Lazarus, Easter, and the Rameumptom

We had been listening to our New Testament Scripture Scouts CDs in the car, and one day while running errands we heard the segment from John 11 where Christ raised Lazarus from the dead. Apparently Jake got the song stuck in his head, because he spent hours that evening running around the house boisterously singing, "Lazarus, come forth!" (It was cute the first five or so times. After that I was wishing outside temperatures were a little more humane so he could share his enthusiasm with the backyard.)

Later during dinner I had a lovely chat with the kids about some of the beauties of John 11--specifically the fact that Jesus wept when He saw Mary and Martha's grief, even though He knew He was about to bring Lazarus back. We worship a God who grieves when we grieve, joys with us, and is touched by our experiences. To me it is a principle of incomparable beauty and wonder. After I explained it to the kids Jake said, "Maybe Jesus cried when you got your cancer."

"Maybe He did," I said. "That was really scary for me because I wanted to live to be your mom."

"Yeah," Abby chimed in, "but you didn't need to worry because we have the Rameumptom."

Uh, I think the word you are searching for here is Resurrection.

Easter is coming soon. How nice that we already know what vocabulary words we will be focusing on.