Good morning!
I hope this day finds you and your family well. I invite you to take a few moments with me to read and reflect upon today’s scripture selection — and to carry these thoughts with you into your day.
Today’s Scripture: John 11:32-44 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
32 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.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 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.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 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.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 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.”
Tim’s Devotional Reflection for Today
Anyone who had to memorize Bible verses as a child memorized John 11:35—“Jesus wept.” It is the shortest verse in the Bible, so it is a popular verse to learn if you’re in a competition for the number of verses you can memorize. But it is a beautiful verse for another reason. It reminds us of the full humanity of Jesus. He wept. He saw the pain and grief of his friends, Mary and Martha, and he grieved the death of his friend Lazarus.
My friend Jim Moore told the story of a clergy intern working at St. Luke’s in Houston years ago who was assigned the morning chapel communion service. He had never served communion alone before, and he was scared. They had a communion service printed on a laminated card, and it started with the Invitation to Communion, followed by the Prayer of Confession and the Prayer of Consecration. Then just before the people would come forward to receive communion, the minister would stand, face the congregation and say, “Hear these words of comfort from the scriptures.” They left a blank there on the communion card so the officiating pastor could quote a verse of scripture at that point.
When they got to this point in the service, the young ministerial student stood and said, “Hear these words of comfort from the scriptures…” And then his mind went completely blank. There was a long pause, and then he blurted out the only verse he could think of at the moment. The old standby of Sunday School memorization: “Jesus wept.”
Later he told Jim what happened and how awful he felt about that at first, but then how one of the members of the church came down after the service and said to him, “When you quoted that verse, ‘Jesus wept,’ that was so meaningful to me because it made me suddenly realize that… the Healer of our pain is the feeler of our pain!”
It’s true. Jesus is both the healer of our pain and the feeler of our pain. That is the good news in those two simple words. Jesus wept because he loved those people, and the risen Christ weeps with us today in our pain and rejoices with us today in our joy. Jesus wept out of compassion and love.
Hymn: “Hymn of Promise”
by Natalie Sleeth (1986)
In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Thank you for sharing this moment of your day with me, with God, and with these reflections on a portion of scripture. I hope you will carry these with you throughout your day and night.
Grace and Peace,
Dr. Tim Bruster
Senior Pastor
