Welcome to Day 23 of Journey to the Cross, a forty-day devotional preparing our hearts for Easter Sunday. Today we begin thinking about persistence in the journey. Romans 5:4 says, “Endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Travelers need persistence. The longer the journey, the more perseverance is needed. Jesus faced many obstacles as He traveled to the cross, yet he endured in His journey. As we will see, He overcame all of the obstacles to bring salvation to us.

Now a man was sick, Lazarus from 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, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

John 11:1-3

Jesus did not go immediately but waited two more days. He knew what was going to happen, so He waited to return to Judea. Finally, Jesus told His disciples they were going back. Picking up in verse 11,

“He said this, and then He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on my way to wake him up.” Then the disciples said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.” Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought He was speaking about natural sleep. So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.”

John 11:11-15

What would it take to make you stop your journey and return home? Would locking your keys in your car? While frustrating, I doubt you would return home for that reason. What about monsoon rains? Perhaps, especially if you are on some kind of tropical vacation. One thing that will stop any journey is death. If anything can cancel a traveler’s plans, it is death.

Death constantly raised its ugly head as Jesus journeyed to the cross. Scores of diseased people on the verge of death traveled great distances to ask Jesus for His help with their ailments. There were deaths of several individuals along the way: Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son, and then Jesus’s friend Lazarus. In these instances, Jesus showed His power over death by raising each one of them from the dead. While each of these instances was evidence of what was to come with Jesus’s own death and resurrection, I cannot help but wonder if each instance reminded Jesus of the great pain He would suffer. Along His journey, He could have stopped and claimed that death was too much.

Yet death did not stop our Savior. He persisted in His journey. He did not cancel His plans because of death, even when His own loomed large on the horizon. Jesus kept going despite death so that He could give the gift of eternal life in Him.

Today as you pray, say something like this: “Heavenly Father, You sent Your Son to bear the burden of death for me. Amid the death that surrounds me in this world, let Your Spirit comfort me with the gift of the eternal life that I have in Christ Jesus, my Lord and Savior. In His name I pray, Amen.”

Thank you for joining me for Day 23. Come back tomorrow as we look at help for perseverance in the journey.