Sunday, December 28, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: John 11-12
Key Verse
John 11:54 — “Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.”
Devotional Thought
Bethany was a small village on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, hardly more than a Sabbath day’s journey from Jerusalem, and it held one of the few homes where Jesus was simply loved and welcomed. There lived Martha, who served; Mary, who sat at His feet and would one day wipe them with her hair; and Lazarus, whom the Gospel names as the one Jesus loved. When Lazarus fell sick, the sisters sent word with confident brevity: “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” They expected a healer’s haste. Instead, Jesus deliberately waited two days, and by the time He arrived, Lazarus had lain in the grave four days. Martha met Him on the road with raw honesty—”Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died”—and Mary fell at His feet with the same words. Then, at the tomb, before the stone was rolled away, came the shortest verse in Scripture and perhaps the most staggering: “Jesus wept.”
We are near the end of the year now, in the quiet week between Christmas and the turn of the calendar. The candles of Advent have burned low; the child has been born, and we have sung of Immanuel. Yet John 11 shows us what it meant for that child to grow into a Man who would stand at a friend’s grave and groan in spirit. The One who spoke light out of nothing did not float above grief. He wept. He was “troubled,” the text says, agitated like deep water. And then He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth,” and a man bound in graveclothes stumbled out alive. This is the God we worship: not a distant deity immune to our sorrow, but One who enters the cemetery and calls the dead by name.
Notice how differently the two sisters and the crowd responded. Martha believed in a resurrection “at the last day”—a fine doctrine, safely future. Jesus pressed the doctrine into a Person: “I am the resurrection, and the life.” Mary said nothing theological at all; she only wept, and Jesus wept with her. Some onlookers marveled; others went straight to the Pharisees, and from that day the council plotted His death. Even Lazarus, raised and seated at supper six days before Passover, became a target—the chief priests wanted him dead too. The raising of one man set in motion the death of Another. And when the Greeks came saying, “Sir, we would see Jesus,” He answered with a seed: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” Lazarus walked out of a tomb; Jesus was walking toward one.
As this year closes, you may be standing where Martha stood—believing in the last day while a grave is still fresh today. You may be like Mary, too grieved even to form a question. You may be like Thomas, willing to follow Jesus into danger, or like the rulers in chapter 12 who believed but would not confess, “for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” Whatever your case, the invitation of this passage is the same: “Believest thou this?” Not merely that resurrection is a doctrine, but that He Himself is the resurrection, and that He is not ashamed to weep beside you before He calls you forth.
Reflection
- Martha believed in a resurrection at the last day, yet struggled to believe Jesus could do anything now—where in your own life are you trusting a future promise while refusing to bring a present grief to Him?
- The rulers in John 12:42-43 believed on Jesus but would not confess Him because they loved the praise of men; what would it cost you this week to confess Him openly, and are you willing to pay it?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, Thou who didst stand at the grave of Lazarus and weep, we bring Thee our own graves this day—the losses we have buried, the hopes gone four days cold, the prayers we have stopped praying because heaven seemed silent. Forgive us for believing in a distant resurrection while doubting Thy nearness now. Thou art the resurrection and the life; speak Thy “Come forth” into what is dead in us, and loose us from the graveclothes that bind. Grant us, like Martha, to confess Thee as the Christ; like Mary, to pour out costly love; and like the Greeks, to come saying, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Amen.