Lent 5

Opening Verse of Scripture Romans Chapter 8:11

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. 

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

Most merciful God, who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ delivered and saved the world: grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross we may triumph in the power of his victory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. CW

Gracious Father, you gave up your Son out of love for the world: lead us to ponder the mysteries of his passion, that we may know eternal peace

through the shedding of our Saviour’s blood, Jesus Christ our Lord. CW

First Bible Reading Ezekiel 37: 1-14

The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know.’ Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.’

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD.’ NRSV

Second Reading Romans 8: 6-11

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. NRSV

Gospel Reading John 11: 1-45

A certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

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 Jews 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 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?’

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. NRSV

Post Communion Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, you have taught us that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters we do also for you: give us the will to be the servant of others as you were the servant of all, and gave up your life and died for us, but are alive and reign, now and for ever. CW

Commentary

 It is quite important to set the scene for the passage today. Jesus has escaped being killed in Jerusalem. They had tried to stone him to death for blasphemy, because they said he claimed to be God. (10:33). Somehow we are told he managed get away. Now in a place safety across the Jordan river, news arrives that a man named Lazarus was sick. Lazarus was somebody Jesus cared about deeply, the brother of Mary and Martha. He was in Bethany which was only two miles from Jerusalem. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.

So this is a cry for help to Jesus from the sisters and Lazarus is still alive. The response of Jesus has caused some considerable debate.

“This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it.”

Jesus sees that an important event is about to take place. In John’s Gospel there are seven signs. When he tells us about them, the writer always has a message at the beginning that they are to give glory to God, and at the end we are told that they cause people to have faith. The first was the wedding in Cana with the turning of water into wine. So the scene is now set for the greatest miracle or sign which Jesus ever performed.

If we do our maths we can work out that even if Jesus had rushed back to Bethany immediately, Lazarus would still have died, because it was a two day journey. When Jesus eventually arrived Lazarus had been dead for four days. Nevertheless, it is still surprisng to delay because Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. This delay has puzzled everybody, why does he wait ? I suppose it is no different to any of us when we are in need, we want God to do certain things, we appeal to God for action and it doesn’t come. We want action and expect God to intervene, yet sadly God does not work according to our timetables. So it was with Mary and Martha, but there was a purpose in it which to them was not clear.

The waiting is perhaps to do with the intention that God will be glorified. Jesus waits before returning because the longer Lazarus lies dead, the more credible will be the bringing back to life. It seems heartless and cruel, but there is an important belief behind it. When Jesus eventually reaches Bethany the body of Lazarus had been in the tomb for 4 days. Lazarus had been buried on the day of his death, as was common. Jewsih belief (Sem 8) said that one should visit the place of one newly buried for three days to be sure that they were dead. Why three days? (Ge. Rab 100(64a)  Bar Qappra taught that

‘the whole strength of the mourning is not till the third day, for three days long the soul returns to the grave, thinking that it will return (into the body); when however it sees that the colour of the face has changed then it goes away and leaves it’ (Str-B 2:544-45)

So according to rabbinical tradition, the soul of a deceased person hovers around the body for three days in hope of a reunion, but it takes its final departure when it notices that the body has entered a state of decomposition. The four days of Lazarus in the tomb were therefore very significant. Jesus removed from his enemies any possible explanation of the resurrection of his friend Lazarus which they would have resorted to if it had not been removed.

Jesus says that Lazarus has only fallen asleep. We often use the phrase ‘fallen asleep’ when we actually mean ‘dead’. Sometimes we speak of putting animals to sleep, and it is a euphemism, but here we see Jesus using the phrase and it is helpful for us to know that Jesus regards death as sleep, in other words, something temporary, from which we will awake.  Eventually Jesus does say plainly,

“Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

The reaction of Thomas is interesting

“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus has only just recently escaped a threat to his life, he has managed to get to away from Jerusalem and the idea of returning does not go down well with the disciples. They had escaped by the skin of their teeth, and now Jesus is being asked to deliberately go back into danger. We should perhaps be surprised to hear that it is Thomas, the one who throughout the history of the church is to be called “doubting,” who turns out to be the courageous and believing one.

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Note the four days - no doubt now after three days that Lazarus was really dead. Note also that Martha goes out to Jesus, perhaps to protect him from those who would kill him. Martha greets Jesus with these words of regret,

"Lord, I wish you could have been here, because if you had, my brother would not have died."

She knew that Lazarus was dead before Jesus could have done anything, but she has faith that Jesus could have made him well. Martha is expressing what everybody feels after a death - regrets, ‘if only’

Jesus said to her,

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

And it is this statement upon which everything hangs. Jesus is about to show that he is capable of raising the dead.

When confronted with the weeping gathering we read that he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. There has been much discussion of this. We know that in this passage are used the two words which form the shortest verse in the Bible ‘Jesus wept’. Sorrow is a part of human existence. In response to the grief and sorrow he sees, Jesus is overcome by grief and sorrow himself. Out of love and compassion, he shares fully in the sufferings of life. But this does not nearly capture all of what we are told about Jesus. Surrounded by death and mourning we are also told he was "deeply moved in spirit and emotionally agitated." The Greek word Enebrimesato has its root in the sound of a horse snorting, and expresses great anger. Etaraxen relates to fear and dread. Jesus was enraged in spirit and agitated with fear. Jesus is angry in the presence of death, this is not what he wants.

 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Bodies were laid in tombs, shafts cut into hillsides. They were laid out and in the early days there would be rapid decomposition with the flesh giving off a stench which would overcome the perfumed spices. Perhaps the whole body bound up there they decayed and eventually the bones were collected and placed into boxes.  But not in this case. Jesus calls for Lazarus to come out. This was clearly an astonishing miracle and a sign which led many to faith. The sight of the dead Lazarus shuffling out of the tomb must have caused fear, delight and wonder. Yet as much as many were driven to faith, Jewish leaders recognised that Jesus now represented a threat to their own positions of power. A few verses further on and we read that they decided now that Jesus must die. Jesus raises Lazarus to life and in so doing brings about the decision that his own life must be ended.

The writer of John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus performed his miracles for the purpose of helping people to believe that Jesus was

‘the Christ the Son of God’. (20:30)

The passage today helps us to see how Jesus - as God - reacts to death and grief. We see clearly the compassion of Jesus for those bereaved. The response of Jesus is to call himself ‘the resurrection and the life’, and he gives an amazing visual demonstration of this in the raising to life of Lazarus. Jesus calls for trust in God because with that belief comes life. Through faith in Jesus we Christians find that God raises us to know his risen life. Today is a call for us to put our trust in him as one who holds the key to everlasting life.    Charles Royden

Meditation

One of the demonstrators who spent several hours on the roof of the House of Commons last week was Tamsin Omond (23) , a parish administrator. She said that church people should limit their flights to one a year, and then “only if essential.”

Miss Omond spends half her time working for St Mary’s, Primrose Hill, in north-west London. Last week she hung banners from the Palace of Westminster roof to protest against the expansion of Heathrow. She is no dummy, having recently been awarded a first-class degree at Trinity College, Cambridge. She now faces 51 days’ imprisonment and a £5000 fine. She said, “my Vicar had been talking to me about spiritual development the evening before, and what I was going to do in the future. I told him I was getting more involved in direct action, and he nodded; but I don’t think he realised it meant this.’ Her Vicar, the Revd Robert Atwell, said: “Tamsin Omond is our conscientious and hard-working parish administrator. Like many people, she has a passionate concern for the environment. Whilst I do not applaud the manner of her personal demonstration, I do support her concern that our environment be protected.” 

A supportive Vicar like that is probably already trying working out ways to help pay her fine. But think, what do you feel strongly enough about to risk, going to prison, a hefty fine - and possibly falling off a very high building? Charles Royden

Hymns

• Let all the world in every corner sing (Tune Luckington)
• King of Glory King of Peace (Tune Gwalchmai)
• O for a closer walk with God (Tune Gerontius)
• Hail thou once despised Jesus (Tune Lux Eoi)
• Jesus, Prince and Saviour (Tune St Gertrude)

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Almighty God, your Son came into the world to free us from sin and death Breathe upon us with the power of your Spirit, that we may be raised to new life in Christ, and serve you in holiness  and righteousness all our days; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Most merciful God, who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ delivered and saved the world: grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross, we may triumph in the power of his victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Almighty God and heavenly Father, open our eyes to see you at work in our world: grant us wisdom in using our gifts, grace to enliven our churches, and courage to transform our communities. By your Holy Spirit, equip us for the challenge ahead, excite us to follow your vision and empower us in witness and service. To you be the glory through Jesus our Saviour and mighty Redeemer. Vision for Action Prayer of the St Albans Diocese

Make us worthy, O Lord, to serve our sisters and brothers throughout the world. Through us draw near to all who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give to them through our hands the bread they need for today and the love and joy and peace which is life in you, now and always. Amen. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 1910-1996

Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord. As a man like us, Jesus wept for Lazarus his friend. As the eternal God he raised Lazarus from the dead. In his love for us all, Christ gives us the sacraments to lift us up to everlasting life. Through him the angels of heaven offer their prayer of adoration as they rejoice in your presence for ever. May our voices be one with theirs in their triumphant hymn of praise. Amen.

Additional Material 

Commentary

The Raising of Lazarus.  We are looking at the passage from John’s Gospel this week and the raising of the deceased Lazarus. In John’s Gospel there are seven miracles or signs and we are told that they each give glory to God. The first was the wedding in Cana, today we have the last and the greatest miracle or sign that Jesus ever carried out.

Marilyn suggested I come up with a painting for Parish News this week and so I chose the Rembrandt of the raising of Lazarus. There are lots of versions of this scene which I could have chosen but I went for this one because is avoids any of the miracle magic which some paintings display. Death as well all know is ghastly and I think that this picture displays the gruesome reality. There is darkness in this painting and Lazarus really does look like somebody who has been dead for four days and is in the pain of being brought back to life.

There are lots of tensions in the story from John Chapter 11. When Lazarus is in deep need and dying the message is sent to ask Jesus to come. You perhaps expect Jesus to stop what he is doing and immediately rush off to sort things out. But Jesus waits two days. For Mary and Martha there would have been a cruel silence.

Bethany was two miles from Jerusalem and so if Jesus had dropped everything and rushed back to Lazarus in Bethany the journey would have taken two days. When Jesus arrived Lazarus had already been dead for four days. So even if Jesus had left immediately, Lazarus would still have died.

But imagine how those sisters Mary and Matha must have felt. I know that some of you will know exactly how those sisters felt. Many of us have prayed for somebody we love to be healed to get better and they don’t. It feels as though the prayer has fallen on God’s deaf ears.

There are some quite cruel religious people who will tell you the reason why you can’t just click your fingers at God and get a prayer answered is your own fault. You haven’t asked enough, or you are too wicked or you lack the right type or amount of faith.

John tells us that in this case it was nothing to do with the sisters that Jesus did not right away heal Lazarus. Indeed John makes a point of saying that Jesus loved them, he wasn’t ignoring their request. Afterall this was the Mary who poured ointment and wiped the feet of Jesus with he hair.

When we pray and we don’t see the answer that we want, some theologians call this the "silence of God." This is because generations of faithful Christians have found that divine love doesn't always manifest itself in the removal of pain. It’s nothing to do with our failure to love God or of God’s love for us, we live in a world where bad stuff happens. God is not like a genie in a bottle where we are supposed to ask for stuff and it happens.

In some circumstances it seems that there is a greater purpose or some good that can out of the pain. At other times we come face to face with the reality that we live in mortal bodies which decay and die.

I do understand a little of how Mary and Martha must have felt when they came face to face with Jesus. Destroyed, let down, a feeling of ‘if only’ as they wished that the terrible death could have been avoided. So what was going on, why did Jesus delay?

It has been noted that a strand of early Jewish belief held that for the first three days after death, the soul remains close to the body, hoping to return. Only when the body begins to show visible signs of decay does the soul finally depart. This idea appears in early rabbinic literature

(and is attributed to the sage Bar Qappra.)

The teaching appears in Genesis Rabbah 100 (64a), where Bar Qappra says:

“For three days the soul returns to the body, thinking it will go back. When it sees the face has changed, it departs.”

This is the line that shaped Jewish imagination about death in the period when the Gospel of John was written.

This might explain why the death of Lazarus of four days is particularly important. Jesus turns up when all cultural, spiritual, and emotional hope is gone. When Martha warns Jesus that the body of Jesus now reeks from the smell of death, it reminds us that this is not a resuscitation. This is not a healing which is taking place, this is Jesus demonstrating that the worst enemy of humankind is about to be defeated. Death itself which has been a curse for every person who has ever loved is about to be reversed. I like the painting of Lazarus by Rembrandt because he captures this, Lazarus does not look like somebody who has just been awakened from sleep, he is being brought back from a place where no person has ever returned.

So apart from being a record of something which happened a long time ago. What can we learn from this miracle today?

1. Death is not a friend of God

When faced with the death of Lazarus w are told that Jesus wept. The shortest of the verses in the Bible and one of the most important. It reminds us that the sentence of death which hangs over all life is not one which comes from God. Jesus mourns the loss of his friend, God takes no pleasure from death, so all those sympathy cards which say that the reason somebody died was because God wanted another flower in his garden or he only takes the best, or he called them home, they should be removed from the shelves of card shops and burned. They do not convey the tears of Jesus, a God who cries with us when we lose a loved one.

2. Jesus shows us that God intends to overcome it

Jesus says to Matha

‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.’

Speaking to a woman in deep grief Jesus says that her belief in him is not misplaced. Jesus is about the work of resurrection. Lazarus would one day die again, he was brought back from the clutches of death, but this was just a visible sign of the power of God to overcome death for all time. 

We have to be honest about resurrection, there is much we do not know. The Biblical writers made some guesses, because they did not know, there were even things which Jesus didn't know. Some thought that when you died you might go straight to heaven, others thought that there would be a time in the future when everybody came back to life they thought that the dead in the graves would hear the voice of Jesus. We don’t know how or when but we do know this, God promises through Jesus a resurrection to eternal life. 

3. There is another message which we need to take from this miracle. Some commentators say that the name Bethany may mean ’House of Affliction.” The name Lazarus almost certainly means ‘God helps.’ 

We can all find ourselves in a place of affliction, a place so bad it is like death itself in its debilitating hopelessness. Sometimes the living need someone to call them out of their graves and to give their spirit new life.

In the passage from Ezekiel 37 this morning we read that the people in Ezekiel’s time needed God to raise them from their metaphorical graves. They were not physically dead but they did feel as though their situation was a debilitating hopelessness. Sometimes the living need to hear Jesus call them out of their graves and fill them with a spirit of new life. Our Christian faith is not just about a reward in the next life, God wishes us to enjoy life in all its fulness in the here and now. We are called by God to come out from our darkest places, to leave the tombs of whatever oppresses us and receive the strength to live as his resurrected people.

In John 10 Jesus says I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly. We are called to participate in abundant life which is resurrection life breaking into our lives now.

My prayer this morning is that you draw comfort in the promise of resurrection life, not just for yourselves but for those you love and also that you might know in your soul that abundant life of Christ to bring you peace and joy as we walk through these troubled times.   Charles Royden

Commentary

The readings today think about death and resurrection, surely these are issues faced by every living soul. But the condition of death can mean so much more than just the physical moment when we need an undertaker. When the prophet Ezekiel spoke to the people they were living, but they were in a condition of death. As Sam spoke to us in our Lent Course this week, they were a shattered and captive nation; they were exiles in Babylon. On their own, they had no future and no hope of restoration. They were like “Dry bones” strewn on a desert landscape. This picture conveys to us how the people felt, despair and lifeless. They lived in a foreign land and could no longer call themselves a people and they lacked the resources to do anything about it. We all know people like that: a death or serious illness has changed their lives dramatically and they despair about the future. 

Yet Ezekiel tells that when God is involved, nothing is hopeless. God makes a promise, “I will open your graves and have you rise from them and bring you back to the land of Israel.” God did fulfill that promise and the people were brought back home. They were raised from their graves and they, who were no-people, became a new people through the Spirit of God. Death and its manifestations affect even those who are still physically alive. But, the prophet assures us, God has power over death in all its forms. 

John spends a long time telling the story of how Jesus gives life to Lazarus. It is an important episode, the decaying corpse of Lazarus, locked away in a tomb is brought to life and it aroused much faith in Jesus. Understandably the Jewish authorities were furious about Jesus who had so much power that he was a serious threat to them, their religion and way of life. From now on the Jewish leaders had a decision, either kill Jesus or he would start a religious revolution in which they would be overthrown. We all know how this ends, they made their decision and choose to pursue him to death on the cross. Thankfully they underestimated the power of Jesus, not only could Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, he could be raised himself, to a life that could never be taken away again - everlasting life. That is what Easter is all about, discovering the new life which Jesus gives, so that we need not fear anybody or anything, not ever death itself. 

But there is also something more which is very symbolic about this passage. Jesus finds Lazarus in Bethany. Lazarus means ‘God helps,’ whilst Bethany means ’House of Affliction.” 

We can all find ourselves in a place of affliction, a place so bad it is like death itself in its debilitating hopelessness. Sometimes the living need someone to call them out of their graves and to give their spirit new life, just as the people in Ezekiel’s time needed God to raise them from their graves. Our Christian faith is not just about a reward in the next life, Jesus is concerned about our lives now. He call us out from our darkest places, he calls us to leave the tomb and gives us the strength to live as his resurrected people? Charles Royden