I Am Because You Are October 6, 2025 Devotional

JOHN 11:38-44 | ³⁸ Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because 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 looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Jesus claims to be the Resurrection and the Life. He is the answer to the darkness of the grave, the dissolution of the mortal-self, the sudden or slow descent from consciousness to breathless and cold death. By accident or incident, by disease or violence, or by age’s relentless march toward a final moment, we all face a certain ending. Our lives are fragile and impermanent. We are like flowers quickly fading as our present tense moments become past tense memories. But Jesus has the power to reverse death, to rekindle amino acids, make synapses fire, and frozen heart muscles contract. He can turn death to life, making the inevitable a temporary transaction. The dead man came out!

Do you live now with the end in mind?

Gracious God,

You are the answer to our mortality and our fragility. Thank You!

Amen.