One of the things I used to enjoy doing to relax was watching movies, especially indie films, foreign flicks, and any production that was a little off the beaten path. There are some really great movies out there that fly under the radar and don’t have a single superhero or explosion in them! There’s one in particular I remember from years ago: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Now, full disclaimer, it’s been about 15 years since I’ve seen it, so I’m not necessarily recommending it… but the premise stuck with me.
Scott falls for this girl named Ramona. But before he can truly win her heart, he must defeat her seven evil exes. One by one, he faces them, each battle a kind of test, a proving of love, a refusal to give up. It’s quirky, it’s over the top, but at its core, it’s a story about love that fights… that perseveres… that refuses to walk away or be frightened by daunting challenges.
And as strange as it sounds, that’s not a bad lens for what we’ve been hearing these past weeks in the Gospel of John. St. John doesn’t just give us a random collection of miracles…he gives us 7 signs to prove Jesus’ credentials as Savior. There’s a progression, almost like a series of spiritual battles where Jesus fights the things that afflict our fallen human condition, everything that burdens us, everything that holds us back.
While we haven’t heard the first 4 signs at Mass during lent, you know them well. At Cana, when He changes water into wine, Jesus shows His power over quality…taking something ordinary and making it not just sufficient, but abundant and excellent. When He heals the royal official’s son, miles from his home, He shows His power over distance…that His word is not limited by space or time. He doesn’t even need to be physically present to bring life. When He feeds the five thousand, He shows His power over quantity…that our sense of “not enough,” is no problem for Him. When He walks on the water and calms the storm, He shows His power over nature…even chaos and fear are subject to His command.
Moving then to the final three signs, which we have heard over the last few weeks at Mass. When He heals the man born blind, He shows His power over illness…restoring what seemed permanently lost and revealing Himself as the Light of the World. When He encounters the woman at the well, He shows His power over shame and isolation…entering her wounded story and transforming it. She goes from hiding in the middle of the day to becoming a witness who brings others to Him. And finally, today, when He raises Lazarus from the dead, He shows His power over death itself…that He is, “the Resurrection and the Life.”
Isn’t it amazing to see what Jesus is doing? Step by step, sign by sign, he is confronting everything that afflicts us at the deepest level of the human heart. Emptiness. Distance. Limitation. Scarcity. Chaos. Brokenness. Shame. And ultimately, death. It’s almost like a series of battles…not against “evil exes,” but against the real enemies we all carry within us, things we once thought would make us happy.
Jesus doesn’t do this just to prove a point. He does it to win us. Jesus is not afraid of our past. He’s not afraid of our sins, our wounds, or the things we’ve chased after instead of him. In fact, those are exactly the places He goes. He steps into the mess. He speaks into the distance. He touches the broken. He calls out what is dead. And He does it because He desires us.
Now here’s where the comparison to Scott Pilgrim both helps and falls short in the best possible way. In that movie, there’s always a question: will he actually win? There’s uncertainty. You don’t know if he’ll make it through all seven battles. But with Jesus, there is no fear of that. We know how this ends; the final battle is not in doubt. What looks like defeat on the Cross is actually victory. What looks like the end is actually the beginning. The Resurrection is not a possibility, it is a promise. Jesus will triumph.
And that’s not all…He will take the things in our lives that seem like losses… our sufferings, our sins, our failures… and somehow, in a way only God can, transform them into glory. That’s what we remember and celebrate with Holy Week.
So now the question shifts from “Will He win?”(because He already has) to: will we let Him win us? Will we let go of the things that promised joy but never delivered? Will we trust that even the hardest parts of our lives are not wasted but can be redeemed?
Jesus is not fighting for us in some distant, abstract way. He is fighting for you, personally. He knows your story. He knows your burdens. He knows the places that feel too far gone, too broken, too buried. Just like He stood before the tomb of Lazarus, He stands before those places in our lives. And He calls us by name.
As Lent comes to its completion, that call becomes more urgent, more personal. This is not just a story we remember or a story about someone else. It’s a story we’re invited into. A love story…the greatest one ever told. The only part still unwritten is your answer and mine. Let us say ‘yes’ to the Lord who loves us so much and won’t ever stop fighting for us!
