Fifth Sunday in Lent | March 22nd, 2026 | The Rev. Irene Tanabe

Here we are, the last Sunday in Lent. Next week is Holy Week, and the most solemn days in our liturgical calendar are upon us. But I have to admit, I’ve had a hard time settling down to focus on the journey to the cross. Between the excitement of the world baseball classic, and now that MLB opening day is upon us, my mind has been everywhere but Bethany.

I was with some friends the other day and the topic of conversation was what we would wish for if a genie granted us just one wish. While my friends asked for things like world peace and an end to hunger, I shamefully wished for tickets to opening day, or any day for that matter! It’s easy to laugh, but truth be told, I think I was responding to how unattainable a just and peaceful world would be, what it would feel like. I asked for baseball tickets because I didn’t think I could handle the weight of asking for anything bigger (not that baseball tickets aren’t big!)

We often use distractions to avoid the enormity of the world’s grief, but the season of Lent hasn’t let us stay distracted. It has been a steady movement towards this moment. In the first Sunday in Lent, we began in the wilderness and we learned that we are God’s beloved children. On the second Sunday in Lent, we met Nicodemus and what it means to be born anew. On the third Sunday, we met the Samaritan women, where Jesus broke every social boundary to offer living water to everyone, even those marginalized. Finally, last week, we met the man born blind, who showed us how to seek Jesus step by step, not just as a miracle worker, but as a Savior.

Today, we are at the home of Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. When Jesus arrived, Lazarus was already gone. Martha met Jesus with a catechism answer, a safe, abstract, and religious response. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” But Jesus wasn’t interested in a distant doctrine. He looked her in the eye and said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Not, “I was,” not, “I will be,”, not, “maybe”. No, “I am” now. I am the resurrection now.

When Jesus asked Martha, “Do you believe this?”, he was asking her to believe that God’s power is making a difference in the world right now. God’s power is making a difference in this world right now.

This isn’t an assent to a statement. It’s an assent to a relationship that demands a radical change in how we live. And how must we change? We see it in Jesus’s final command. After calling Lazarus out of the tomb, Jesus turned to the crowd, to the community, and said, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

God performed the miracle, but we are commanded to participate in the unbinding. We unbind our neighbors when we peel away the death wrappings of stigma or shame that keep them isolated. We unbind the grieving when we sit with them long after the funeral flowers have faded. We unbind the oppressed when we work for attainable justice that Rabbi Tarfon spoke of.

Tarfon, a contemporary of the early church, said, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

My wish for baseball tickets was a wish to look away. But Jesus calls us to look at the tomb, and start unrolling the bandages. “I am the resurrection and life,” Jesus to said to Martha, and to me, and to you. Do you believe this? Do you believe that God’s power is making a difference in the world right now? If you do, what will you do? What will you say? How will you be?