Welcome to this week’s Living Word! Our Word of the Week is Journey.

Welcome to the fifth week of Lent. As we draw closer to Holy Week, our own journey intensifies. A journey isn’t just about the miles we travel; it’s about the changes that happen within us along the way. This week, we walk with Jesus to the village of Bethany, where he meets his friends Martha and Mary in their deepest grief. This week, you are invited to look at the ‘dead ends’ in your own life and discover that with Christ, the journey never truly ends, it only transforms into new life!

Section 1: The Dead End.

We invite you to start with the Sign of the Cross.

Response: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.

R./ Glory to you O Lord. +

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days… When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary sat in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R./ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

Every journey has moments where we feel like we’ve hit a dead end. Maybe a relationship has broken down, a dream feels beyond our reach, or we feel trapped by a mistake we’ve made. Martha and Mary felt that their journey with Lazarus had finished at a tomb. In our lives, we can think of ‘tombs’ as the places where we feel hopeless. But in the Christian journey, a dead end is often the place where Jesus is just getting started. He doesn’t avoid our pain; he walks right into the middle of it!

Discussion Questions:

• Martha tells Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Have you ever felt like God was running late or that a situation in your life had gone too far to be fixed?
• We often think of tombs as physical places, but they can be mental or social too. What are some ‘tombs’ that teenagers get stuck in today?
• Jesus waited four days before arriving at Lazarus’s tomb. Why do you think the journey to a solution or healing often takes longer than we want it to? What can we learn while we are in the waiting period?

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Section 2: Journey Quiz

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