The Plumbline

The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead has been told time and time again, but as I was reading it again this morning, some things came to mind. First, Jesus told his disciples he was glad he was not there when Lazarus died.  Now, at first this may have seemed a little uncaring, but if you read a little further, you see he tells them since he wasn't there, this would be an opportunity for THEIR faith to grow.  He said to them, " And I am glad for your sakes that I wasn’t there. You’re about to be given new grounds for believing."  (vs. 15)  I wonder how many times we complain about Jesus "not" being where we thought he should have been at some moment in time, not realizing his "absence" was really the specific opportunity for us to receive "new grounds for believing"?  Probably more than we'd like to admit!  Second, he was not exactly going into friendly territory.  Many in the city had already been active in plotting ways to shu...

Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living.  John 12:1 It would be easy to read over this passage and just miss entirely what John recorded for us about Jesus' entry into Bethany.  One very special event had transpired there that made Bethany a notorious place - Lazarus had been raised from the dead.  Not just the dead, but the tomb.  Already wrapped in burial clothes and scented with the herbs of burial, he laid there for three days.  His sisters were grief-stricken at the loss of their brother - the male head of their home.  Now, we'd miss the intention of these opening words if we were to just gloss by them on our way to learning about how Judas would betray Jesus.   No words are recorded for us by accident.  They aren't in the Bible just to give the story some sense of "plot" or to "add character" to the passage.  They are each there by intention.  Therefore, when we ...