Jeff Englund

March 7, 2019March 5, 2019

Jesus wants you! – John 11: 40-42

Then Jesus said, ”Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then 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.”

During WWII there was an Army recruitment poster that had a picture of Uncle Sam with his finger pointed at you, the reader. The caption read, “Uncle Sam Wants You!” The idea was that you, too, had a place waiting for you in the service of the country.

Jesus wants you, too. But not because he needs you or that there is anything you can do for him. Jesus wants you because he is your Maker, and he loves you. He wants you to know him and believe in him, and he is willing to go to the ends of the earth to earn your trust.

March 6, 2019March 4, 2019

Bad Smell – John 11: 38-39

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘’Take away the stone,” he said.
‘’But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘’by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

One thing that sets the Bible apart as historically valid is its honesty in presenting unpleasant details. The Gospel writers do not gloss over the aspects of life or, in this case, of death, that might offend the sensitive reader. Death stinks. Literally. Decomposing bodies smell bad, and in the warm climate of Judea, decomposition would start to take place quickly.

March 5, 2019March 4, 2019

Master Plan – John 11: 36-38a

Then the Jews said, ”See how he loved him!”
But some of them said, ”Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.

Sometimes a guy just can’t do anything right. Jesus demonstrates compassion towards Mary and the loss of her brother and while some people see, “…how he loved him!” Other people seem to complain; couldn’t he have kept this man from dying? Yet even the complaints move Jesus because they speak of faith in what he could have done.

March 4, 2019March 3, 2019

Encyclopedic – John 11: 35

Jesus wept.

Why do we cry? In my experience, it is something that we generally don’t have control over. (Yes, I know that some folks are very good actors and can control such things.) Powerful emotions that well up within us evoke unusual responses. Sometimes that response is such that we cannot speak at all. At other times tears well up and overflow our eyes. This is what happened to Jesus.

March 3, 2019March 1, 2019

Compassion – John 11: 33-34

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ”Where have you laid him?” he asked.
”Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus is man and also is God. As God, he is able to “know” what is in the hearts of men. He doesn’t have to ask what people are thinking. He knows. Time and again we see this aspect of Jesus’ nature in the Gospel stories.

Jesus is also a man. In particular, he is a man who has suffered. As if normal suffering wasn’t enough for our Creator, he was required to suffer forty days in the wilderness without food. At the end of that time, hungry and weak, he was tested by Satan. Jesus knows what it means to go through hard times.

March 2, 2019February 28, 2019

Deep Sorrow – John 11: 28-32

After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. ”The Teacher is here,” she said, ”and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ”Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

We have heard Martha’s statement of faith, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” Now we are hearing Mary’s statement of faith. Mary firmly believes that if Jesus had seen her brother dying he could have stopped it from happening. Jesus would have been able to heal her brother and make everything okay again. Her words are, to my ears, a plaintive cry of lament.

March 1, 2019February 27, 2019

Yes, Lord – John 11: 27

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, ‘’I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Martha’s response to Jesus is concise and succinct.

“I believe…” She states clearly what she believes. This is not an opinion of hers or wishful thinking, but a belief.

February 28, 2019February 27, 2019

Do You Believe This? – John 11: 25-26

Jesus said to her, ”I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

As a human being, it is hard for me to get my head around what Jesus is saying here. When he says, “I am the resurrection and the life,” I think he is being quite literal. Coming from a guy who speaks mostly in metaphors, this change of gears is hard enough to keep up with. Looking at the content of what he says makes it even harder.

My tendency, as an engineering type guy, is to think of salvation as a sort of mechanism. I think in terms of process and process means that there are moving parts and things I need to do, levers to pull and ’cause and effect’ stuff going on.

Only there isn’t.

It is just Jesus.

February 27, 2019February 25, 2019

Conversation – John 11: 19 – 24

…and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
”Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, ”Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, ”I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Martha is the practical one. She and her sister, Mary, are often contrasted as two very common archetypes; the one with her feet solidly planted in this world’s work, the other with her head and heart on other matters.

In this conversation Martha comes very close to chastising Jesus; “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And then she adds, almost as an aside, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

In response, Jesus speaks comfort to her: “Your brother will rise again.”

February 26, 2019February 24, 2019

Assurance – John 11: 17 – 18a

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem…

At the end of Chapter 10, John tells us that Jesus had gone back to where John the Baptist had been baptizing near the Jordan River. While we do not know with certainty where this was, it appears likely that the place was north of the Sea of Galilee, about twenty some miles from Jerusalem as the crow flies.

If Lazarus had died about the time the news reached Jesus and his disciples, and if the walk back to Bethany was about a two day walk, then the two days that Jesus waited after hearing the news that Lazarus was ill fits with Lazarus being in the tomb for four days.

Why would this be important?