Let God Revive Your Dead Faith

The fifth Sunday of Lent has another long passage (There’s another one coming next week). In the Gospel of John, Jesus journeys to Bethany to raise his friend, Lazarus from the dead.

Analogy: someone who lacks the skills to be swimming in the deep end of the pool accepts a dare from friends to jump from the highest diving board into the deep end that is almost ten feet deep. The swimmer takes on the dare. As the swimmer jumps off the diving board, he or she struggles to swim in the deepest end of the pool as he or she struggles to keep their head above water causing that swimmer to sink to the bottom of the pool.

A lifeguard dives in to help the swimmer who has now drowned and must perform CPR to revive the victim of drowning. Some look on, others panic, and others hope the lifeguard was able to save the victim. After a couple of minutes of rotating between chest compression and mouth-to-mouth, a miracle takes place. The drowning victim coughs out the water and is alive again. The lifeguard saved a life.

In the case of today’s gospel, Jesus wants to revive our dead faith inside of us. He wants it to come alive. He assured Martha that he will make her believe in the resurrection when his saving power was at work to bring Lazarus back from the dead.

Let him revive what is dead alive, so the faith deep inside can come alive in the culture that claims that God is dead when he is fully alive inside of you.