Step 1: Talk with God
Jesus, our Brother, your resurrection and ours leaves us betwixt and between. We know that the end times have already arrived because You have conquered death and promised us eternal life. We have that expectation because we were baptized into your death and resurrection. How are we to regard death then. We know it is not final and yet we mourn those who have died and we are somewhat anxious about our own passing.
When someone dies, it seems crass to say don’t worry, “I know that my redeemer lives and that he will raise her or him on the last day.” On the other hand, we are trying to live like those redeemed and given eternal life. You mourned when Lazarus died. You felt the pain of Martha and Mary and then you gave us a huge lesson. “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me shall never die.”
So how should we approach the death of our loved ones. How should we feel when someone is called home at a young age. How should we react to death by violence? Dying is not nice as you showed us on the Cross but it is a passing.
Help us, Jesus, to live with death in the way you want us. Let us cry out to you in our pain of loss or anxiety as we approach our own mortality and then please grant us peace – a peace we can share with others without the use of platitudes.
Step 2: Listen to God in Scripture
| Hebrew Scripture | New Testament |
| Psalm 90: 1-17 Lord, you have been our refuge through all generations. 2Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God. 3You turn humanity back into dust,* saying, “Return, you children of Adam!” 4A thousand years in your eyes are merely a day gone by, Before a watch passes in the night, 5 you wash them away; They sleep, and in the morning they sprout again like an herb. 6In the morning it blooms only to pass away; in the evening it is wilted and withered. II 7Truly we are consumed by your anger, filled with terror by your wrath. 8You have kept our faults before you, our hidden sins in the light of your face. 9Our life ebbs away under your wrath; our years end like a sigh. 10Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong; Most of them are toil and sorrow; they pass quickly, and we are gone. 11Who comprehends the strength of your anger? Your wrath matches the fear it inspires. 12Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart. III 13Relent, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants! 14Fill us at daybreak with your mercy, that all our days we may sing for joy. 15Make us glad as many days as you humbled us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. 16Show your deeds to your servants, your glory to their children. 17May the favor of the Lord our God be ours. Prosper the work of our hands! Prosper the work of our hands!
|
The Raising of Lazarus. And Jesus wept
John 11:1-54 1Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. 3So the sisters sent word to him, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.” 4When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death,* but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. 7Then after this he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” 8The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” 9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11He said this, and then told them, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” 12So the disciples said to him, “Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.” 13But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep. 14So then Jesus said to them clearly, “Lazarus has died. 15And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.” 16So Thomas, called Didymus,* said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.” 17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles* away. 19And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22[But] even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” 23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” 24Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” 25Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27l She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” 28When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” 29As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. 30For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. 31So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed* and deeply troubled, 34and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” 35And Jesus wept. 36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” 37But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?” 38So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. 39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father,* I thank you for hearing me. 42I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” Session of the Sanhedrin. 45Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. 48If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come* and take away both our land and our nation.” 49q But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year,* said to them, “You know nothing, 50nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” 51He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God. 53So from that day on they planned to kill him. 54So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.
|
Put together what you told God and what God told you. Converse with God.