Sunday, March 22. 2026

 

Ezek 37:1-14; Ps 130; Rom 8:6-11; Jn 11:1-45

When Heaven Feels Quiet

There are seasons when faith doesn’t feel like a song—it feels like a sigh. These three passages meet us right there: in the honest place where we are still breathing, still believing, but also still waiting. They form one spiritual journey: from the depths (Psalm 130), to the inner battlefield (Romans 8), to the graveside where hope seems late (John 11).

Psalm 130

Psalm 130 begins with a sentence many people live without saying out loud: “Out of the depths I cry to you.” The “depths” aren’t just sadness; they are the places where you feel stuck, guilty, tired, misunderstood, or spiritually numb—where you can’t climb out by willpower.

Yet the psalmist does something revolutionary: he doesn’t clean himself up before speaking to God. He prays from the mess. This is the first deep truth: God does not require you to be strong in order to be heard.

Then comes a piercing line: “If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, who could stand?” That question humbles me. It levels the room. It exposes the silent fear many carry: What if God is counting against me? What if my past disqualifies my prayers?

But the psalm answers its own fear: “With you there is forgiveness, so that we can…revere you.” Forgiveness is not permission to be careless—it’s power to come close without pretending.

And the psalmist waits: “More than watchmen wait for the morning.” Watchmen don’t create the sunrise; they trust it is coming. Waiting, here, is not passivity—it is faith under pressure. It is choosing to believe God’s mercy is moving even when you can’t yet see the evidence.

Romans 8:6-11

Paul shifts the conversation inward: “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” This isn’t just theology—it’s spiritual psychology. Paul is saying: what rules your inner world will shape your outer life.

“Flesh” here isn’t merely the body; it’s the self that tries to live independent of God—ruled by fear, pride, shame, impulse, resentment, or control. When that becomes your inner government, you may still look “fine,” but inside things begin to decay: peace erodes, hope thins, love becomes conditional, and the soul becomes exhausted.

But Paul offers a different governance: the Spirit. The Spirit doesn’t merely give rules; the Spirit gives life—and not only later, but now. Life that feels like clarity. Life that feels like a softening. Life that feels like being able to breathe again.

Then Paul makes a bold claim: the Spirit who raised Jesus lives in you. That means Christianity is not mainly self-improvement; it is resurrection power entering human weakness. It means you are not trapped in your patterns as if they are permanent. It means even if you’ve been “dead” inside—hope can be reawakened.

John 11:1–45

This story is intensely personal because it confronts a painful mystery: Jesus loves Lazarus… and still delays. The text says He loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus—yet He stays two more days where He is.

This is where many hearts break: If God loves me, why didn’t He come sooner?

At the tomb, Jesus doesn’t give a speech first. He weeps. The shortest verse in the Bible is one of the deepest revelations about God: “Jesus wept.” God is not distant from human grief. He does not shame mourners with quick answers. He enters the ache.

Martha meets Jesus with honest disappointment: “Lord, if you had been here…” That sentence is a prayer many people carry. It’s faith mixed with pain. Jesus doesn’t reject her honesty—He expands her vision: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Notice: He doesn’t say, “I will do resurrection.” He says, “I am.” Meaning resurrection is not only an event—it is a Person. Wherever He stands, hope is standing there too.

Then Jesus asks for the stone to be moved. This matters: Jesus performs the miracle, but people must participate in obedience. Sometimes the “stone” is what we use to keep disappointment sealed away. Sometimes it’s the habit of shutting down, the vow never to trust again, the fear of hoping and being hurt.

And when Lazarus comes out, Jesus says, “Unbind him and let him go.” Resurrection is instant; unbinding is often a process. God can bring you out of a dead place—and then gently teach you how to live free.

As we walk through Lent, these passages give us a holy map.

Psalm 130 reminds us that Lent begins with truth: we don’t approach God from perfection, but from the depths—bringing our guilt, our weariness, our questions, and our quiet longing. Lent is not a performance; it is a return. We confess not because God is harsh, but because His mercy is real, and forgiveness opens the door for intimacy.

Romans 8:6–11 shows us what Lent is shaping in us: a new inner government. This season calls us to examine what has been ruling our minds—fear, appetite, anger, pride, despair—and to surrender the throne to the Spirit of God. Lent is not simply giving things up; it is being given over—handing our hearts back to the One who gives life and peace.

John 11:1–45 anchors Lent in hope that doesn’t depend on timing. Even when Jesus seems late, love is not absent. Even when something feels buried, resurrection is still possible. At the tomb, Jesus weeps with us, then speaks to what we thought was finished. Lent teaches us to trust the voice of Christ more than the finality of the stone.

So as we move toward the cross and the empty tomb, let Lent do its deep work: to bring us out of denial into honesty, out of flesh-led living into Spirit-led peace, and out of dead places into the slow, unfolding freedom of new life.

May this season find us praying like watchmen—waiting with expectation.

May it find our minds softened, our hearts cleansed, and our faith renewed.

And when Easter comes, may it not only be a date on the calendar, but a testimony in our souls: the Lord still raises what we could not save, and He still calls His people by name.

David Oluyibi

Out Of The Depths   Sovereign Grace