It has been said that Chick-fil-A is the “Lord’s chicken.” And by all accounts, I have to agree. 

When you go to Chick-fil-A… for some reason, you just feel loved. You feel… wanted, almost. The employees embody a culture of approval — They WANT to serve you, they WANT you to be there… it’s THEIR PLEASURE in fact!

I was recently at a Chick-fil-A where they had written across the wall: “We’re so glad you’re here!” And you know it may seem like sort of a superficial thing — I mean, it’s a wall decal at a fast food restaurant — but it made me pause and wonder — “Wow. That’s pretty awesome.” And my next thought was:

“I wonder how often people hear that at Church?” 

Why do we hear that (or feel that) at Chick-fil-A… but maybe we don’t always experience that… at Church on Sunday? 

So… in case you’ve never heard anybody say it before, I just want to affirm right here, right now:

I am REALLY glad you are here!!!

It is VERY good that you are here!!!

And interestingly enough, this is actually at the heart of our third and final theological virtue — the GREATEST and most NOBLE of all virtues. 

“Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE.”

Now we all know that this word “love” can mean a whole plethora of things. We love our dogs. We love Oreos. I love Lord of the Rings. 

But… I also love my parents. I love my three nieces. You love your spouse. You love your kids, your grandkids… We love God.

…And God loves us…

Many… many… different types of love…

But let’s focus on that last one I just mentioned, because that’s the most important one. That’s the source:

God loves us.

We hear that all the time, but what does it actually mean?

Once again, the Catholic philosopher Joseph Pieper gives us a very very simple, yet incredibly beautiful definition — He says that you can basically boil down the virtue of “love” to this little phrase: 

“It is good that you exist.”

And isn’t that what Chick-fil-A was basically saying to me, as I sat there, quietly eating my chicken nuggets?

“We’re so glad you’re here! – it is GOOD that you are here… it’s good that you EXIST!” 

This is what we are saying whenever we love our neighbor — whenever we put someone else’s good before our own. When we serve someone. When we make a sacrifice for someone else’s benefit. This is what we are saying when we stand up against the culture of death that is so quick to abort, dehumanize, and euthanize!

It is GOOD that you are here!

Did you know that this is actually what God said when He decided to create you?

He said: “It is GOOD for you to exist!”

Fr Mike Schmitz once put it this way: “God did not want a universe without you in it.”

God said: I would prefer this world if you were here with Me.

And so — POOF… at a very specific moment in time — when you were conceived in your mother’s womb: You came into existence!

The age-old question of philosophy has always been: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

And the answer, according to Christianity is:

Love.

That’s why there’s something rather than nothing. That’s why there are stars and planets and mountains and trees and angels and dinosaurs and people and art and music and sports and orangutans and breakfast cereals… That’s why ANY and ALL good things exist!

It’s because God is love.

And out of love, He willed everything into existence.

He didn’t need to create anything.

He was perfect in Himself from all eternity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — He is the only NECESSARY Being — in fact, as St Thomas Aquinas says, His ESSENCE is EXISTENCE itself! He cannot NOT be.

There was absolutely no need for Him to create anything apart from Himself.

But He wanted to. 

He chose to.

And so… creation is necessarily a free gift of His love.

This has eternally huge implications for us. 

This means — that NONE of us are cosmic accidents. NONE of us are mistakes. Because God doesn’t make mistakes!

We are chosen… We are hand-crafted and WANTED… DESIRED…

This is very different than the philosopher Descartes’ famous maxim that we’ve all probably heard: “I think, therefore I am.” 

No, actually… you can’t explain your own existence. You don’t make yourself. God thought of you… He loved the idea of you… and therefore: You exist! So a better way to put it would be: “God thought of me, therefore I am.” 

So…go ahead and TAKE A DEEP BREATH… feel your hands. Look around at the people next to you.

…Right this very moment, God is thinking of us. He is creating us. He is still deciding that it is good that we should exist. Still LOVING us… If He didn’t, we would simply CEASE to exist.

Lights out.

Like the end of the Avengers… We would all just BLIP out of existence at the snap of God’s finger.

So… the fact that you are here right now is living proof that God is loving you. He is ALWAYS loving you. No matter what! He loves us at our best moments! He loves us at our absolute worst. Even when we sin: He is still loving us. You can’t stop His love, even if you tried!

He WANTS you! He wants you to be alive!!!!

And if you think about it, that’s what’s going on in our Gospel this weekend…

Jesus is confronted with the tragic death — the NONEXISTENCE if you will — of his friend, Lazarus. And Jesus weeps. His tears reveal to us that this was NOT the original plan… it is NOT good that Lazarus, or ANYONE for that matter — dies. God did not make DEATH, the Scriptures tell us. Death is something unnatural…It’s an invader. An unwelcome enemy!

When all the people see Jesus grieving the death of his friend, they say: “See how he LOVED him!”

But others questioned, saying: “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”

In other words: “If he really loved his friend so much… why didn’t he stop him from dying?” We can even hear this in the reaction of Martha and Mary: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died…”

…In a way, they were questioning his love for Lazarus!

And what does Jesus do? How does he choose to respond?

He stands before the tomb, and he says in a loud voice: “LAZARUS…. COME OUT.”

“Lazarus! It is NOT good that you are not here with us. It is BETTER for you to exist! IT IS BETTER FOR YOU TO BE ALIVE, SO….LAZARUS… COME ALIVE.”

Jesus LOVES Lazarus back to life! He DECIDES that he should EXIST! And so he does… To the utter shock of everyone standing there, the dead man comes out of the tomb. Jesus’ love CONQUERS the grave!!!

Then Jesus says: “Untie him and let him go.” …Let him live. Let him BE…

This is what we believe will happen on the last day to ALL the dead.

Our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel made it very clear — “Thus says the Lord GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them! O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live… thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.”

St Paul adds in our second reading — “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead  will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.”

In other words: God loves us — He wants us to be alive — He wants us to be FULLY alive in Jesus! With the HOLY SPIRIT — the Spirit of LOVE — living and breathing within us! And at the end of time, His love will definitively conquer the last enemy… the final boss… once and for all:

Death will be no more.

And Jesus will stand before your tomb and say: Come out!

It is GOOD for you to be here.