Daily Lesson for January 27, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 5 verses 25 through 29:

25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of crisis."

Now that last word may not have been how you memorized the Scripture. It's my translation, I confess it. I have seen it otherwise translated as "judgement".  And the Authorized version was even more severe, using the word "damnation".  "Those who have done evil to the resurrection of evil."

But before anyone sentences me to damnation for taking the teeth out of this text, may it be noted that the word "crisis" is the most literal translation of the Greek word "krisis".  And so therefore it is an irony that my translation is not a softy-lofty, namby-pamby one, but a strictly literal one. Those who have done evil are eventually brought to a resurrection of "crisis".

The hour is coming, Jesus says, when the dead living in tombs shall hear the voice of God. The tombs, I am sure, may be literal or may be metaphorical. It may be physical death or spiritual death. But in any and all cases, all hear a voice calling them out from death into resurrection.

Some are called into the resurrection of life. These are the ones who though they have died already live. They are the ones who are already alive with the light of life -- a light which death cannot extinguish.  There is more life in them then death can ever take. They hear the voice calling to them in the valley of shadows and they rise and walk with hope and trust and utter serenity. The light of resurrection is within them.

Others hear the voice and are stricken with fear.  It is fear that could be at once either full of foreboding and a sense of utter damnation, or finally the sense of peace and the serenity which apprehends one who surrenders to one with whom, as the hymn says, "there is a kindness in his justice".

This is the moment of crisis -- to rise and walk toward the voice of the one who calls, trusting in His goodness and mercy, or to remain dead alive, stuck dead alive, entombed forever in the punishment of our own sins.

This is the crisis; and its hour is coming. It's hour is here.

It's hour is always here.

And Jesus calls to Lazarus, "Come out."

Artwork:

Master of the Hunterian Psalter. Hunterian Psalter, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.  http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54296 [retrieved January 27, 2016]. Original source: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/psalter/H229_0011vwf.jpg.