SPEAKER_01: Good day, and welcome to North Raleigh United Methodist Church behind the scenes podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss this week's scripture and sermon.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Kevin Van Hall.
SPEAKER_01: I serve as the group's moderator and I guess a little bit antagonist with some of my questions for everyone that's out there.
SPEAKER_01: And joining me today is one of our uh lead pastors here at North Raleigh, Laura Johnson.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, Laura.
SPEAKER_00: Hi.
SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here today.
SPEAKER_01: Well, welcome back.
SPEAKER_01: You've had a busy week, a busy two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Um last time we did the podcast, Jen was on it.
SPEAKER_01: She was speaking um while you were gone at a conference, and then unfortunately we're not able to get back together.
SPEAKER_01: Kevin preached last week, and um we were I wasn't able to sit down with Kevin at that time, and he preached about um the blind man being healed, given sight again by Jesus, and how the Pharisees are so upset that he did it on the Sabbath that don't no one even mentioned the fact that uh blind man born blind receives sight.
SPEAKER_01: So that's where we've uh been a little bit, and go back two other weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Uh last time we were on the podcast, we were in uh talking about the Samaritan woman at the well.
SPEAKER_01: I was with Jen.
SPEAKER_01: And will you give me a drink?
SPEAKER_01: This is all part of the series that's ongoing here during the season of Lent, Seeking Honest Questions for Deeper Faith.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna continue our discussion today along that path.
SPEAKER_01: Laura is here with me this week because she's gonna be preaching this week.
SPEAKER_01: And we are in Ezekiel and John today, and the theme or story is can these bones live?
SPEAKER_01: So that's right.
SPEAKER_00: Straight out of Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: Can these bones live?
SPEAKER_01: I see the connection out of Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have to explain the connection in John.
SPEAKER_00: You got it.
SPEAKER_01: No worries.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna continue on then with our podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Again, we are coming up on the fifth Sunday of Lent, so this Sunday will be uh March 22nd.
SPEAKER_01: But it will be a different story over in the contemporary service.
SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna have a tru a regular service with a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: They are gonna have a more of a musical, a lament and hope contemporary service, correct?
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
SPEAKER_00: No sermon, just prayer and songs and prayer stations.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: Because the following Sunday, March 29th, will be Palm Sunday, the sixth Sunday, and there will be a cantata in the regular services being the 8:30 and the 11 o'clock.
SPEAKER_01: And no sermon there, but this is going to be such a great sermon we don't want everyone to miss out, correct?
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll preach it twice in the traditional services this Sunday and in the contemporary service on the 29th.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent, outstanding.
SPEAKER_01: So that gives you a heads up of what is upcoming here at North Raleigh.
SPEAKER_01: All this information can be found on the website as well.
SPEAKER_01: I'll direct you there.
SPEAKER_01: So I did mention today, Ezekiel and John.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in Ezekiel um chapter 37.
SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel is one of the major prophets, along with Isaiah and Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: But is he given the credit that Isaiah gets?
SPEAKER_01: But Ezekiel is a high priest, very well educated, very well respected, doesn't get as much credit or as much attention, I should say, as Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: But this passage, this chapter is very well known.
SPEAKER_01: There's hymns mentioning this, these dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think a lot of his language isn't as poetic, or there isn't as many um messianic prophecies that we find in Isaiah, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: And Ezekiel's sometimes it's a little weird.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good weird, but um, you know, this vision of dry bones becoming uh enfleshed again, it's that's a little strange.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna talk about that.
SPEAKER_01: But before we go too much farther into it, how about a word of prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Lord, we ask that you would bless us in this time of conversation as we explore your scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that you would bless all who are joining us as they also seek these scriptures and seek your voice in them and ask their questions and wrestle with what you are trying to say to us.
SPEAKER_00: May we hear you speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So Ezekiel is one of the uh prophets, and his visions and his time period is right around the time that uh Babylon again invades the southern kingdom, and they are taken away into exile.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we talk so often about that, and we think about the final exile being in around 586 BC when the temple is destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: But Babylon comes and invades the southern kingdom before then, and there's a time period when about 10,000 Jews are taken away in exile, and that's about 597.
SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel's in that time frame.
SPEAKER_01: He's that first group that gets pulled into exile ahead in advance.
SPEAKER_01: But he is able to remain a priest during his exile, and he God comes upon him and brings him visions, um, has him prophesies, and he talks about the upcoming.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, the terror, the the worst thing, the upcoming is where the temple is going to be finally, is going to be destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: But just like so many of the prophets, he talks about God's restoration, that you will be redeemed one day.
SPEAKER_01: And I guess we're sort of getting in that in this passage, and are we not?
SPEAKER_01: In chapter 37.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think in earlier parts of the book, it's a lot of warnings, as many of the prophets give warnings, that if you keep going this way, you're gonna have some terrible consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and this is when we start to see kind of the hope that I we cannot understate how monumental the the the exile was for the Hebrew people, the sacking of Jerusalem, when everything was raised, when whole armies were wiped out by Babylon, which is a more powerful nation, everything that the Hebrew people knew and held in common, all their worshiping life was centered around that land.
SPEAKER_00: And so when all that was wiped out and taken away, all of their foundations just crumbled beneath them.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is, it was so devastating.
SPEAKER_00: And they were at the place where they were wondering is there any hope left?
SPEAKER_00: Is is all of our hopes, are they just have they perished?
SPEAKER_00: Are they gone forever?
SPEAKER_00: And so into that situation is when Ezekiel gets this vision of restoration and hope.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So chapter 37, uh, verses one through fourteen, and Laura's gonna read for us.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's power overcame me, and while I was in the Lord's spirit, he led me out and set me down in the middle of a certain valley.
SPEAKER_00: It was full of bones.
SPEAKER_00: He led me through them all around, and I saw that there were a great many of them on the valley floor, and they were very dry.
SPEAKER_00: He asked me, Human one, can these bones live again?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Lord God, only you know.
SPEAKER_00: He said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, Dry bones, hear the Lord's word.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord God proclaims to these bones, I am about to put breath in you, and you will live again.
SPEAKER_00: I will put sinews on you, put place flesh on you, and cover you with skin.
SPEAKER_00: When I put breath in you and you come to life, you will know that I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I prophesied just as I was commanded.
SPEAKER_00: There was a great noise as I was prophesying, then a great quaking, and the bones came together bone by bone.
SPEAKER_00: When I looked, suddenly there were sinews on them, the flesh appeared, and then they were covered with skin, but there was still no breath in them.
SPEAKER_00: He said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, human one, say to the breath, The Lord God proclaims, Come from the four winds, breath, breathe into these dead bodies, and let them live.
SPEAKER_00: I prophesied just as he commanded me.
SPEAKER_00: When the breath entered them, they came to life and stood on their feet, an extraordinarily large company.
SPEAKER_00: He said to me, Human one, these bones are the entire house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is perished.
SPEAKER_00: We are completely finished.
SPEAKER_00: So now prophesy and say to them, The Lord God proclaims, I'm opening your graves.
SPEAKER_00: I will raise you up from your graves, my people, and I will bring you to Israel's fertile land.
SPEAKER_00: You will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, my people.
SPEAKER_00: I will put my breath in you and you will live.
SPEAKER_00: I will plant you on your fertile land, and you will know that I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I've spoken and I will do it.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord says.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So in your version, um, where you I prophesized, and he commanded me to breathe and entered them, and they came to life and stood upon me, and you talked about a great I think it was a vast majority or company.
SPEAKER_01: My version actually says army.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: So if you take the literal meaning of this, you might interpret this as God is going to raise the dead and create a gigantic army that's going to defeat Babylon for the Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: Is that what's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: Or it's God is is is recalling the great battle in which they lost their land and saying, all that has been lost, this army that was left to rot in the fields, that I will restore that that brokenness or that shame.
SPEAKER_01: So it's more of a raising of the nation of Israel versus bringing back the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the symbolic metaphor of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell So this is a vision, so there is the symbolism that's going to be in there, but it needs to be a little bit of interpretation there.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the one of the interesting pieces of it is that in verse 9, when God tells Ezekiel to breathe into the dead bodies and let them live, that verb breathe is the exact same verb that is used in the Genesis story of creation, when God breathes into the clay figure that God made, breathes life into him.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this idea of kind of new creation, of the old being rebirthed into something new.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So I think of it exactly like that, in a little bit different sense of there's body and then their spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The flesh and the bones and everything could be there, the tendons, the sinews, or whatever, but until the breath of God enters you, you're not really alive.
SPEAKER_01: You're just an existent shell.
unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the Hebrew people at this stage don't feel very alive.
SPEAKER_00: They feel like dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Our hope is is our hope has perished.
SPEAKER_00: It's in verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Our bones are dried up, our hope has perished, we are completely finished.
SPEAKER_00: This is like the the refrain that the Hebrew people are saying over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: And so they they feel like those dry bones without God's breath.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a vision of promise that God will breathe life into you again.
SPEAKER_00: Just when you think all is lost, God will breathe life into you.
SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, there's an emphasis there, dry.
SPEAKER_01: Dry comes up several times.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't just say bones, it keeps saying dry bones.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: What's the significance in that?
SPEAKER_00: That's a really great question.
SPEAKER_01: Is it that they're just that old and dried up and gone?
SPEAKER_01: All hope is is that the image that we're trying to get?
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
SPEAKER_00: This like beyond they're not just like recently dead, they're real dead, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like they're it's like beyond all hope.
SPEAKER_00: That that would be how I would interpret it.
SPEAKER_00: Or of like when you are describing your suffering, you use superlatives to describe how deep your suffering is.
SPEAKER_00: And it could be the same kind of thing as like the driest of the dry as a superlative to describe how lifeless they feel.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I kind of see something else here that's going on.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like the message is nothing's impossible for God, right?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Just a valley of dry bones.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing left, and yet I can do God can.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's so interesting about that question when God asks Ezekiel, can these bones live?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the logical answer is no.
SPEAKER_00: No, they can't.
SPEAKER_00: But Ezekiel doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, only you know, which is kind of a cop-out answer.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I keep saying all the bases are covered there, right?
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: Like, and there's in the commentaries I've read, there's debate of is this like a he's kind of given up like only you know, or is this like I have faith in you, God, only you know.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's up for interpretation.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's almost like the modern, I don't know, what do you think?
SPEAKER_01: Just put it back on you, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: So exactly.
SPEAKER_00: But the question itself, can these bones live, is a question of possibility, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's that nothing is impossible with God.
unknown: Right.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing is impossible with God is uh is a message, and the other message that we already talked about is that the nation is going to be lifted up and restored.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and you will come.
SPEAKER_01: Babylon is not the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01: You're exiled in Babylon's not the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to um jump from Ezekiel now into the New Testament, into the uh gospel of John, and we're going to talk a little bit about um a little bit different of a raising from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the story of Lazarus to set the stage.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Jesus is returned and coming back to Jerusalem at the end of his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: This is the last time he will be coming and entering the town of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: He is coming.
SPEAKER_01: Uh very, very poetic here that uh Palm Sunday is coming up, because that was exactly what's coming up next year, literally, in the in these scriptures as we go through.
SPEAKER_01: But um, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: We're in chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be reading uh verses 17 through 27.
SPEAKER_00: And let me name to your point, he is coming to Bethany against his disciples' advice, because they know that if he heads back towards Bethany's right outside of Jerusalem, that if he heads back toward that direction, he they're out to get him.
SPEAKER_00: And so they know that he's putting himself in danger, and he goes anyways.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been dead in the tomb for four days.
SPEAKER_00: Bethany was a little less than two miles from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Many Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary after their brother's death.
SPEAKER_00: When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him while Mary remained in the house.
SPEAKER_00: Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
SPEAKER_00: Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus told her, Your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_00: Martha replied, I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe this?
SPEAKER_00: She replied, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God's Son, the one who is coming into the world.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the stage.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is gets word that Lazarus is sick, but doesn't immediately dispatch.
SPEAKER_01: He waits until Lazarus dies.
SPEAKER_01: And Mary and Martha are the sisters.
SPEAKER_01: Very sad.
SPEAKER_01: Martha coming out, well, if you'd only been here, in other words, at first it's kind of like, Well, why didn't you come?
SPEAKER_01: I know you could have saved him, but you didn't.
SPEAKER_01: So she kind of defaults to she knows who he is.
SPEAKER_01: She still defaults to whatever's meant to be, is meant to be, and I know he'll come rise again.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus uses this word, your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say he'll be alive again.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Oh, we'll rise again.
SPEAKER_01: What's that what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: What's the significance to that, Laura?
SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a that's that one of those verses that you pause at and and reflect on, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the rise again is definitely a foreshadowing of Jesus' resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of this story, Lazarus, he's he's buried in the same kind of tomb Jesus is going to be buried in.
SPEAKER_00: Um and and so this idea that Lazarus is the foreshadow of what Jesus will do.
SPEAKER_00: Um I think that language is very particular in that that he will rise again.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And her faith, so often we heard in the stories of Jesus' miracles, your faith has healed you.
SPEAKER_01: Repent, turn her way, your faith has healed you, go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like um she proves her faith and believing in him, and she he is reassures her not to worry, it's not even gonna happen on the last resurrection day.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna happen sooner.
SPEAKER_01: Um, because he goes to explain about the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: She actually brings it up and he goes about explaining it.
SPEAKER_01: So I am the life, whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies.
SPEAKER_01: So do we ever, whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
SPEAKER_01: Do we ever die if we really believe in Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Is that what he's saying?
SPEAKER_01: We just kind of transform, or are we asleep until that last day?
SPEAKER_01: What is what is Jesus trying to tell us here?
SPEAKER_00: Those are all the deep questions of what is that, what is the afterlife look like?
SPEAKER_00: Do we do what some would say soul sleep, where we sleep until there's the final resurrection and we all are raised to eternal life?
SPEAKER_00: Or when we die, are we immediately ushered into eternal life?
SPEAKER_00: And those are the mysteries of our faith, Kevin, that I don't know the full answers to.
SPEAKER_00: But what I do know is Jesus here is saying is that through him there is resurrection life beyond the grave.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's kind of as he in John, he's speaking on two different levels.
SPEAKER_00: The first level is the literal one, the world right in front of him, where Lazarus is going to come back to life in this story.
SPEAKER_00: But the second level is that him coming back to life is proving that Jesus can give eternal life to all of us, that he has the power to bestow life where there once was a death.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting is that little detail at the beginning when it said that he'd been dead for four days.
SPEAKER_00: The um the common kind of rabbinic lore was that after someone died, their spirit hovered for like three days and then was gone.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the equivalent of the driest of dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: Like he's really dead.
SPEAKER_00: Like he is nowhere, there is no more Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: He is gone.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus here is saying, I'm the resurrection and I'm the life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that even your brother who is really, really dead, can come back to life?
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the numbers represent so many things in the Old Uh Testament and New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Three is a common one.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Saul referring to Paul is blind for three days, Jesus in the tomb for three days, Jonah in the belly of the w uh great fish for three days.
SPEAKER_01: There's that transformation period to where four is that complete ending and beginning again.
SPEAKER_01: Forty years in the desert, 40 days of rain, forty days of temptation.
SPEAKER_01: So four is that more, much more complete.
SPEAKER_01: Three might be a transformation, but four, like you said, there's no coming back.
SPEAKER_00: No more coming back.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_01: There's no coming back.
SPEAKER_01: So what's the difference between this and the dry bones in Ezekiel?
SPEAKER_01: You did talk about that a little bit, that it's complete.
SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the difference is that the vision that Ezekiel received was a vision that was prophesying about the restoration of a whole nation.
SPEAKER_00: Here, the difference is Jesus is talking about a particular person, right?
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus, and he's talking about r Lazarus being restored to his physical life.
SPEAKER_00: But the similarity is that just as in Ezekiel, God is promising the restoration of an entire nation, so in John, Jesus is promising eternal life to anybody who believes.
SPEAKER_00: That this resurrection life is available to an entirety of everyone?
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_01: Even the stupid ones, any every old commercial.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody who puts trust in Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: Who believes that he has that power to give resurrection life.
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell So that's a little bit different than Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel is more like returning the nation of Israel to where Jesus is talking about life everlasting for anyone who believes.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: A little bit deeper, a little bit, a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell, but another similarity is that the Israelites in Ezekiel's day and Mary and Martha in Jesus' day both thought all hope was like they were in the depths of their despair, that there was there was no coming back from this, at least in that day and age.
SPEAKER_00: Like Martha admits, I know there's resurrection in the next life, but that doesn't change anything now, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, Well, actually it does.
SPEAKER_00: Like I have the power of resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And so both stories go back to that point.
SPEAKER_00: With God, nothing is impossible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that just when you think you've hit the limit or the end or the depth of hopelessness, that's when God does his best work.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's continue on.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna stay in John, and we're gonna fast forward a little bit to uh verses uh thirty-eight through forty-four.
SPEAKER_01: Continue our discussion there.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Jesus was deeply disturbed again when he came to the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: It was a cave, and a stone covered the entrance.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Remove the stone.
SPEAKER_00: Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, Lord, the smell will be awful.
SPEAKER_00: He's been dead four days.
SPEAKER_00: The King James Version says, he stinketh, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus replied, Didn't I tell you that if you believe you will see God's glory?
SPEAKER_00: So they removed the stone.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus looked up and said, Father, thank you for hearing me.
SPEAKER_00: I know you always hear me.
SPEAKER_00: I say this for the benefit of the crowd standing here, so that they will believe that you sent me.
SPEAKER_00: Having said this, Jesus shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
SPEAKER_00: The dead man came out, his feet bound and his hands tied, and his face covered with a cloth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Untie him and let him go.
SPEAKER_01: Outstanding.
SPEAKER_01: So before we talk about that, I'm actually want to rewind all the way up to verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to talk about it too much, but I just want to mention it that we skipped to where the sisters come out.
SPEAKER_01: Martha and Mary, Mary now joins, and how sad that they are, and how Jesus is so sad that they are sad.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus wept as well, seeing them.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus probably wanted to come and prevent his friend from dying, but he didn't.
SPEAKER_01: That was not God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: That was not God's will.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus again shows that God's will trump over my will.
SPEAKER_01: And he allows Lazarus to die.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes on to understand well why.
SPEAKER_01: It was to show God's glory that we can be risen from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: You purposely let Lazarus die just so because this is done in front of a crowd.
SPEAKER_01: This is not just Martha and Mary there.
SPEAKER_01: You might think that by reading the small excerpts that we have, but Martha and Mary are followed by a huge contingent of family and friends and fellow mourners.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a big crowd here at the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just Martha and Mary seeing this.
SPEAKER_01: So that's right.
SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit of a show, is it not?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus' last public act before we won't all go into the palm processional and everything.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is his final statement, and and it's to reveal the glory of God, that God is a God of resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And what's so interesting is that this is the moment, if you keep um reading on, you see that this is the moment when they decide that Jesus needs to die.
SPEAKER_00: Like this is the final straw.
SPEAKER_00: And so as Jesus gives life to Lazarus to show off the glory of God, he's also intentionally putting himself in the path of death in order to give life to all of us.
SPEAKER_00: So it's like there's this interesting connection between Lazarus dying in order to show God's glory, but Jesus offering his life for all of us, which is really the greatest act of glory God has ever shown us, right?
SPEAKER_01: Well, word gets out after this happens.
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
SPEAKER_01: So when Jesus does enter the town of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, everyone is outside and cheering, the the news is gonna spread.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we're gonna say.
SPEAKER_01: You talk about this act was the final straw.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it personally, I don't know if it was the final straw, but I know this is what causes a huge following of him, and they are ready for him to take over.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the Pharisees and the old people that are in charge are no longer gonna be charged.
SPEAKER_01: The final straw might have been when Jesus enters the temple at follow day and turns over all the tables and starts yelling and screaming and wrecks the place.
SPEAKER_00: Well, and the gospels have different The Gospels have those moments in different places.
SPEAKER_00: So in John, the next chapter is when Mary anoints Jesus' feet, and that's when the chief priests conspire um that they're gonna kill that they're gonna kill him.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's in other gospels where the storming of the tables are.
SPEAKER_01: Monday Monday, yeah, the turning of the tables in the temple and everything else after they come in.
SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_00: So different gospels tell that in different places, but yes, there it's all kind of like Jesus pushing against what what the people in power want to see from him.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, okay, we've got to stop this.
SPEAKER_01: But isn't that an amazing transformation?
SPEAKER_01: We go from Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to literally within a week hanging him on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: It's absurd.
SPEAKER_00: So the fickleness.
SPEAKER_00: The fickleness of the people, right?
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
SPEAKER_01: Who are you going to listen to?
SPEAKER_01: That was um some past podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Who are you going to listen to?
SPEAKER_01: But back to this uh things.
SPEAKER_01: So again, you talk about the smell, it's complete, it's been four days.
SPEAKER_01: We even in the resurrection, the first people that run to the tomb to find Jesus, the tomb is empty, are the women to bring spices to f for this exact reason.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: So there's another connection there we can be made.
SPEAKER_00: And when they arrive, all of those grave clothes Jesus is already tossed aside, but poor Lazarus is still all wrapped up in them, right?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And he asks And he walks out like a mummy.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Take off the death clothes.
SPEAKER_01: He's no longer dead, he is risen, he is alive.
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: And I can only imagine the tears and the astonishment and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: And we get to know that Jesus gives the glory to God before it happens, not after it happens.
SPEAKER_01: He tells them foreshadowing what it's gonna be for their benefit.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: Any other uh last uh comments, connections um with this with Ezekiel?
SPEAKER_00: Well, um I think this idea that Lazarus was I mean, he would not have penned bones at this point, but he was past saving and he was saved.
SPEAKER_00: Um but I think that in in the moment when Jesus, verse 44, when Jesus, at least my translation says in time and let him go, it sounds a lot like what Moses told Pharaoh, right?
SPEAKER_00: Let my people go.
SPEAKER_00: This idea that um that Jesus is offering freedom from death, that that is the gift that Jesus offers to us, the gift that is that God offers the Ezekiel people, right?
SPEAKER_00: That God is in the business of new life all of the time.
SPEAKER_01: All the time.
SPEAKER_01: For everyone you said for everyone.
SPEAKER_01: I've heard it said before.
SPEAKER_01: It was in a study was in one time, the reason yells Lazarus come out is because they're in the area of tombs where a lot of people are are dead and buried.
SPEAKER_01: And if he doesn't say Lazarus, if he just commands, come alive, come out, who knows what who knows will come out.
SPEAKER_01: The tombs, all the tombs might have opened, and everyone might have come out.
SPEAKER_01: But he specifically calls uh Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: I think that was just a little uh jab or a little funny that got put in there that made you think.
SPEAKER_01: But this is they are they're in and amongst the tombs where there's many, many other people have been dead there to be very similar to our cemetery.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Where all these people are dead.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: So preaching this Sunday, where's your sermon going?
SPEAKER_01: Concentrating on John, Ezekiel, a little of both?
SPEAKER_00: More John, but I'll bring in some Ezekiel too, but really focusing on that question of when do we ask, can these bones live?
SPEAKER_00: And how do we find the promise of resurrection, not just for eternity, but for now, that God as a God of resurrection is is full of possibility now.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: And as we're coming up on what we so often we call it uh Eastern Sunday, I think there's a big transition going on to where everyone's calling it resurrection Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Now I hear that term a lot more than ever used to.
SPEAKER_01: Makes sense to me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is the day of resurrection, so excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope you can join us uh this uh Sunday for Laura's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Um and if you're unable to, if you're in the 945 uh service, no worries, you'll get it the following week.
SPEAKER_01: So I guess does this podcast cover two weeks then?
SPEAKER_01: Are we gonna skip correct?
SPEAKER_00: It does.
SPEAKER_00: Unless maybe we can talk um some of our music staff to talk to you about the cantata.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to come back.
SPEAKER_00: Because that would be kind of cool.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot in the cantata, a lot going on in the cantata that could be fun to talk about.
SPEAKER_01: We had Andy and Brett in here uh earlier um during the Christmas season doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully they have time.
SPEAKER_01: I know they're very busy with the rehearsals and everything else, but maybe we can grab them in here for that.
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe you'll hear uh about the music department next week.
SPEAKER_01: But if not, we'll be back in the following week after that.
SPEAKER_01: So holy week.
SPEAKER_01: For a holy week, exactly.
SPEAKER_01: Well, so but until then, we're gonna sign off and say goodbye.
SPEAKER_01: So may the love of Christ be with you always.
SPEAKER_01: Goodbye, everyone.