3/22/26 Autobiography: Epilogue

I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry

for the one who gave everything to feed you.

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up at ascensionpress.com/sunday, or by texting Sunday 2-3-3-7-7-7-7-7. You can also follow or subscribe to your podcast app for weekly notifications, God bless. The Lord be with you, and with your spirit, a reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. The Lord is you, a Lord. Chapter 11 verses 1-45.

Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha, Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with the perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus, who was ill. So this sister sent word to Jesus, saying, "Master, the one you love is ill." When Jesus heard this, he said, "This illness is not to end in death, but it is for the

glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this, he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea, the disciples said

“to him Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you wanted to go back there."”

Jesus answered, "Are there not 12 hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of the world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." He said this, and then he told them, "Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I'm going to wake him."

So that the disciples said to him, "Master, if he's asleep, he'll be saved." But Jesus was talking about his death. So I thought he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them, "Clearly, Lazarus has died." And I'm glad for you that I was not there that you may believe.

Let us go to him. So Thomas called Didamus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go to die with him." When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away, and many of the Jews who had come

“to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother when Martha heard that Jesus was”

coming. She went to meet him, but Mary said at home, Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died." But even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise."

Martha said to him, "I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, even if he dies will live."

And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this? She said, "Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, "The teacher is here and is asking for you."

As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews were with her at in the house, comforting her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." And Jesus saw her weeping. And the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Sir, come and see."

And Jesus wept. So the Jews had said, "See how he loved him." But some of them said, "Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died." So Jesus.

Returbed again, came to the tomb, it was a cave, with a stone layup, cross it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone. Martha, the dead man sits sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench. He's been dead for four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone.

And Jesus raised his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you

always hear me. But because of the crowd here, I have said this, that they may believe

that you have sent me." And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, Lazarus, "Come out. The dead man came out, tied hand in foot with burial bands and his face wrapped in a cloth." So Jesus said to them, "On tie him and let him go." So many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him,

Mary is the Lord of Jesus Christ. Why did you never see?

“So I want one of my, a lot of us have guilty pleasure things, right?”

So one of my guilty pleasure TV shows, I don't know why, but all of them, almost all of them are surrounded reality TV. I don't know why, maybe it's me. You're escaping reality by going to reality TV. But one of these shows, I haven't watched it in a while, one of these shows was a TV show called "Barrer Rescue."

And the "Barrer Rescue" was always the same set up. The "Barrer Rescue," it's one of those

kind of genre like a homestead rescue where the expert rescuer comes in. So "Barrer Rescue" was always the same story. It was this bar that was struggling. They were in debt. They didn't know how to run a bar. And here, all of a sudden, they bring in John Taffer. John Taffer is the expert rescuer. And again, it's always the same. They set up cameras in the bar and he's going to watch, he's doing a stick out. And it's one night, he's

in his escalated out in the parking lot with maybe his assistants and they sent, I sent

“some people into the bar to see what they're doing, right? And he watches until he can't”

take it anymore. He's like, "I got to go in there." He comes in, he just yells at everybody. He yells at the staff, he yells at the owners, he yells at everyone out of here. And

he just flips tables. And the next day, it's always the same thing. The next day, he comes

in and he's like, "You kind of got off on the wrong foot last night, didn't we?" Like, yeah, because you just flipped out. Anyway, it's good TV. But I've noticed this. That illness every bar was you episode. There was at least one of three villains. You know, if I say villains, like the obstacles, right? It's either the staff, the staff isn't competent or there are thieves or something's going on. The leadership, you know, sometimes they don't

know what they're doing. It's like, you know, my dad had this bar and he died. So I'm running the bar and they're in debt and they're bankrupt all these things. Or it's the facility itself. Like, it's disgusting. It's it's run down. It's not the right vibe. They're processes aren't working. So it's one of those three things. And when John Taffer does,

he's the expert rescue, right? He trains up the staff. Okay. Why would I, we're going to

let you show you how to do all these things. He, he coaches the leadership and he says, okay, I'm going to get you set up so that you can have success or he fixes the facility. In fact, it's the rescue is like this renovation where it's like they get all this new equipment, maybe a new vibe for the bar that's more, you know, to the, the local, that kind of situation. It's kind of a fun show, right? Just kind of cathartic. But my favorite part of the show is

sometimes they'll do this thing where they'll come back a year later, right? And they're like, okay, where are they now? And I just love seeing this. Like, because sometimes sometimes it works. Sometimes it's like, yeah, we're, we're firing all cylinders now. Your rescue, John Tafer, as we have to get our bar. But sometimes the word they now isn't, isn't what people are hoping it would be. Again, after all this after like, be, just completely free gift.

This person comes in, John Tafer. And he, they don't have to pay anything, but they get coached. They don't have to pay anything, but they get trained. They don't pay anything, but they get hold no renovation of the bar. And it's all done completely for free. And then the question, of course, is, after all this, did it help? After all this massive gift, did it help? What does life look like now? What is life after like, this whole, let we've been following this series

“called autobiography. And the reality, of course, of autobiography is that every life is a story. And”

every person is an author. And the question of our lives is this, is who will we, who will we become at the end of the story? And there are sometimes in some stories where you get a bonus chapter. And that bonus chapter is answers the question, what is life like after? What's life after? You know, the gospel today is a heartbreaking gospel of the story of Lazarus. But that's not just a story of Lazarus. It's the story of Martha and Mary's. Well, you can imagine,

because many of you have been there. Here's Mary, Martha, and their brother is sick. And you can imagine, they are praying. You can imagine that they're just okay. We just got to hold out hope. We just got to pray. In fact, they even send word to Jesus. Like if Jesus would just show up, our prayers be answered. And then you imagine, here's Mary Martha, who are with Lazarus at the moment of his death. And many of you have been there, right? Many of you have been in that place where

the person you love, they take their last breath and it's that moment. And there's something you haven't been in the situation where it's not just the moment of death, but it's those moments after death. We're just kind of like, I don't know what to do now. We've been praying. You've been holding out hope. Now they're dead. And there's that sense of waiting, waiting for the hospital, the people to come in, waiting for the corner to show up or the funeral home to come in. It's just like,

there's this sense of just the moment after death. And then, of course, there's the acceptance of, okay, when you leave the hospital or wherever they had passed away, you go back to your home.

the practical decisions, you're what do we do now? And then there's the funeral. And then there's

“the burial. And then everything's done. This is what Mary Martha said. There was the funeral.”

There was the burial. And now the story's over. Lazarus is story's over. This lamp we've also been following, the story of the prodigal son. And and we have followed that younger son, right? The younger son, who, the picture we get of him is he's been given so much. He has a father who loves him. And he goes to his father and he asks for what he wants. And he gets what he wants. It's remarkable. And then what does he do? He does what he wants.

And then he gets what he's chosen. This is the reality, right? Is he takes this property that was given to him? And then he goes and he does whatever he wants. And then he gets what he deserves. It's here's a younger son, right? But then he wants to live life on his own terms and then he ends up on his own. And he is starving. And he hires no stuff out to work for the, one of the local farmers that tend to swine. And his story is over. And then in both the story of Lazarus and the

story of the younger son were introduced to the reality of grace. In this changes everything. When we introduce to the reality of grace, here's Lazarus, right? His story is over. And then Jesus, here's Lazarus, his story is over. And then grace, what happens? In this, in this gospel today, we hear, we see the heart of Jesus. Now in two ways, we see the heart of his identity. And we see the heart of his heart. What I mean by that is we see the heart of his identity. He is God. He is the

Lord over life and death. And we also see the heart of Jesus, not just the heart of his identity,

“but the heart of his heart. And he lets his heart be broken because he cares. So what does he do?”

He goes to the tomb. Roll away the stone. They roll away the stone. And Jesus utteres three words. He simply says, Lazarus, come out. And then John writes, John who is there, right? And the dead man

came out. You can imagine, can this is amazing? This is so incredible that the last line of

today's gospel is what? Because of this, many people came to believe in Jesus. And that's the story. Right? That's the story. He's Lazarus who has been restored. He's Lazarus who by God's grace, because of God's love for him, because of God's power over life and over death. He gets a bonus chapter. There's this line. It's really interesting line. Where Jesus as Lazarus comes out, Jesus tells people he says, untie him and let him go.

And I want to ask the question, go where? I know if you've ever thought about this. If this is a huge moment of Lazarus's story, right? He was dead. He's alive again. And then what? Have you ever wondered, like what did his life look like after? What was life after for Lazarus? Have you ever wondered that the question that's the question like, where are they now? It's the bonus chapter. It's what you're writing on a biography when you're writing a story.

It's what they call the epilogue. And this is the crazy thing. Maybe the first time you ever heard

that term epilogue. A lot of our students, the first time they ever came across that word epilogue, was the end of book seven of the Harry Potter series, right? Then you guys know this one, where you get to the end of book seven, Deathly Hallows. And it's like 19, epilogue, 19 years later. They're back at the platform, 93/4. They're getting the Hogwarts Express in and turns out that Harry ends up marrying Jenny and Ron ends up marrying Hermione. And they have kids and they have

cousins, all these kind of things. It's one of those situations where like, okay, after the big thing that happened, this is the bonus chapter. As the big thing that happened, here's where they are now. And after the big thing that happened, it's the epilogue. Epilogue actually comes from the Greek, right? Epi, which means upon or after and logos. It's the afterward. What happens afterwards? What happened to Lazarus after this? Or even what happened to the prodigal son after this? I mean,

“right, his life is over, but then grace happens. He says, I'll get up and go to my father.”

I know I'm going to be called your son. Treat me as one of your servants. He gets up, well, he's still a long way off. We know this story. It's not all there's scenes and runs

And then the father does something incredible. It's, it's all grace. The, the younger son's story

was over. The story was done. And then the father says, quickly, and he does four things. There's quickly, get the finest robe and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger, sandals sort of feet, and then they're going to slaughter the fatten calf and celebrate. I think sometimes we can hear those three, the first three things. The last one, the fatty calf. That's, that's just celebration, right? But the first three things that the father gives his, his prodigal son, the finest robe,

the ring, and the sandals. They all mean something. I mean, because think about this. In the ancient world, in the first century, you don't have a, you don't have a closet full of fine robes. Right? You have, in your family, you have one robe. That's nice. So you have one finest robe. And the

“father says, you can get that robe. The best thing we have, and put it on this kid. It's, it's,”

it's, it's, it's free gift. It's grace. The best thing we have, put it on him. And then the ring, the ring would have been like a, a signet ring, right? They would have the insignia of the father, the insignia of the family crest member, then when the son left, he didn't just want to take his own, have his own property. He didn't just want to have money. He wanted to have nothing to do with the family. You have nothing to do with the father. And the father says, get that

family ring and put it on his finger. And then sandals for a feet, what's that mean? Well sandals for a feet is servants. They go barefoot. But sons have sandals. And so all three of these gifts, they're, it's all, it's all grace that finest robe with that. It's a sign of honor. Here's this kiddie comes back in shame. But the father says, nino, get our, find it the best thing we have put it on him. It's a sign of honor. The ring, it's a sign of authority. And the sandals,

“not only, it's two things. That only is at a sign of freedom. Basically, here's sandals. If you”

want, you can walk away again. It's also a sign of sonship. So there's finest robe that's honor, the ring, that's authority. And the shoes that's a sign of sonship, these, you see, all of this is grace. None of it is earned. None of this is deserved. In fact, the opposite is what he deserves.

But here's what the son is. He is fully restored. And he's given a bonus chapter. He's given an epilogue.

And this is the thing, this is what grace does. It's what grace has done for us. It's because we realize it, because what Jesus has done for us, and it's like that, that's the resurrection, because it's all what he's done for us. Because of that, we're who lost, we can be found. Because what Jesus has done for us, we who are dead, can come to life again. And because what Jesus has done, we who have wandered away or run away, we can be restored.

And this is the reality. This happens every time we go to confession, every time you and I allow the Father to love us, allow God's grace to meet us. What happens is we're given a bonus story, our bonus chapter, where we realize our story isn't over. This is the epilogue.

“And there's the question, what does life look like now?”

You know, for this whole pray 40, it's been called the return. What happens after? What is life like after there's the return? Because we know this. We know that the younger son, he doesn't come home because he loves the Father, he loves the family. He comes home because he's desperate. The question is, will he stay? When he's no longer desperate, will he stick around? Why will he say, how will he stay? The question is,

because the grace that was given to him was is free and unearned. What does he do with it? What will he do with the bonus chapter? What will he do with the epilogue? What will he do with grace? I told all our students this story. Sometimes, a bunch of years ago, it was summertime. I was at my parents' place over two and a half hours away on the lake. And I had to get back to Duluth for a daily mass, a daily mass in the afternoon.

And so I had spent the morning on the lake. It was just a great kind of like a relaxed time. So I hopped in the car and drive him back to Duluth. And I just got my shorts, you know, sandals on that kind of situation, not dressed, you know, clerics and everything. And I was going a little over the speed limit. And so I got, state trooper, woo, you know, pulls me over. So I got a cute dang. And so he's like, ah, go on a little fast. Do you know, where do you live? Where you going

to? I'll tell them all the things. He says, what do you and such a hurry for? And I thought, so badly.

Because he actually, first he said, what do you do? And I was like, ah, I'm afraid he's like,

okay, what do you, what, what do you such a hurry for? And I was like, I feel so badly. I'm not giving you a line. I'm actually trying to make it back in time for mass. And he's like, oh, okay, okay, get back to his squad guard. You know, come and walk up to the my car after a bit. And he says this line, that just like has lived in my brain ever since. He walks up and says, well, father,

kind of situation, I was like, oh my gosh, that's awesome. That's incredible. I was so grateful

for the grace that was freely given to me. I did not deserve it. I deserved to take it. He didn't give me a ticket. He gave me some grace. And I remember pulling away from the, from the shoulder and getting back on on this, this road. And about 10 minutes later, I was in pain. I was tortured because I don't know if you don't know this, but 55 miles an hour is really, really slow. Especially when you're used to driving like nine, nine over. We're on situations where I was like,

I was happy to be given the grace. But I didn't want to drive like I was given grace. I was happy to be given the grace. I didn't want to live it. What does life after grace look like? Question, what is the next morning look like for the younger son? Is massive celebration? And given the finest robe, the ring on his finger,

“sandals on his feet, fatted calf, incredible. Steen up late. What does the next morning look like?”

I imagine this like this. He wakes up the next day. And where does he wake up? Well, he doesn't wake up in the servants quarters. He doesn't wake up in the guest house. And this is so important for us. He hasn't been hired by his dad. He's been rescued. He's not, he's not hired. He's not one of the servants. His dad even says this. He's not one of the servants. So he's not punished. He's not on probation. We'll see how it goes.

He doesn't have to perform. So he's not in the servants quarters, but also he's not in the guest house.

Like this is important. He doesn't return to like laziness or entitlement or indulgence. Basically,

he doesn't wake up in an all-inclusive resort where it's just like I get to hang out here now. I'm a pampered prince right now. That's not. He hasn't been hired. He's been rescued. He's not a guest. He's been restored as a son. He's not hired as a servant and he's not doded on as a guest. So this is the reality that you could look at all those gifts. They're not given with a condition. Like you will, you can have this

if you promise to be good. But this is a real relationship. And the father's essentially saying, these are yours. Now with a condition, but these are yours, if you want them,

“that's what Grace does. Grace restores. Restores what? It restores the relationship.”

We know this. Every real relationship has real rights. He's given the robe. He has honor now. He's given the ring. He has authority now. He's given the sandals. He's a true son. So every real relationship has real rights. But we also know this. Every real relationship also has real responsibilities. The father gives him dignity, but it's the dignity of having a purpose. You know, I have a place in this family. Again, it's, it's, thing as Grace does not remove

responsibility. Grace restores responsibility. But in this father's house, this son, he's not given conditions. He's given belonging. Now, this is going to be a real relationship. He has to have both real rights and real responsibilities. Again, remember, he's not in the

“servants quarters. He's not in the guest house. He's in the family house. What does that mean?”

That means he's living with the father. It means he's living with his brother. So we discover this. We discovered the epilogue. We discover that life after means life with. That's the secret to the epilogue. Life after it means life with. So every time you and I've been rescued, every time we've gone to confession, every time we've been restored by Jesus, it's not. It's, we're restored without conditions, but we're not restored without responsibilities.

But our bonus chapter, our epilogue looks a lot like this. It looks a lot like life with the father. And it looks like life with our brothers and sisters. It looks like life in the church. Once again, life after is life with. And there's a last thing. Again, I really love those stories where they have the where are they now? I love the bonus chapter. I love the epilogue. I wonder, what was Lazarus' epilogue?

There's some theories about his epilogue. There's some small, you know, in a lower case T traditions about his story. Some people say he went to become a bishop. We don't know,

ultimately. I can imagine that Lazarus's bonus chapter is epilogue was very unique. I imagine he did not

I can imagine trying to ask that question, answer the question, where are they now?

“If you saw like across the screen one year later, what could life, what might life look like?”

If life after actually looks like life with, here's the epilogue. It's early in the morning. The youngest son wakes up and he smells a coffee. It's smell of coffee whafting down the hallway from the kitchen. So it gets up, walks out of his room, walks into the kitchen, there's his father.

He's about to make him coffee, making the eggs and saying, hey, wants to breakfast? Absolutely. Okay,

great. Put some bread in the toaster. Have a seat. I got, how do you want your eggs? Want some coffee? Yeah, have a seat. Here's your mug. They sit down to have some, you know, some eggs, some toast, have their coffee. His father's like, hey, how did you sleep? I heard

“you and your brother were up really late. But what are you guys talking about so late last night?”

I'll talk about this in that new other thing. All right, okay, cool. And the younger son says, okay, dad, what's going on today? His father says, actually, you know what? I need you to go next door. Our keep, our goats keep getting mixed up with our neighbors goats and it's going to be a hard conversation. I need you to go over and talk with them about this. You think you want to help with that? You need me to come with you? Younger son says, I don't know. I think I can handle it,

but it'd be great if you were there. Great. No problem. We'll go together. After that, we're going to pick up your brother. We've got to go to the back 40 because the system just has all these leaks. We've got to, we've got to fix that. Great. Life after is life with. And this could be your epilogue, too. This could be our epilogue. I mean, I saw why I invited us to all do. This is us today or tomorrow morning. My invitation every day this week.

When you wake up, wake up restored. What do you mean by that is, wake up, knowing you've been given by God's grace, a real relationship with the father. Which means there's real rights and there's real responsibilities. My invitation all this week is when you wake up, just turn your heart, turn your attention to the father. Turn your heart, your attention to Jesus. Imagine if you're one of the disciples and you know, you're camping with them for two and a half, three years.

Imagine waking up Jesus right there across the smoldering fire and you wake up just look at the father. You look at Jesus. Hey, where are we going today? What are we doing today? My invitation

every day this week. When you wake up, just let the first thing you do when you wake up,

just move your heart to the father. Move your attention to the father and just say, okay, dad, what do you want today? What do we want to, what are we going to do today? How do you want me to live today? And then live? Not as a servant, not as a guest,

“but as a child of your father. Because the truth is, because of grace, this is your”

bonus chapter of your autobiography. Because of God's grace, this is your epilogue, because of God's grace, your life after is life with.