Email subscribers will find it easier to access these weekly resources directly on the website, where readings are given in full along with additional video and music resources.
You can find the complete ENCOUNTERING GRACE resource for Lent 2026 here.
Reflections for Mondays in Lent
Monday 23rd February
Monday 2nd March
Monday 9th March
Monday 16th March
Monday 23rd March
Encountering Resurrection
Take five deep breaths and check-in with how you are feeling in body, mind and spirit. Take five more deep breaths and ask God to abide with you this Lent, and especially in this time today you have set aside for devotions.
In the chapter we read on Mondays, John 11 we hear Jesus declare, even as Lazarus lies in the silence of the tomb, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Sit gently with this image for a few moments. And then give thanks repeating quietly, “my resurrection and my life”.
On Mondays, we keep vigil at Lazarus’s grave in John 11.
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’
But 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.’
Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’
The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’
Jesus 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. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’
After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’
The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’
Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’
Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’
Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’
She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’ 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.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The 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. When 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.’
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’
They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep.
So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’
But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus 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.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I 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.’
When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The 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.’ Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
- The story opens with the disciples. What do you notice about their struggle to understand death, danger, and Jesus’ purpose?
- What mixture of emotions do you hear in Martha’s words in this story?
- At the heart of the story, we hear resurrection named not as an event but as a person. Ponder how this can be so.
- What mixture of emotions do you hear in Mary’s words in this story?
- Lazarus comes out still bound, and Jesus tells others, “Unbind him, and let him go.” How do you see the community — including the disciples — being drawn into the work of resurrection?
You might like to use this collect:
God of compassion, you call us out of the bindings of death on this our resurrection day: make us ready to surrender the fear in which we hide to step into your future alive and unashamed; through Jesus Christ, the life of the world. Amen
Linger in stillness, recalling
my resurrection and my life
You might like to close with the Lord’s Prayer.