Lazarus, Come Out!

Doubt ()

Does it ever amaze you how easily we doubt God?

In today’s lesson Martha doubts Jesus.

I’d be willing to bet in your lives that it’s easy to doubt as well.

Can lead to all sorts of anxiety

Today we’re going to explore what it means to trust Jesus, even when it seems all is lost.

John 11:38–44 NRSV

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 upward 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.”

Note that Martha isn’t so different than the age we live in today.

She doubts.

And why wouldn’t she!!??

Martha is much like us today.

Still happen

Craig Keener, “Miracles”

Dead Raised

The blind still receive sight

John 11:38

Douglas Norwood’s paralyzed wife walks despite severed spinal cord

Migraines

Lame Walk

Duane Miller: Pastor loses voice and then gets it back in a recording.

Every day is a miracle

But important for us to understand, that miracles occur around us every day!

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, Volume 2 Pastoral Perspective

Resurrected women, men, and children today also require caring communities that are willing to nurture and strengthen them until they are able to walk alone; to remove the graveclothes of self-doubt, social isolation, marginalization, and oppression; to tear away the wrappings of fear, anxiety, loss, and grief, so that unbound women, men, and children might walk in dignity and become creative agents in the world.

YOUR existence is a 1 in 100-million shot.

When you cut yourself, the blood clots.

If the earth were just a little farther, or closer, to the sun, it would destroy the earth.

Our brains are so adaptable and complex, that I can actually say words right now and you udnerstand what I’m saying.

Meaning

Every day we turn on our cars, and hear vibrations come through the air, and we somehow assign value to those vibrations.

If it’s country music I hope we all assign poor value.

Where does meaning come from? Where does our sense of beauty come from? Our sense of justice, injustice???

All of these things are miracles.

Conclusion: You MAY see someone raised from the dead. You may have physical infirmities healed.

You may not.

But your life…your presence…our world…Everything is miracle.

So, dear friends, get up and ARISE! Walk out with joy knowing that the Jesus who rose from the dead has created us, loves us, and offers us the miracle of life each and every day.

The Doubt