Listen here.

John 11:17-27, 38-53—Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, ¹⁹ and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. ²⁰ So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

³⁸Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” ⁴⁴ The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

⁴⁵Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, ⁴⁶ but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

⁴⁷So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” ⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. ⁵⁰ Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” ⁵¹ He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. ⁵³ So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

How hard was it to confess that you believe in the resurrection of the dead?

Some of you have buried friends. Some of you have buried grandparents, and some parents. Some of you have buried brothers and sisters. Some of you have buried spouses. Some of you have buried children. Maybe in those moments, believing in the resurrection of the dead was more difficult.

Just a few blocks from here is a place called Resurrection Cemetery. When you drive by, all you see is a bunch of headstones sticking out of the ground. It looks like a trophy case for death. How many times have you been in a cemetery and watched a coffin containing the corpse of someone you knew and loved being lowered into the ground? How often has death deceived you into believing that he has the last word?

That is where Martha and Mary were. They had called for their friend Jesus to come because their brother, Lazarus, was sick. But Jesus didn’t come right away. He waited, and He came too late. Lazarus had been in the tomb four days.

Martha and Mary didn’t know that Jesus purposely waited for Lazarus to die. They didn’t know that Jesus allowed death take their brother and to pay a personal visit to them.

Three times in this chapter – first Martha, then Mary, then the whole crowd – says, “If only Jesus had come sooner, Lazarus would not have died.” Martha still holds on to a little hope, “Even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.”

Jesus tells her, “Your brother will rise again.” She responds, “I know that he will rise again on the resurrection on the last day.”

Martha is right, but she isn’t right enough. All the dead will rise on the last day. But Jesus wants to take Martha to a fuller, better understanding of the Resurrection. Standing there before Martha is the Resurrection. The Resurrection isn’t some future event that will come “a week from some Tuesday” (Capon). The Resurrection is flesh and blood Jesus.

Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.”

Sadly, we are no different than Martha. Our faith is too often incomplete like Martha’s. We separate Jesus from the gifts that He gives. We wrongly think that Jesus gives salvation, forgiveness, and life on some day that is still in the distant future. But we are wrong.

Jesus gives Himself, now. Jesus is salvation, forgiveness, and life. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life then, now, and always. In the pages of the New Testament, Jesus never meets a corpse that He doesn’t raise up right on the spot; Jesus simply has that effect on the dead (Capon).

Jesus doesn’t make you wait for “some day.” Do you see what Jesus says there in v. 26? “Everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.” In the strongest language possible, Jesus removes even the possibility and potentiality of death for you who believe in Him.

The Resurrection isn’t something you have to wait for in the future. The Resurrection is the person of Jesus. But because of our sin we are short-sighted, and we miss the present reality of Jesus and what He gives.

Jesus is the Resurrection because He has died and risen again. He is here because you are here gathered around His Word. He here standing victorious on the neck of death, your enemy.

“Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1 NIV). He is here giving you salvation, forgiveness, and life. He is here giving Himself to you in bread and wine. Here is salvation. Here is forgiveness. Here is Life.

You who are dead, come and receive so that you may never die. Amen.[1]

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

[1] I am indebted to a blog post by Chad Bird “Clothing for the Naked Eye: Seeing Things as They Really Are” as inspiration for this sermon (http://birdchadlouis.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/clothing-for-the-naked-eye-seeing-things-as-they-really-are/).

Listen here.

John 9:1-41—As he [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud ⁷ and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

⁸The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” ¹⁰ So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” ¹¹ He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” ¹² They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

¹³They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. ¹⁴ Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵ So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. ¹⁷ So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

¹⁸The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight ¹⁹ and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” ²⁰ His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. ²¹ But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” ²² (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) ²³ Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

²⁴So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” ²⁵ He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” ²⁸ And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. ²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” ³⁰ The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. ³² Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” ³⁴ They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

³⁵Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” ³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

³⁹Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The Pharisees sure claim to “know” a lot of things. Most importantly, they know that Jesus can’t be from God since He breaks the Sabbath. They know that Jesus is a sinner, a nobody.

The formerly blind man doesn’t know very much. He doesn’t know where Jesus is. He doesn’t know exactly how Jesus opened his eyes. He doesn’t know whether or not Jesus is a sinner. The only thing he knows is that he was blind, but now he sees.

The formerly blind man knows that Jesus has done something great for him. Something that had never been done before. “Never since the world began (from eternity/the aeons) has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind” (v. 32).

He is right. Nowhere in the Old Testament does any blind person have their sight restored. None of God’s prophets had ever done this before. Think of Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha. They did some amazing things – parting seas, causing the sun to stand still, cleansing lepers, even raising the dead – but none of them opened the eyes of the blind.

Isaiah prophesized that the Messiah would open blind eyes (Is. 29:18, 35:5, 42:7, 18). The Pharisees knew these passages. But now, standing before them plain to see, is a man who had been blind from birth, but now, his eyes are opened.

But what do the Pharisees do? They blind themselves to what that means. Because of the hardness of their hearts they refuse to see what is going on. Their knowledge blinds them so that they cannot see who Jesus is. Even though they see, they chose to be blind.

As the Pharisees press the formerly blind man with their knowledge. They try to get him to accuse Jesus of being a sinner. But the blind man will not say that Jesus is a sinner. He says, “We know that God does not listen to sinners. And if this [Jesus] were not from God, He could do nothing” (v. 31, 33).

The Pharisees then accuse the formerly blind man of having been born in sin and throw him out of the synagogue. But in rejecting the formerly blind man, they reject Jesus, the only one who can cure their blindness.

But if you reject the only one who can help you, what hope is left for you?

Fellow sinners, we are not the man born blind; we are the Pharisees. God’s miracles constantly surround us, but we blind ourselves to them.

Husbands and wives, God has given you the perfect help mate. God has blessed you with a companion. But you blind yourself to that. You only see your spouse’s shortcomings.

Parents, God has given you the miracle of children. God has given you the responsibility to care for and raise His creation. But you blind yourself to that. You only see parasites.

Children, God has given you parents to care for you, provide for you, and protect you. God has given you a loving home. But you blind yourself to that. You only see tyrants.

God gives you all wonderful vocations so that you can serve and love your neighbor. But you blind yourself to that. You see drudgery.

Look, you blind!

Look at all the blessings God gives. Everything you see is from God your Father who always gives what is best. Everything you have is gift. Everything is grace. Yet, what do you do? You whine. You complain. You sin.

But that is precisely why Christ came and died. Jesus came to have mercy on sinners – even blind Pharisees like you. He has room at His table – especially for you blind sinners. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Listen here.

John 4:5–26 ⁵ So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

I want to begin today with a side note: Church tradition has some interesting information about this Samaritan woman. Her name is Photini which means “enlightened one.” Just after our text, Photini goes back to her village and invites everyone to come and meet Jesus who she says, “He told me all that I ever did.” The Samaritans meet Jesus and He stays there for two days. The many from the town believe in Jesus as the Savior of the world because Jesus’ words.

Church tradition then says that Photini traveled to Carthage where she continued to tell people about Jesus Christ. Apparently, she even spoke to the Roman emperor Nero’s daughter about Jesus, and Nero’s daughter became a Christian. However, Photini died as a martyr by Nero’s hand in AD 66.

Let’s look at the text:

Last week, we saw Nicodemus, a ruler of the Pharisees, coming to Jesus in the darkness of night. Nicodemus was respectable man; he would be the equivalent of a Supreme Court justice in our time. But Nicodemus comes to Jesus secretly.

Contrast that with this Samaritan woman. First of all, Samaritans integrated the worship of other false, pagan gods with worship of Yahweh (2 Kgs. 17:29-32). Secondly, she was a woman. Rabbis in Jesus’ day taught that men were not to talk to women in public – even their own wives. Third, this particular woman was also an outcast; she comes to the well well [sic] after all the other women would have been there in the cool morning to draw water. She was likely tired of everyone talking about her personal life with her five failed marriages and her current live-in boyfriend.

She comes to the well around noon, in the heat of the day to draw her water. She comes around the bend and finds Jesus sitting there on the well alone, dusty, and tired from His walking. “Give Me a drink,” Jesus says.

The woman is surprised that Jesus, a Jewish man, would even speak to her. The Samaritans and the Jews didn’t get along. They are your typical Hatfield and McCoy feud. The Samaritans’ temple on Mt. Gerizim (the mountain that the woman refers to later) was destroyed by the Jews in 128 BC. The Samaritans retaliated a few years before Jesus was born by attacking Jerusalem and filling the temple area with the corpses of the dead. The only dealings Jews and Samaritans had were bitter and morbid.

Yet, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “Give Me a drink.” But Jesus is more interested in giving this woman the living water she needs than receiving the drink that His tired body needs. Jesus uses His own need to get this woman to realize her need to receive from Him. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

If she knew the gift of God, she wouldn’t be looking for fulfillment in man after man after man. If she knew the gift of God, she wouldn’t care that her neighbors had cast her out socially and that she was a complete loser in their eyes. If she knew the gift of God, nothing in this whole world would matter, except having Jesus, who gives everything.

John means for us to see this scene as a courtship scene. Now, Jesus isn’t seeking to marry this woman as we think of marriage. He wants this woman to become part of the Church which is His bride. Our marriages aren’t pictures of Christ’s relationship to us, instead the reverse is true. Jesus’ perfect, holy, faithful, grace-filled marriage to the Church is a picture of what our marriages should look like.

Sitting there on Jacob’s well is Jesus – the One greater than Jacob. Jacob had first met his beautiful bride to be, Rachel, at a well (Gen. 29:1ff; also see Gen. 24ff and Ex. 2:15-22). When Jacob saw Rachel, he wept because of her beauty. Jesus sees this woman with all of her sins and flaws, and wants her to believe in Him as the Messiah.

Jacob ended up having to work for fourteen years to marry Rachel. But Jesus, the One greater than Jacob, worked even harder enduring God’s wrath for this Samaritan woman’s sin – and all of mankind’s sin, even yours – to gain for Himself a bride, His Church.

You see, you have been more adulterous than this woman. In fact, you have whored yourself out to all sorts of sins thinking that in them you will find happiness. You are a slut seeking a husband in all the wrong places.

But there is Jesus who is always seeking to be your Husband. He is always true and faithful to you no matter how many other suitors you seek. Jesus has pledged His undying love and faithfulness to you. He invites you to drink from the well of living water which He has dug with His own hands. Though you are a sinner, in the eyes of Jesus you are the bride He desires most. He invites you to “dine at His table and drink from His cup. [In His eyes], you are the fairest of them all, for His kisses of grace have healed your scars, brightened your eyes, and transformed you from a beast to a beauty” (Chad Bird). Amen.[1]

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Listen here.

John 3:1-17—Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Along with the rest of the world, we are all perishing. Like the poisonous serpents came into the camp of the Israelites (Nu. 21:4-9), the snake of sin has come and bitten everything in this world. All humanity has been stung with the sting of death, and the countdown to your death began from the moment you existed. Death is hereditary; it is written in your DNA.

As a child of Adam you are a child of sin and death. You slog through this life slowly, steadily marching towards your death. “The wages of sin is death” (Ro. 3:23). Payday is coming, and what you have earned will, finally and ultimately, come to you.

You get little pay advances of death as you journey through this life, and they all serve as reminders of what is coming. An illness is tossed into your tip jar as a reminder that one day your whole body will be broken. You find the loose change of death when someone gossips about you saying, “A real Christian would do such and such.” The world is always ready to hand you a stipend of death along the way – war, famine, and persecution. After months and years filed with despair, a parent, spouse, or sibling dies battling cancer and you hit the jackpot of death. Ultimately, your payday comes and death visits you personally.

As a child of death, you are what you are, and Nicodemus was what he was. Under the cover of the darkness of night, Nicodemus comes to talk with Jesus. He comes in wonder, for no one can do the signs that Jesus does unless God is with him. Nicodemus comes to talk with Jesus, this God-sent Sign-worker, but Nicodemus comes as an unbeliever. That is why Jesus doesn’t dilly-dally. Instead, He moves the conversation directly to the crux of the matter. “Unless you are born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God.”

The word that gets translated again there in v. 3 almost always means “from above” only rarely does it mean again. Nicodemus wrongly thinks that Jesus means that he must enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born. That is conceivably possible (pun intended); though, I would tend to think very few mothers would allow their children to enter back into their womb a second time.

Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of a different kind of birth, a birth “from above.” But Nicodemus can only think of one type of birth, the natural type. All this talk about a birth that is “from above” is hard for Nicodemus to understand. He can’t even imagine a different type of birth. But this is not surprising because, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Co. 2:14).

But Jesus says exactly what this different “from above” type of birth is – a water and Spirit type of birth. Jesus speaks about baptism. Children of God are not born of natural, physical parents. They are born not of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man. They are born of the will of God (Jn. 1:13).

You did not chose to be born physically. No one consulted you about your conception. No one asked you if you were ready to be delivered into this world. But you delivered into this world you were.

In the same way, you do not chose to be born spiritually either. You are dependent upon a birth that comes only from the will of God. In your baptism, God has given you that different kind of birth, that different kind of existence.

Like Nicodemus, we ask, “How can these things be? How can water do such things?” We too come to Jesus in the darkness and night of our own sinful misunderstanding. Jesus says that baptism is not simply water, but water that is connected with the Spirit of God and the Word of God. In the waters of baptism, God gives you the kind of birth He requires. ”The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Your spiritual birth is all God’s doing. The only part you have to play in your salvation is to benefit from it. God has chosen baptism to “give life to the dead and call into existence the things that do not exist” (Ro. 4:17b). God could have chosen to do it another way, but He chose to do it through baptism – the birth from above of water and Spirit.

So that you can have this birth, God the Father sent Jesus, His only begotten Son. Jesus was sent to live a sinless life not for Himself, but for you. Jesus was sent so that you should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent Jesus to die the death you deserve. Jesus was paid your wages of sin. Jesus has been lifted up to die so that all who look on Him might be saved.

And so that you could be connected to Christ’s death, God gives you baptism. In your baptism, the Holy Spirit dragged your sinful flesh back to the cross to kill it. He placed you into the tomb of Christ, and you were born anew with Christ out of the hopelessness of death. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, now and forever. Amen.