For the Jews after 597 BC, exiled in Babylon without their king, land, Temple, all seemed lost as a nation. Ezekiel’s encouraging messages gave them hope that the nation would rise and live again, like a field full of dry bones coming to life. But this will be the Lord’s doing, for the sake of his name, which they have profaned by their idolatry.
In deep sorrow the psalm cries to the Lord, begging pardon for our sins, trusting in God’s mercy and awaiting redemption in hope.
Writing to the Jewish Christians in Rome, Paul has been puzzling over our human condition: “I do not do the good that I want, but I do the evil that I hate”. Mortal flesh is weak. “But God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” so that the Son’s Spirit might give us the strength to live according to His Spirit. Paul’s conclusion: with Christ’s Spirit in us we are given life reconciled with God both now and in bodily resurrection after death.
These foretastes of resurrection prepare us for John’s description of the raising of Lazarus, the third of the three beautiful Lenten readings from John. Perhaps we should ponder how difficult it is to believe, and how difficult it was for Martha to open the tomb?
Psalm Response: With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
(Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 129(130); Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45)