Getting Free From What Keeps Us Bound - Lazarus - March 26, 2023

Bible Study – Getting Free From What Keeps Us Bound – Story of Lazarus (Fifth Sunday in Lent)

Share:  Your highs (something that made you happy) and lows (something that made you sad) this week with others around you or write them down.

 

Lent is a forty-day period before Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday. We skip Sundays when we count the forty days, because Sundays commemorate the Resurrection. Lent begins on February 22, 2023 and ends on April 8, 2023 , which is the day before Easter. 

Lent invites us to step off our mental treadmills, take a breath, and look around.  Lent invites us to ask:  Where are we demanding solutions?  Where can we risk staying in tension?  Where are we blind just not noticing?  What do we thirst for?  Where are we bound or stuck?  What will we risk doing during these 40 days of Lent to clear a space in which Easter can break through?

Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days, Martha reminds Jesus. Yet Jesus stands before the tomb and cries in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” Then Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Where are we bound? What is keeping us from getting unbound?

Our story today is about Lazarus, who had died and who Jesus brought back to life. We do not know for sure why Jesus did this, but it may have been a way to help prepare his followers for the fact that Jesus himself would very soon die and would then show us the Resurrection.

Opening Prayer: Thank you, God, that you love us forever. Amen     

 

Please open your Bibles to John 11:1-45 and read or read the scriptures below.

John 10:1-45

The Death of Lazarus

11 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 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?”

9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus Comforts the Sisters of Lazarus

17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles[b] from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

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

28 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.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 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.

32 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.”

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

35 Jesus wept.

36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “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.”

40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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.”

43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Questions:

  • What did Jesus find when he got to the house of Mary, Martha and Lazarus? (Lazarus was in a tomb having been dead for 4 days.)
  • When Jesus arrived, what did Martha say to Jesus? (Verse 21)
  • What did Jesus answer her? (Verses 25b-26)
  • How does Jesus’ answer help Martha? (Verse 27: She is confident that Jesus is the Son of God, so she will trust him.)
  • What does Mary say to Jesus when she gets to see him? (Verse 32, exactly the same thing Martha had said.)
  • What does Jesus ask the people to do? (Verse 39)
  • What does Martha warn Jesus? (Verse 39, last part)
  • What does Jesus command Lazarus to do? (Verse 43)
  • What happens next? (Verse 44a)
  • What does Jesus command then? (Verse 44b)

 

Click here for the young learner’s lesson

 

Videos (Click on url)

Who was Lazarus in the Bible? - John 11:1-45 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8_-8PbVRMc

Gospel of John Summary: Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-2e9mMf7E8

Song: The Foster Triplets II Lazarus Come Forth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIkzJjRIOv4

 

Activities:

Journal:  Think about this: Maybe Jesus is asking us, right now, to notice the things that keep us all tied up and keep us from being who we really are. What are some of those kinds of things? (Worrying about whether we have the right clothes, trying to please a teacher rather than simply learning the subject, etc.)  Write them in your journal. 

Rock Painting:  Find a rock and either paint or use bright color markers on the rock, paint a large tear drop on the rock and write in marker that JESUS CRIES WITH US or that JESUS HAS POWER OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE.

Jesus Wept Card:  Take a colorful piece of construction paper and markers and stickers to make this card.  Fold the paper into 3 sections one of the things that made Jesus cry from our lesson today.  Either words or pictures can be done on your tri fold paper.  On the others side of the paper for the 3 sides, draw or write and decorate 3 things that make THE CHILD cry and to remember that JESUS CARES and that HE CRIED TOO!

Lent Calendar:  Make this Season of Lent more meaningful by doing random Acts of good and loving deeds.  Click on the Lent Calendar, print it out and hang it up in your room.  Then each day during Lent you can do an Act of good and loving deeds. 

 

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead – Maze:

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead - Crossword Puzzle: https://sermons4kids.com/jesus_raises_lazarus_crossword.htm

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead – Word Search – https://sermons4kids.com/jesus_raises_lazarus_wordsearch.htm

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead – Multiple Choice: https://sermons4kids.com/jesus_raises_lazarus_choice.htm

 

Prayer: Thank you, God, that you want us to get ourselves untied and free to be who we are.  Amen.