Passionately living

This Sunday is Passion Sunday.  The Sunday when our gears shift slightly. Lent is continuing but we remember that we are getting closer to holy week and the marking of Good Friday. I remember that in the Church where I grew up all the crosses would be covered on this Sunday. This was done to remind us that we were entering into the final weeks of lent which are called Passiontide. 

In Passiontide we focus on the suffering of Jesus. This suffering involves humiliation, torture and death but it also takes us into the hope and promise of new life. It reminds us that we are forgiven. This is great news but before joy there is pain.

The gospel reading for Sunday is John 11:1-45. This passage is about Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. This happened in Bethany.  

The first time I went to the holy land was with a number of other Church leaders. When we arrived in Bethany there was an opportunity to go into the tomb of Lazarus. When we went down to the tomb there was plenty of room and we had time to spend there. When it was time to leave peoples names were called out. This was followed by the words ‘come out’. This of course, was very much like the words that Jesus used when he called Lazarus. 

Thinking about it now though, I can see that in the same way Jesus called Lazarus back to life, He calls us as well. 

We can all put ourselves into a place where we want to despair or be left alone. We can all want to try and hide from Jesus, or just refuse to hear Him calling us. We are not physically dead, but I think that we can put up barriers to protect ourselves from hurt, or doing something that we fear. 

Maybe we just need to imagine Jesus calling our name, making us leave the barriers that we may have put up. 

Lazarus was called to life and we all are as well. Jesus wants us all to enjoy a relationship with Him.

The next two weeks will lead us to remember Jesus dying for us and rising again so that we can enjoy life by following Him. 

I rather like putting a spin on words and I feel this about Passiontide. I want to see the life Jesus calls me to as a life which I will live ‘passionately’, or maybe put another way, ‘completely’. We are all called to live for Jesus and to do this wholeheartedly. As we do so we remember that it is because of His Passion that we can live forever in eternity.

Let's be passionate about living our lives for Jesus.