Daily Lenten Devotion for 4/3

Scripture lesson: John 11:1-7, 11-19, 33-44. Today, the role of Lazarus will be played by the Christian Church.

Now a group of people called the Christian Church were sick. They were from all over the place, in every corner of the world, and had sisters named Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. These sisters, whose other sister the Church now lay sick…sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s son may be glorified through it.” Jesus loved all the sisters, including the Church. Yet when he heard that the Church was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Then he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea…After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend the Church has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake her up.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if she sleeps, she will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of her death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

So then he told them plainly, “The Church is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to her.” Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with her.”

On his arrival, Jesus found that the Church had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and the sisters comforted each other in the loss of their other sister, the Church. Others came to comfort the sisters in their loss.

When Jesus saw the sisters and mourners weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid the Church?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept.

Then the people said, “See how he loved the Church!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept the Church from dying?”

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.

“But Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for she has been there four days.”

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe you sent me.”

When he has said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Church, come out!”

The dead Church came out, her hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around her face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let her go.”