as especially vulnerable to base fleshly desires.

Romans 8:9 states that believers dwell not “in the flesh” but “in the Spirit,” specifically the Spirit of Christ, which imparts life even when the body is rendered mortal due to sin. Paul further emphasizes that distinctions such as slave or free, male or female, are inconsequential in Christ (Galatians 3:28). This seemingly egalitarian passage continues to be aspirational, but we should notice that Paul himself did not entirely live up to the idea.

For example, in Galatians, Paul draws a significant connection between flesh and Hagar/slavery. This complex theological discourse is rooted in a rich Hebrew Bible narrative. Notably, Paul contrasts Hagar and her descendants as those born “according to the flesh,” with Sarah’s son, born “according to the Spirit” (a similar argument is made in Romans 9:8).

In this context, we observe a series of dichotomies—though not all equally robust and some influenced by later interpretations—such as flesh/spirit, slavery/freedom, Judaism/Christianity, and the tension between the roles of persecutor and persecuted. These dichotomies are informed by cultural and theological associations that link body and flesh to concepts often associated with condemnation.

From these reflections, we may say that “flesh” sparks ambivalence; it possesses the potential for constructive interpretation or perilous consequences. The outcome largely depends on the specific context, the message we aim to convey, and the theoretical framework we bring into the discussion. The same considerations apply to our understanding of creation (Romans 8:18–21). We could read Paul as saying that creation is suffering because of how we have created an economic system that invalidates our humanity, or we could interpret Paul as disengaged with the material circumstances of our own destruction. While in the first case we are called to action, in the second we remain complicit with the pernicious effects of a disembodied faith.