Fifth Sunday in Lent (Year A, RCL)

“Life is built, and then it stops, and then Christ reaches in and brings it forward again.”

Lazarus’s story is one of grief—and hope.

We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “dirt.”

Maybe Jesus’ tears at Bethany come from more than grief.

Jesus acts in response to real human suffering and actual human tears.

What does it do to the body and spirit to be preyed upon constantly?

What does it mean that Jesus weeps, when he knows Lazarus will be raised from the dead?

We embrace uninitiated visitors, rowdy children, and blue jeans. Why not tears?

The synagogue at Dura, in present-day Syria, contained three murals recounting the history of Israel from the ancestral period through the exile and resettlement of the land.