Fall entered with details and events and leaves not-quite-yet swirling, which created a delay sending out this week’s reading. Yesterday I recorded two Bible study talks, braved the maze of Medicare enrollment, encountered toxic shrimp, and changed dinner plans. In the midst, I enjoyed beautiful sun. Today it’s overcast with much cooler temperatures, and I have a quiet day mostly at home. Jesus speaks in busy times and in quiet or gray days, if we only pause to listen.
At the end of last week’s passage, the Jews questioned Jesus’ ability to do miracles, therefore also questioning who he said he was.
Read John 11:38-39.
- Jesus visited Lazarus’s tomb and grieved.
- A place, with its physical sensory details, makes the unbelievable true in difficult times.
- Jesus asked those present to take away the stone and open the tomb.
- Martha reminded Jesus how long it had been since Lazarus died.
- Not only had his physical body decayed, it was only an empty shell, beyond physical and spiritual resurrection.1
*How have sensory details affected you in difficult situations?
*What role did Lazarus’s death play in Jesus’ earthly life and ministry?
Read John 11:40-42.
- Those who chose to believe would see the glory of God, the truth, miraculous physical and spiritual resurrection.
- God’s glory as defined here refers to his “divine perfections manifested in the power of God.”2
- Those who rolled away the stone believed enough to do as Jesus said.
- Jesus looked to heaven and prayed to the Father in their hearing.
- He thanked God for hearing his prayers.
- Jesus said God did more than simply hear his request. He had complete trust his Father would grant what he asked.3
- He acknowledged the benefit others receive when they hear us pray.
- He prayed others would believe in Jesus, sent by God, as a result of his prayer.
*How would you define God’s glory?
*When have you experienced certainty that God heard your prayers?
*What can we learn from Jesus’ prayer about how to pray?
Read John 11:43-44.
- Jesus called Lazarus forth from the tomb.
- Lazarus walked out with his hands and feet still wrapped and a cloth still around his face. It’s a wonder he could walk.
- Jesus further commanded them to remove Lazarus’s grave cloths and release him.
- Perhaps you’ve heard a pastor say Jesus will remove our grave cloths as well.
- Through faith—belief and trust—in Jesus’ crucifixion for sin and resurrection in victory over death, we have been set free from death and sin.
“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:22-23).
*How has Jesus called you into life from the dead?
*How have you experienced freedom and eternal life in Jesus?
- Rabbi Michele Brand Medwin, D.Min, LMHC, “Glimpses into the Afterlife,” Reform Judaism.org. Quoting Jewish text, “For three days after death the soul hovers over the body intending to reenter it.” (Lev. Rabbah 18:1)
https://reformjudaism.org/glimpses-afterlife
- Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D., The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament (AMG Publishers, 1992), 479.
- Zodhiates, 113.