Audio Links
Ezekiel 37:1-14
1The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he
brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley;
it was full of bones. 2He led me all round them; there were
very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said
to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you
know.’ 4Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say
to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says
the Lord God to
these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I
will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you
with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know
that I am the Lord.’
7So I prophesied as I had been
commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the
bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there
were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them;
but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy
to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the
Lord God:
Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live.’ 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the
breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast
multitude.
11Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.’
Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
8 It is he who will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.
Romans 8:6-11
6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the
mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this
reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit
to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those
who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are
not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in
you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to
him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because
of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the
Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit that dwells in you.
The Holy Gospel according to Saint John 11:1-45
1Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village
of Mary and her sister Martha. 2Mary was the one who anointed
the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was
ill. 3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he
whom you love is ill.’ 4But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This
illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son
of God may be glorified through it.’ 5Accordingly, though Jesus
loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6after having heard
that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7 Then after
this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ 8The
disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and
are you going there again?’ 9Jesus answered, ‘Are there not
twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because
they see the light of this world. 10But those who walk at night
stumble, because the light is not in them.’ 11After saying
this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there
to awaken him.’ 12The disciples said to him,
‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ 13Jesus,
however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was
referring merely to sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly,
‘Lazarus is dead. 15For your sake I am glad I was not there, so
that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ 16Thomas, who was
called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we
may die with him.’
17 When Jesus
arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four
days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two
miles away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and
Mary to console them about their brother. 20When Martha heard
that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha
said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have
died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you
ask of him.’ 23Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise
again.’ 24Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again
in the resurrection on the last day.’ 25Jesus said to her, ‘I
am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though
they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in
me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 27She said to him,
‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one
coming into the world.’
28 When she had
said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately,
‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ 29And when she
heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had
not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met
him. 31The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her,
saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that
she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32When Mary came where
Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had
been here, my brother would not have died.’ 33When Jesus saw
her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly
disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He said, ‘Where have
you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 35Jesus
began to weep. 36So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved
him!’ 37But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the
eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
38 Then Jesus,
again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying
against it. 39Jesus 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 for four days.’ 40Jesus said to her, ‘Did I
not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ 41So
they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank
you for having heard me. 42I 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.’ 43When he had said this, he cried
with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ 44The 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.’
45 Many of the
Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in
him.