Readings
- Ezekiel 37:1-14 – Life to Dry Bones
- Romans 8:6-11 – Mindset
- John 11:1-45 – Lazarus
Introduction
As we come to the end of Lent and prepare for the hard journey to Easter, both Gospel and Old Testament readings are substantial and very familiar. So, we need to take care. They may be familiar, but we need to hear God speaking to us today.
So, Let’s take time to read them, prayerfully and slowly (preferably aloud). Listen to what the Spirit underlines. Ask God for understanding. Remember Paul’s charge to Timothy – as we set ourselves to think and pray, God will supply understanding.
“Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. “ (2 Tim 2:7)
Romans will set the right tone
Romans 8:6–11 Developing a New Mind Set
The NIV translates v6 as “the mind of sinful man” vs “the mind controlled by the Spirit”. But this makes it sound like something beyond our control. What the original text is about, however, is mindset. Something that involves us.
First, though, there is indeed an underlying reality of our need for God to do something for us. Unless we have the Spirit of Christ in us, we are not able to please God, and not even able to submit to his word. Without God we are merely IN our sinful humanity – without God and without Hope (Eph 2:12). Our first need, then, is to turn to Jesus and cry out for help.
The good news is that if we have any sense of this need for his help, that is (in itself) evidence that God is already at work in us, reaching out his hand to us. His Spirit and only his Spirit, convicts us of our need for help (Jn 16:8). So, if this is you, be encouraged, cry out to God and he will respond (Rom 10:13).
But I am sure, that most reading this, will be (as Paul says) IN the Spirit, because the Spirit of Christ is in you. What, then, is everyone who is in Christ (who has the Spirit of Christ in them) ‘controlled’ by the Spirit, as the NIV implies? That’s not what this word from God suggests.
The whole sense of this part of Romans 8 – read from the beginning – is that we have been freed by the Gift of the Spirit of Christ to do what we could not do in the flesh; to walk (or live) as God’s word calls us to (which is righteousness); to submit to God’s law; to please God. In that freedom, living this way flows from a new mindset; a mind set on the Spirit and the word that the Spirit enlightens for us.
Receiving the Spirit – becoming IN the Spirit and the Spirit in you – can be instantaneous. Developing a Spirit mindset and walking in the Spirit are the work of a lifetime. Each day, each moment, we have a choice to set our minds and hearts to follow the Spirit.
- It requires Prayer – Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain! (Ps 119:36)
- It requires Bible – letting his word abide and live in you (Col 3:16)
- It requires Perseverance – we will fall and fail, but press on (Jas 1:25)
It requires effort, because even though we are in Christ there is something about us still that struggles with this. Paul’s term for this is the flesh, and it encompasses all that is hardwired into our bodies, minds, hearts and souls that is from our old life. But, again, God helps –
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom 8:11)
Hallelujah! “In all these things we are more than conquerors, through him who loved us.” (Rom 8:37)
Ezekiel 37:1–14
This promise – life to our mortal bodies – takes us to Ezekiel and his vision.
One of the hard truths of the Gospel is that God often needs to undo us before he can remake us, and we can often underestimate the depths of that undoing – we are so inclined to see ourselves as essentially ok.
Ezekiel’s vision was for a people who felt that “dried up”, whose hope was “lost” and who felt “cut off”. That latter word seems to have extra resonance in the Coronavirus crisis. Young people are often said to feel invincible, but older folk can feel the same. We need to let God takes to where these people were and feel what they felt.
Churches are shut and public services are cancelled. This may be temporary, but the truth is that many of our churches are more vulnerable that we realise. Some rural churches have closed permanently and even large and thriving churches need constant renewal. Many look to their church to sustain their life in Christ; how many of us look to our life in Christ to sustain church?
The end of the vision is a people who are a “mighty army”, who know that what they are is the Lord’s doing (not their own efforts or deserving) who know that he is Lord! A ‘might army’, speaks of a people who are in God’s hands, for his purposes. This is a word that I need to hear. I am convinced that our churches need to hear it to.
It starts with a valley filled with very dry bones. But these were God’s people. How had it come to this? In part, it was because they had neglected their life in God. They had set their minds on their own needs and desires rather than on the Spirit. They were still going up to the temple, outwardly looking like God’s people … but in reality, they had become dry bones
In part it was their doing, but it was also God’s doing. He had let them become dry bones, precisely so that when he gave them life, they would know that it was not their doing, but his. His desire was (and is) for a people who know him; a people who truly live in him.
And this work of God, bringing us to the valley of shadows, is not just for those who are failing to live in Christ as they are called to. It is also for those who are setting their minds on the Spirit to live in Christ. As Jesus said, Father prunes the fruitful vines so that they may bear more fruit (Jn 15).
So, I want to be careful when I read Ezekiel (I want us to be careful). I don’t want to see this just as a word for other people – it’s easy to think of other people who really need to hear this, but what about me, what about us?
But this is a vision of Hope! It is a word that says God is for us. “Can these bones live?”, he says to Ezekiel, who can only say, “O Lord God, you know.” Yes, they can. So, it is a word of hope, but is there any part in it for us? Yes. Speak the word, is his command. We are to speak the word to one another. And we are to hear the word when it is spoken to us
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col 3:16)
John 11:1–45 A Personal Story
Romans and Ezekiel prepare and lead us to Lazarus. Here we see these things written in personal terms. We can read Paul and understand his teaching, but a personal story is so much more digestible.
Lazarus is ill and he is going to die. Jesus know that. But, because Jesus loves Lazarus, Mary and Martha … he delayed going. He could have hurried and healed Lazarus, but because he loved them, he let Lazarus die. When hard things happen to us and we question whether God really loves us, we should look to the cross – God has held back nothing in his love for this world – even those who will reject his love. Believe in his love even if you do not understand it. He is a rock of unchanging love –
“his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” (Deut 32:4)
Then, when Jesus says he is going, some of the Disciples are fearful. Let’s go and die with him, says Thomas. How many of us are fearful in these days? Jesus does not rebuke the, but patiently draws them along with him. Our fears do not keep us from his love. God is for us even when we are fearful.
And, when they come to Bethany, Martha comes out to meet him, But Mary stays at home. Both of them have the same thought – if you had been here our brother would not have died. One comes out to Jesus and one stays away. Martha and Mary are very different characters. Here she comes to Jesus, on another occasion she is distracted by business, when Mary sits at Jesus’ feet.
Jesus doesn’t seem to have a generic response to all people at all times. He understands us as the people that we are, with extraordinary patience and love. At times he may rebuke our unbelief, but he does not condemn or reject us. That’s no reason to try his patience, but every reason to come to him, late or not, as indeed Mary did.
Nothing highlights this more for me than Jesus reaction to Mary & Martha as they come to him. He knows that he will raise Lazarus to life. He knows that people will see, believe and rejoice in his glory through this. But knowing all this, still he weeps. This is the Saviour that God has given to us. There is no one like him!
And, finally, of course, Jesus speaks the words ‘Lazarus, come out’. Lazarus is dead, he cannot here, and he cannot respond, but in those words of command, life is given. And, whenever Jesus commands us, with the command, he gives the power to respond.
There is much deep theology in this account of Lazarus’ death and resurrection. But there is also so much of real people and a real – extraordinary – saviour. One technique that I was taught with such Bible stories was to try and imagine myself as one of the characters in it – to inhabit the story. Which one are you? At different times (and sometimes all at the same tome) I find myself in all of them; something of me in my weakness and need, or in my stumbling faith. To every one of them Jesus says – I Am … I am the resurrection and the life … I am everything that you need, always.
Good Shepherd, there is no one like you.