6 April 2014 - preview of kingdom coming attractions

6 April 2014 - preview of kingdom coming attractions

I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn,
let Israel wait for the LORD.

This is how much we are called to trust in the LORD.  It is how much Martha trusts him.

“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”

Her soul trusts in his word.  But even with this level of trust she still doesn't fully understand how Jesus desires to work.  It can be hard to understand at times.

And I am glad for you that I was not there,
that you may believe.

He allows this evil to come although he is not happy about it.  "Jesus wept" because of this.  People around him take notice, "See how he loved him."  But some of them say what we're all thinking.

“Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man
have done something so that this man would not have died?”

Wouldn't it be better to prevent the evil in the first place?  If Lazarus did not die Jesus would not be able to reveal himself as the resurrection and the life (cf. Joh. 11:25).  Jesus dies and rises again to reveal himself as LORD of the dead and the living (cf. Rom. 14:9).  Lazarus is the first stage of this revelation.  If Jesus simply restores his health he does not speak to all of those in the history of the world have already gone to the grave, the sentence of sin.  He doesn't come to patch old cloaks of mortality but comes to clothe us with immortality (cf. 1 Cor. 15:54).

Because Jesus permits the evil he reveals his power over even the grave.  He prepares Mary and Martha to see the horror of the cross and yet hold on to faith in him.  He reveals to the world a plan to give us a life beyond that which we can ask for or imagine.  He does not just repair, he makes new.

He reveals more deeply who he truly is.  The LORD of the dead and the living, the resurrection and the life, cannot be just another prophet.  He must be the LORD of all!

Then you shall know that I am the LORD,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them,
O my people!

We are destined to rise on the last day, as Martha knows.  But there is more than this.  She is able to wait for him and trust in his word because even when she doesn't understand his plans she knows who he is.  This is like Peter when Jesus reveals the Eucharist.  He doesn't get it but he knows that Jesus alone "has the words of eternal life" (cf. Joh. 6:68).

She said to him, “Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world.”

Jesus shares the resurrection with Lazarus in advance of his own to reveal himself and his kingdom.  But now that Jesus is risen we can all begin to share this life even now, even in mortal bodies "dead because of sin".

But if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin,
the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
the one who raised Christ from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also,
through his Spirit dwelling in you.

So then, no more acting like zombies.  We have a source of life which this world cannot touch.  It is the same source that makes Lazarus walk after four days.  It is the same source which cannot be killed by crucifixion.  This unquenchable life is meant to revel Jesus in when the circumstances look like death.

Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary
and seen what he had done began to believe in him.

Let his life burn brightly in us!

For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;