Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent

There is a story of a young couple who received a mirror as a gift on their wedding day. The frame of the mirror was an odd aqua color and they couldn’t find a place where it would look good in their home. They moved a couple of times and brought the mirror with them, but they never could find a place where that aqua color fit in.

A few years passed, and as they were preparing to move again, they decided to have a tag sale to get rid of all their unwanted belongings. Among the items was the mirror with the aqua-colored frame that never once hung on their wall. They put a price tag of $1.00 on the mirror and put it in the yard with all their other unwanted possessions.

During the tag sale, a man was looking at the mirror and called his wife over. He said to her, “Look at this beautiful mirror. The frame is gorgeous and still has the plastic on it.” The couple selling the mirror looked on in horror as the man peeled away the ugly aqua plastic from the frame that revealed a beautifully carved golden frame surrounding the mirror.

In our own lives, there is much beauty and joy that we may never recognize. They are “wrapped” in layers of discouragement and resignation, and even wrapped in the busyness of our lives and schedules.

In baptism, we have been called to the work of resurrection: that is, to remove the “plastic” that covers the goodness and giftedness of so many souls; to free the bound Lazaruses among us who are in need of our compassion, care, and healing, to raise up those who have “died”, in a metaphorical sense, in their own despair and desperation.

This is the kind of resurrection we can bring to our world right now as we await the fulfillment of the Easter promise to come.

During this unprecedented time in our lives, even those of us working from home perhaps find that our lives have a slower pace; we are not bogged down by heavy schedules and errands. Yes, there is plenty for us to do but the urgency, the pressure of our schedules is, hopefully, a little less right now.

Perhaps during these days that we find ourselves “entombed” in the reality of the restrictions this pandemic place on us, we might find the opportunity to peel off that “plastic” that frenetic schedules and constant activity place upon us. Perhaps we can peel back that “plastic” that can sometimes hide the beauty that dwells in our lives, in our families, in our very selves; a beauty that is the life and the love of God.

Let us take our own metaphorical mirrors of reflection and, through our prayer and worship, through our own personal searching, peel back the “plastic,” and recognize the image of God dwelling in us and may we look forward with hope to our Easter celebration of Christ’s Resurrection, as we look forward to our own resurrection from the tomb that is this pandemic, and the Resurrection of the Dead, at the end of time.+