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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Lent 5A John 11:1-45

The story of resurrection...if you have ever stood at a grave and wept like Mary & Martha you identify...

Rising again. What a concept. When my grandpa died in 1987 I prayed that he would rise out of that coffin until I heard they had already flushed his body fluids out and replaced them with formaldehyde. Only then did I think it was hopeless.

Imagine Mary & Martha who have been hopeless. His body stinketh already. And here comes Jesus saying "Roll away the stone."

One "Year A" I had just experienced the worst day of my life as I read this passage. My 20 month-old daughter had had a seizure and turned blue. I thought she was dead but she breathed again. I read this and started sobbing, sitting down to email a New Testament professor friend. If only I could find that email, but it is lost to cyberspace. I explained to him my experience of resurrection and sudden understanding of Mary & Martha.

Now, many of you may say, "But my child did not breathe again." I'm sure my response to the passage would have been different if that had been my case.

But at the bottom of the page I read, "I am the resurrection and the life, no one comes to the father except through me."

Our hope.

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