[Salvation]

From: Exodus 34:29-35

Moses’ Shining Face

---

[29] When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testi-
mony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that
the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. [30] And when
Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone,
and they were afraid to come near him. [31] But Moses called to them; and Aaron
and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with
them. [32] And afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he gave them in
commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. [33] And
when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; [34] but
whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off,
until he came out; and when he came out, and told the people of Israel what he
was commanded, [35] the people of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin
of Moses’ face shone; and Moses would put the veil upon his face again, until
he went in to speak with him.

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

34:29-35. The account of the events at Sinai ends with Moses in sharp focus,
his face reflecting the glory of God.

“His face shone” (vv. 29,30, 35). The Hebrew word “qaran”, which means “to
shine, to be radiant”, is very similar to “qeren”, which means “horn”. Hence St
Jerome’s translation in the Vulgate: “And his face turned with bright horns”,
which has had its influence on Christian tradition and art. Michelangelo, for ex-
ample, gave his famous statue of Moses two bright lights, one on each side of
his forehead. Anyway, the sacred author’s point is that Moses was transformed
due to the fact that he had been so near God. The veil covering his face empha-
sizes the transcendence of God: not only can the Israelites not see God; they
cannot even look at the face of Moses, his closest intermediary.

St Paul refers to this episode in order to show the radical superiority of the New
Covenant and the meaning of apostolic ministry, for with the coming of Christ all
has been revealed and man has direct access to the Father (cf. 2 Cor 3:7-18).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

[Salvation]

From: John 11:19-27

The Raising of Lazarus (Continuation)

---

[19] And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them con-
cerning their brother. [20] When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went
and met Him, while Mary sat in the house. [21] Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if
You had been here, my brother would not have died. [22] And even now I know
that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.” [23] Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise again.” [24] Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise
again in the resurrection at the last day.” [25] Jesus said to her, “I am the resur-
rection and the life, he who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, [26]
and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” [27]
She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God,
He who is coming into the world.”

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

1-45. This chapter deals with one of Jesus’ most outstanding miracles. The
Fourth Gospel, by including it, demonstrates Jesus’ power over death, which the
Synoptic Gospels showed by reporting the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mat-
thew 9:25 and paragraph) and of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:12).

The Evangelist first sets the scene (verses 1-16); then he gives Jesus’ conversa-
tion with Lazarus’ sisters (verses 17-37); finally, he reports the raising of Lazarus
four days after his death (verses 38-45). Bethany was only about three kilometers
(two miles) from Jerusalem (verse 18). On the days prior to His passion, Jesus
often visited this family, to which He was very attached. St. John records Jesus’
affection (verses 3, 5, 36) by describing His emotion and sorrow at the death of
His friend.

By raising Lazarus our Lord shows His divine power over death and thereby gives
proof of His divinity, in order to confirm His disciples’ faith and reveal Himself as
the Resurrection and the Life. Most Jews, but not the Sadducees, believed in the
resurrection of the body. Martha believed in it (cf. verse 24).

Apart from being a real, historical event, Lazarus’ return to life is a sign of our
future resurrection: we too will return to life. Christ, by His glorious resurrection
though He is the “first-born from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20; Colossians 1:
18; Revelation 1:5), is also the cause and model of our resurrection. In this His
resurrection is different from that of Lazarus, for “Christ being raised from the
dead will never die again” (Romans 6:9), whereas Lazarus returned to earthly
life, later to die again.

21-22. According to St. Augustine, Martha’s request is a good example of confi-
dent prayer, a prayer of abandonment into the hands of God, who knows better
than we what we need. Therefore, “she did not say, But now I ask You to raise
my brother to life again. [...] All she said was, I know that You can do it; if you
will, do it; it is for you to judge whether to do it, not for me to presume” (”In Ioann.
Evang.”, 49, 13). The same can be said of Mary’s words, which St. John repeats
at verse 32.

24-26. Here we have one of those concise definitions Christ gives of Himself, and
which St. John faithfully passes on to us (cf. John 10:9; 14:6; 15:1): Jesus is the
Resurrection and the Life. He is the Resurrection because by His victory over
death He is the cause of the resurrection of all men. The miracle He works in
raising Lazarus is a sign of Christ’s power to give life to people. And so, by faith
in Jesus Christ, who arose first from among the dead, the Christian is sure that
he too will rise one day, like Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:23; Colossians 1;18).
Therefore, for the believer death is not the end; it is simply the step to eternal life,
a change of dwelling-place, as one of the Roman Missal’s Prefaces of Christian
Death puts it: “Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the
body of our earthly dwelling lies in death, we gain an everlasting dwelling place in
Heaven”.

By saying that He is Life, Jesus is referring not only to that life which begins be-
yond the grave, but also to the supernatural life which grace brings to the soul of
man when he is still a wayfarer on this earth.

“This life, which the Father has promised and offered to each man in Jesus
Christ, His eternal and only Son, who ‘when the time had fully come’ (Galatians
4:4), became incarnate and was born of the Virgin Mary, is the final fulfillment of
man’s vocation. It is in a way the fulfillment of the ‘destiny’ that God has prepared
for him from eternity. This ‘divine destiny’ is advancing, in spite of all the enigmas,
the unsolved riddles, the twists and turns of ‘human destiny’ in the world of time.
Indeed, while all this, in spite of all the riches of life in time, necessarily and inevi-
tably leads to the frontiers of death and the goal of the destruction of the human
body, beyond that goal we see Christ. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, He who
believes in Me...shall never die.’ In Jesus Christ, who was crucified and laid in the
tomb and then rose again, ‘our hope of resurrection dawned...the bright promise
of immortality’ (”Roman Missal”, Preface of Christian Death, I), on the way to
which man, through the death of the body, shares with the whole of visible crea-
tion the necessity to which matter is subject” (Bl. John Paul II, “Redemptor Ho-
minis”, 18).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.