The Jesus Interruption - Day 24

Lent 2011 - The Jesus Interruption Each week of this season, we will be entering into the experience of an individual whose life was interrupted by an encounter with Jesus. This week - Lazarus, Martha, and Mary (John 11)

Just how significant do we allow Jesus to be? How deeply do we believe he is capable of going into our lives? Exactly how powerfully do we anticipate he will interrupt us in order to bring about the transformation that is possible in our new life in him?

Surely we underestimate, however we imagine it. I mean, whatever we think Jesus is capable of doing, it seems to me that we ought to magnify it a million times and then we would only be glimpsing a very tiny fraction of the potential.

In John 11, Jesus interrupts death itself!

Lazarus, in the tomb four days already, cold, wrapped in cloth, tomb sealed with a boulder - Jesus proclaims, “Lazarus, come forth!” - and he does.

There is no hardness that Jesus cannot soften, the rigor of death or the rigidity of the mind. There is no coldness that he cannot warm, the coldness of the tomb or the insidiousness of hatred. There is no seal that he cannot break, be it over a tomb or over your heart.

He will call out, “Come forth!” and you will. Wherever you are, Jesus will find a way to interrupt you, so that you can live a new life.

Lent gives us the time and space to listen for him, deep in our own tombs of grief, pain, brokenness. He is calling us even now. On Sunday we who hear him calling will gather to worship, emerging from where we are into where he wants us to be. Lazarus, come forth!