This week’s Readings and Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent - Passion Sunday
The Collect for This Week
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. Amen
The Post Communion Prayer for this week
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. Amen
Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths have I cried to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice; let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication. 2 If you, Lord, were to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who could stand? 3 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you shall be feared. 4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope. 5 My soul waits for the Lord, more than the night watch for the morning, more than the night watch for the morning. 6 O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy; 7 With him is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever. Amen
The Old Testament Reading for this Sunday is taken from the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 37, verses 1 to 14
1 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. 2 He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’ 4 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 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.’
7 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. 8 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. 9 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.’ 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11 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.” 12 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. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 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.’
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The New Testament reading for this Sunday is taken from the Letter of St Paul to the Romans, Chapter 8, verses 6 to 11
6 O set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 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, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 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. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 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. .
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The Gospel reading for this Sunday is taken from the Gospel of St John, Chapter 11, verses 1 to 45
Hear the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to John Glory to You, o Lord
1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ 4 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.’ 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7 Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ 8 The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ 9 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. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ 11 After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ 12 The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ 23 Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ 24 Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ 25 Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 27 She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’
28 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.’ 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 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. 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.’ 33When 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 for 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 upwards 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.’
45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to You, o Christ
Note :All readings are shared from the Church of England Lectionary App and are subject to copyright . © The Archbishop’s Council
This week’s sermon is delivered by Rev Samuel Hameem
“May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer amen.”
Today is the fifth Sunday of this year’s Lent season, but it is not just the fifth Sunday of Lent, rather it is also called the Passion Sundy, which means as we were thinking and pondering on the Word of God in previous days of the Lent, from today we contemplate more on the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ which he bore for us.
And on this Sunday the reading we just heard form the Gospel according to John is quite known one to all of us, as this is a reading where just before he goes to Jerusalem, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and he called him out of the tomb where people laid him. In other words, we could say that this one of Jesus’ last miracles that he performed on earth.
Gospel according to John is a very known Gospel for so many reasons. The apostle John, who was one of the twelve disciples, wrote this Gospel account, when probably he was in Ephesus, a city located in modern-day Turkey. Some scholars believe that he wrote this Gospel somewhere between 80 to 50 AD, and some argue that it can be dated as early as the 50 but not later than 70 AD. John wrote this Gospel account to non-Jewish followers of Jesus, particularly to those who were struggling with the predominant Greek philosophers of their time. These philosophers taught that salvation comes through special knowledge and that Jesus was divine but truly human, that is why John wrote this Gospel account to explain the goal that these signs, (which means miracles) of Jesus are written that people may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and they by believing you may have life in his name.
So, we all are familiar with the story, or event, or the miracle of Jesus where he raised Lazarus from the dead, and if we recall that whole event in our minds and dig a bit deeper into this event, we could find many emotions in this. We could see a sadness, as well as a happiness as well. We could see hope, trust, optimism, faith, care, etc, and this list can go as long as we want.
If we see the immediate context of this miracle, we all know that Jesus was Jesus was not in Bethay at the time when Lazarus got sick, and although he came to know about his medical conditions, he deliberately delayed his visit to his house, and when he came to comfort that family we all know what happened. As soon as Martha know about Jesus, she came to meet him, and there they had discourse in which Jesus comfort her in the words where he proclaimed that he is God, as in John 11:25 Jesus said,
“…I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
If we recall Jesus and Mary’s conversation, we could see Mary did not hold back. She fell at the feet of Jesus and said what was in her heart. She did not hold back with her emotions and what she was feeling at time, she did not hold back what she believed and what she was thinking about coming days, in other words she opened her heart to Lord Jesus by saying this that,
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:21)
This is a statement of grief mixed with faith, because in the situations she was, she still called him Lord. It is true that before that she also spoke her disappointment, but still she called him Lord, and if see the Jesus, he did not correct her even when she was talking in disappointment. While I read in one of my mobile devotional applications that,
“Jesus did not correct her. He did not explain timing. He did not offer a quick solution. He asked where Lazarus was laid, walked towards the tomb and wept.”
‘Jesus wept’, a short line, and to my best knowledge the shortest verse of the Bible, but this line, or these words, or this verse carries a lot of weight. Jesus knew he could raise Lazarus; he knew death would not have final word, but still he wept there with the family to enter their sorrow, to feel the emotions, to contact with them in their distress and to show them his love and compassion. He did not stand at distance. He allowed himself to feel the pain and sadness of the moment.
A natural question that may come to mind here is that why if he was going to raise Lazarus? To answer that question, NIV Quest Study Bible states that,
“The Jews had come to comfort Mary and Martha wailed loudly, expressing their grief according to the custom of first-century Jewish mourners. The term weeping (verse 33) conveys this loud expression of grief, while wept (verse 35) in the original language is a different word that expresses the idea of quiet weeping (as in shedding tears). Even so it seems strange that Jesus wept while he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Perhaps Jesus wept sympathetically because he deeply identified with his friends who mourned Lazarus’ death. The fulness of the Lord’s humanity is especially evident in the fact that Jesus wept (Luke 19:41 and Heb 5:7-8).”
We as human sometimes think faith means hiding our tears, or not to show our emotions publicly or that, strong faith should make us steady and unaffected, but today’s Gospel reading is showing and teaching us something different. It is talking and telling us that it is okay to bring our raw questions to Jesus. It is okay to talk to him with our broken words, it is showing us that is okay to express our feelings in dignified way.
In today’s Gospel reading we heard Jesus wept, and he wept because love was present at the time, and he wept because he knows that loss hurts. He wept at the grave of Lazarus because he walks into our suffering, not around it. When we stand before our tombs, whatever they may be, we are not alone.
As we are entering into the Passiontide, where ponder on suffering of our Lord, let us ponder on ourselves and ask this question that, is there anything we are holding back in our lives, from Jesus because we think we can handle it? If yes, let us bring it to God and ask him to guide us with his wisdom so we glorify his name in our personal, family and church life.
May God bless you all.
Amen.