Sunday, April 10th...Sermon Text: John 11: 3-45 Raising Lazarus From Death

This is a familiar text and as I think about it and summarize what it is about I guess I would mention how it shows us Christ's compassion and emotion in a new way, and God's power to heal even the dead.  But that is the problem I have with familiar scriptures...I tend to summarize and reduce the words to "what it is about".  God's words are not limited to telling a story or a "how to" book.  The Bible, God's Holy Scripture, is about power.

This scripture begins with friends of Jesus reaching out to Him for the healing of Lazarus.  But Jesus delayed going to Lazarus for two days, because He knew that through this crisis, God would be glorified.  We find this same outlook from Christ in John 9: 3 when He explained to His disciples that a man was born blind "so that the works of God might be displayed in him."  Do we see God at work in the troubles around us?

Tuesday evening, at the Bethel Chapel evening prayer, a mother came to the chapel for the first time.  She came to pray for her son who is going through a divorce and child custody fight.  As we prayed together, it became so clear that God is involved and that His love is being revealed through the heart of this mother.  I can just imagine that the tears of Christ are mixed with her tears as they fall down her cheeks.  Jesus is that close to our heartaches.

What God has revealed in these passages about Lazarus, Martha , and Mary is how close He truly is to us, through His son Jesus.  He hears us and responds to us.  He weeps with us.  He shows up.  Every time I find myself in a position to pray with another who is suffering, I become acutely aware of God's glory and love.  As God's word becomes more of a power source instead of a knowledge source, I pray that His love and glory will become more readily experienced and empower me to share His love with those I encounter daily.