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A GREETING
‘Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’
Your face, Lord, do I seek.
(Psalm 27:8)
A READING
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jewish people who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the people 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?’
(John 11:28-36)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in God my heart trusts.
(Psalm 28:7)
A PRAYER
Oh God, who am I now?
Once, I was secure in familiar territory
in my sense of belonging
unquestioning of
the norms of my culture
the assumptions built into my language
the values shared by my society.
But now you have called me out and away from home
and I do not know where you are leading.
I am empty, unsure, uncomfortable.
I have only a beckoning star to follow.
Journeying God,
pitch your tent with mine.
from "Oh God who am I now? by Kate Compston
found in The Flowering of the Soul: A Book of Prayers by Women
Edited by Lucinda Vardey
VERSE OF THE DAY
God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
(Psalm 73:26)
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The continuing story of the raising of Lazarus brings us from the conversation between Martha and Jesus to the conversation between Jesus and Mary. We are still on the dusty road outside of Bethany. Martha has gone to get her sister and Jesus has stayed where he is. It is likely that he understands that these are conversations that he could not have in front of the other mourners in a more public setting. In the Greek text, we hear a shift in Mary: when she leaves the mourning and goes to find him, the language of her actions moves into the present tense. In this sense, it stresses the urgency of her movements.
The mourners want to follow her, assuming that she's gone to the grave to weep there. It was the Jewish burial custom to shroud the deceased and lay them in a family tomb that was sealed to allow the body to decompose slowly. It would be left this way until eleven months later when the seal on the tomb would be opened and the bones of the deceased were collected and put in an ossuary jar. Mary goes to the grave to weep but she would only be going to outside of the tomb to do so, puzzling the mourners. Somehow she loses them: perhaps Martha takes her place among them as distraction.
There are many reasons why both the family and the mourners may wish to create distance between themselves and Jesus as he was a dangerous person in the eyes of many at this time. On the other hand, this family may already have been largely ostracized by having been his friend and so may not have cared. Whether these are the reasons why Jesus meets Mary on the road, or simply to have privacy, we do not know.
There are only three times in the New Testament when Jesus weeps: once over Jerusalem in Luke 13, once in this scene, and once at Gethsemane. It is Mary who is able to bring out this deep emotion in him and who causes him to momentarily forget his larger purpose. The sound that he makes is a word in Greek that appears only in this one instance in the whole of the New Testament. It conjures a sound of loving tenderness that is also grief. It is this sound he makes that is the turning point of this whole storytelling. Having heard her weeping, he makes his own grief sound. And having let that sound go, he is then prepared to hear about where Lazarus is buried and to move forward.
Jesus is unable to console Mary with his words as he did with Martha. The divine Jesus hears Martha’s affirmation of his identity as messiah, but it is Mary who affirms the human Jesus, who is capable of emotions. It is Mary of Bethany, who helps him to find the sound of grief that reminds him of all that it means to have an earthly body that feels things deeply.
Meanwhile, the gathered mourners have caught up to the scene and are divided between those who are moved by Jesus' emotion, and those who wonder why he has not taken matters into his own hands, as he so recently did when he restored sight to a blind man. The text says that Jesus is also moved by their grief. This very private moment has now become part of his public story.
For those hearing the story of the raising of Lazarus in the late first century, they would know that all of it is a foretelling of the death of Jesus. The mourning begins here, even as the promise of new life is also here. As you prepare for the liturgical events of Holy Week, how are you reminded of the grief, expectation, disappointment and renewal in faith that you have experienced in your own journey of faith? What will be the same and also different this time?
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A STORY OF ENDURANCE
Swedish artist and poet Maria Westerberg has been trying to rewild a forest she inherited, from the damage caused by her ancestors who clear cut the land for profit. Having turned to the forest to help heal her from depression, she in turn decided to help heal the forest. This documentary follows her story.
It is 18 minutes long.
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LC† Awakened by the Spirit is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook, and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!