A series preparing hearts for Easter… (Day 12)
We pause to listen to His Word,
linger,
lift up voice in prayer…
then go live the Word.
Listen to His Word (read):
John 11:32-42 in ESV
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
“Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man 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 he 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 that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Linger …silently meditate on His Word:
(Join children in closing eyes and envisioning the passage, re-read again… again…linger. Don’t rush on.)
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Lift up voice in prayer, responding to His Word :
Father, we thank You that You have heard us.
We thank You that You are a man of sorrows, acquainted with our grief. You weep with us.
We thank You that we too may believe and see Your glory. You radiate through our day.
We thank You that like Israelites being released from Pharoah’s slavery, so You have called to us, “Let him go!’ Released from sin’s bondage! Death’s chains! Grave’s curse!
We thank You that we come out! With You, first fruits of the dead! Yes, even us who once stinketh with sin, us too!
In the name of He who resurrects, was resurrected and will resurrect us, too, rolling away the stone.
Live the Word (contemplate it so long that it settles down into heart, hands, feet):
Today, give thanks for our release. Visit the grave of a believer, and give thanks for Jesus calling us out of death. Write down a sin with which you struggle, wrap it in a strip of old cloth, and bury it. Rejoice that you are called out to new life!
Plant a seed today, believe, and see His glory.
Can You hear Him calling out new life?
Print, mount, cut, hang art symbol on Easter Tree
Artist: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
For the rest of the Behold the Lamb series, a heart preparation for Easter
