Word Made Flesh:: John 11

I enjoy deadheading roses. 

There's not a lot of thinking that is required and when you have a lot of roses it's a task that can keep you going for hours. If you're not familiar with what deadheading, it's when you turn on some Grateful Dead and eat some Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia while sitting in your rose garden. 

Well, it could be!!

It's actually where you cut the flower that has already bloomed and fallen away from the bush. It's an essential process in roses if you want there to be additional blooms. If you don't deadhead roses you'll get rose hips, which is great for making tea, but it won't help you get any more blooms. 

The rose hips contain seeds to create more rose bushes. These little pods take an incredible amount of energy from the rose bush and they actively block any more flowers from blooming. A part of the rose bush has to die and be removed so that the energy from the plant can be utilized into creating more flowers. 

This week we're going to be looking at death and resurrection. In a fascinating and shocking story from the Bible, a man named Lazarus who has been dead so long he's starting to stink from decomposition is called back to life. This pattern of death and resurrection is a major clue to where the story of Jesus is heading.