We just moved passed the halfway point in the season of Lent. We have plumbed the depth of our need for help and worked to get rid of barriers to the coming of our Savior. Now we get to see the coming light of the resurrection, the primary event in our salvation.
In the Gospel of John, we are in a kind of transition as well. Chapter 11 of John marks the end of Jesus’ public ministry. Next, we move into Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem where he enters the city in triumph and is cast out in the most shameful and painful death the Romans could devise.
Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead seems, to modern and rational folks like us, something that is hard to get our heads around. People don’t come back from death, do they? And if they do, why didn’t my daughter, mother, father, grandparents, beloved friends come back to me from their deaths? Read more…