Fifth Sunday of Lent 2025 (Year A Readings)

If you’ve ever seen Star Wars , you might remember one of the most dramatic cliffhangers in movie history. At the end of The Empire Strikes Back , one of the main characters—Han Solo—is captured and frozen in a block of carbonite. He’s alive, but completely stuck. Trapped. He can’t speak, can’t move. He’s frozen in darkness. And for the next three years, fans were left wondering: Is that it for Han? Will he ever come back? Even if you’ve never seen the movie, you can picture the scene: someone suspended between life and death. That image—of being stuck, frozen, unable to move—can hit close to home for any of us who have ever felt spiritually or emotionally buried. Now imagine Lazarus. Four days in the tomb. Wrapped in burial cloths. His sisters are heartbroken. The crowd is confused. It looks like the end. And then… Jesus comes. And everything begins to change. Before He works the miracle, Jesus does something surprising. He weeps. He sees Mary and Martha ...