He went back....

and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”~John 11:7-8

This week is often referred to as Holy Week.  A week were we remember the sacrifice of Jesus.  We remember how He  entered Jerusalem with crowds cheering and blessing His name and in less than a week they were cursing His name ( John 12:12-13 & Luke 23:21)

 It is a week where we remember how He broke bread with the very one who would betray Him ( Luke 22:21). It is a week where we remember how He was mocked, spit upon, beaten (Luke 22:63-65)  and hung on a cross for the sins of the world; my sin.

It is also a week where we praise Him and lay prostrate before Him as we remember that He stayed on the cross for you and for me.  We remember how even while He was dying He saved the criminal that was willing beside Him ( Luke 23:40-43).  We grieve the agony of His death, but rejoice in the hope that it brings. We exalt our Lord and Savior as King and Victor because He conquered death bringing life to us ( Revelation 1:18  & 1 Corinthians 15:55).

It is a Holy Week, a time of reflection and celebration of joy because of our Lord Jesus.  We have this week and this life because even in the face of all the rejection, the cold hearts, and stubborn minds He went back. In the eleventh chapter of the gospel of John we find that Lazarus has died.  Jesus loved Lazarus ( John 11:36) and He goes back to the place where they want to stone Him for speaking the truth and calling men to repentance.  He goes back to give Lazarus his life back, to wake him up. He calls Lazarus, a dead man at this point by human understanding, out of the tomb and sure enough he does ( John 11:43-44).  

This miraculous sign, this demonstration of His authority and power and love really angered the Jewish leaders and they plotted to kill him. They succeeded, but never realized that this was God’s plan all along-to provide this world with a Passover Lamb that would not just cover our sins but cleanse us from them if we only believe.  

Jesus went back for Lazarus and He came to this earth for you and me.  He went stayed on the cross for you and for me.  He was buried in a tomb and rose up for you and for me.  He gave us a Holy Week and a  whole life , eternal life, if we believe and receive.  We too can be called out of the tomb because He went back and He is coming back again soon.

Father thank You for the sacrifice of your life.  Thank You for loving me enough to call me out of death and into life.  Thank You for your grace and mercy because I too have once blessed and cursed You.  I too once rejected You, but You loved me anyway.  You saved me so that I could know your love.  Thank You God.  In Jesus name. Amen