Daily Gospel Plan

¹Now a man was sick, Lazarus from 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, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.

³So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

⁴When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

⁵Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.

⁶So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.

⁷Then after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.”

⁸“Rabbi,” the disciples told him, “just now the Jews tried to stone you, and you’re going there again?”

⁹“Aren’t there twelve hours in a day?” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world.

¹⁰But if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.”

¹¹He said this, and then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on my way to wake him up.”

¹²Then the disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”

¹³Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking about natural sleep.

¹⁴So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died.

¹⁵I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.”

¹⁶Then Thomas (called “Twin” ) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go too so that we may die with him.”

¹⁷When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

¹⁸Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles away).

¹⁹Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.

²⁰As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house.

²¹Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.

²²Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

²³“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.

²⁴Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.

²⁶Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”

²⁸Having said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

²⁹As soon as Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.

³⁰Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

³¹The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out. They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.

³²As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

³³When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.

³⁴“Where have you put him?” he asked. “Lord,” they told him, “come and see.”

³⁵Jesus wept.

³⁶So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

³⁷But some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”

³⁸Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.

³⁹“Remove the stone,” Jesus said. Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.”

⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

⁴¹So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me.

⁴²I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.”

⁴³After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

⁴⁴The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”

⁴⁵Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did believed in him.

⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

⁴⁷So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs?

⁴⁸If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

⁴⁹One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!

⁵⁰You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.”

⁵¹He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,

⁵²and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God.

⁵³So from that day on they plotted to kill him.

⁵⁴Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples.

⁵⁵Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover.

⁵⁶They were looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple: “What do you think? He won’t come to the festival, will he?”

⁵⁷The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it so that they could arrest him.

¹Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, the one Jesus had raised from the dead.

²So they gave a dinner for him there; Martha was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him.

³Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

⁴Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray him), said,

⁵“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”

⁶He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.

⁷Jesus answered, “Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of my burial.

⁸For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

⁹Then a large crowd of the Jews learned he was there. They came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, the one he had raised from the dead.

¹⁰But the chief priests had decided to kill Lazarus also,

¹¹because he was the reason many of the Jews were deserting them and believing in Jesus.

¹²The next day, when the large crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

¹³they took palm branches and went out to meet him. They kept shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord — the King of Israel!”

¹⁴Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written:

¹⁵Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion. Look, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt.

¹⁶His disciples did not understand these things at first. However, when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.

¹⁷Meanwhile, the crowd, which had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify.

¹⁸This is also why the crowd met him, because they heard he had done this sign.

¹⁹Then the Pharisees said to one another, “You see? You’ve accomplished nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!”

²⁰Now some Greeks were among those who went up to worship at the festival.

²¹So they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested of him, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”

²²Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

²³Jesus replied to them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

²⁴Truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit.

²⁵The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

²⁶If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Where I am, there my servant also will be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

²⁷“Now my soul is troubled. What should I say — Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour.

²⁸Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

²⁹The crowd standing there heard it and said it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

³⁰Jesus responded, “This voice came, not for me, but for you.

³¹Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.

³²As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.”

³³He said this to indicate what kind of death he was about to die.

³⁴Then the crowd replied to him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah will remain forever. So how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”

³⁵Jesus answered, “The light will be with you only a little longer. Walk while you have the light so that darkness doesn’t overtake you. The one who walks in darkness doesn’t know where he’s going.

³⁶While you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become children of light.” Jesus said this, then went away and hid from them.

³⁷Even though he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.

³⁸This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, who said: Lord, who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

³⁹This is why they were unable to believe, because Isaiah also said:

⁴⁰He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they would not see with their eyes or understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.

⁴¹Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke about him.

⁴²Nevertheless, many did believe in him even among the rulers, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, so that they would not be banned from the synagogue.

⁴³For they loved human praise more than praise from God.

⁴⁴Jesus cried out, “The one who believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me.

⁴⁵And the one who sees me sees him who sent me.

⁴⁶I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me would not remain in darkness.

⁴⁷If anyone hears my words and doesn’t keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.

⁴⁸The one who rejects me and doesn’t receive my sayings has this as his judge: The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

⁴⁹For I have not spoken on my own, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a command to say everything I have said.

⁵⁰I know that his command is eternal life. So the things that I speak, I speak just as the Father has told me.”