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Lectionary Notes
- 5th Sunday in Lent
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Readings for 5th
Sunday in Lent, 3/9/08:
Psalm 130, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45
Ezekiel 37:1-14:
- The Valley of the Bones. This
passage is so rich with possible meanings for us. "Mortal, can these bones
live?" Even what seems beyond life can be made alive by God's holy breath. We
are reminded again that, as Ezekiel says, it is God, not us, who
knows the extent of the grace that God can extend to us.
- "our bones are dried up, and our
hope is lost." Do you ever feel like this? Dried up? Without hope? How has God
acted to breath new life into you?
Psalm 130:
- A favorite Psalm. My favorite
musical setting of this Psalm is the John Rutter Requiem, performed
occasionally by my childhood-church.
- Out of the depths - what are the
depths from which you call to God? Do you remember to call to God from your
lowest low?
- This psalm shows a great faith
and hope in God's grace and forgiving mercy, unlike some psalms that are more
bent on vengeance: "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord , who could
stand?" It is a nice change.
- wait, wait, wait the psalmist
says. I've read statistics before about how many years of our life we
spending waiting in line for things. How much of your life do you spend
waiting on God? Are you more patient about waiting in line for concert tickets
than you are about waiting for God?
Romans 8:6-11:
- typical Paul - flesh/body
spirit/soul dualism. I wish Paul had explained what he meant in a different
way, or that he meant a different thing, even. It is too easy to say that
everything earthly should be rejected in favor of the spirit world. The thing
is, we've got a lot to do still in this earthly world - a lot of good stuff to
enjoy and a lot of not-so-good stuff to which to turn our attention.
- Compare this passage to the
Ezekiel passage - God giving life through spirit to mortal bodies.
John 11:1-45:
- "Lazarus, come out." Out of what caves do you need to
be called?
- Notice that Jesus speaks of himself as the
resurrection, before he is crucified and raised in the scriptural accounts.
Rather than predicting a future event in his life, I believe that he is
speaking to the fact that he is currently at that time the
resurrection. He is already raising people out of death, to new life. He is
already transforming people, so that their lives become like nothing they
could recognize before. That is resurrection, isn't it?
- "Jesus wept." The shortest verse in the Bible, and one
of the most powerful - "see how he loved him," responded the crowds.
- "I believe . . . that you are the one coming into the
world." This is one of my favorite verses in this passage - it is an active
word, a continuing, not a one time event. Jesus doesn't just come into the
world - he is coming into it, continually. Always entering into our lives.
- God, if you'd intervened, this bad thing wouldn't have
happened to me! How many times to we offer this type of complaint up to God,
blaming God for what goes wrong in our lives?
Pastor’s Note: (I use the Greek-English
Lexicon from Liddell and Scott, the “little Liddell”
and the Metzger et. al Greek New Testament in my translation work.)
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