Come forth!

Saturday, March 28, 2026

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Come forth!

You walk into Jerusalem, Jesus, with a price on your head. The crowds cry “Hosanna!” Your disciples are wary. And all you see are the people who need you … Lazarus and his sisters needed you.

Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go” …

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin … from that day on they plotted to take his life. So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.

Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves. They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the Feast at all?”

Oh, yes, Jesus is coming all right. But not like the priests seem to think he will. They are afraid Jesus will inspire the crowds to stand up and fight, and then the Romans will massacre them all. They think only in terms of politics and power. Jesus has another role to play.

Jesus heals people. He brings his friend Lazarus back to life after three days dead in the grave. He preaches love and practices love and everyone loves him.

Well, not everyone.

Not everyone loves him because he calls attention to their lack of love. Jesus can only do that because he sets such a high standard. No one ever experienced love like that. Heaven came down and glory filled their souls. Jesus and his Father walked the paths of Galilee to heal and teach and bring peace. Peace, not war.

Oh! what a shame to miss that, to be caught in theology and dogma, self-righteousness and pride, and miss his love. Jesus wept for those men unable to grasp the green shoots of heaven when they sprouted right in front of them. How would they ever know their Father when the grass turned brown?

And of course at times he weeps for me. Jesus wipes his salve on my fallen nature,  saves me from myself and the Prince of the world, rescues my perishing … and he weeps when I don’t grab the green, or even see it. Salvation is in the details, between the sermons and the prayers and the protestations of faith. It comes at 3 a.m. when I wake up and notice my thoughts screaming out of control into anxiety. It makes all things new every morning, when left alone I might feel dread or exhaustion or boredom. It waits on me in the afternoon, when I can choose how to spend my time. Distant, I hear his voice coming closer, louder, insistent.

Jesus cries, “Come forth!”

Your love is amazing, Jesus. Now it’s up to me to get off my grave and walk outside.

Cast away from you

all the crimes you have committed,

says the LORD,

and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

(P.S. The Lazarus link takes you to Carman, live, doing his version of how Lazarus spent his time in heaven during those three days after he died. I’d heard it before, but now I’ve seen it. And just like Job, I was floored.)

 (Ezekiel 37, Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 18, John 11)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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