John
11:32
You’ve probably seen the meme that
has been going around that says, “I wasn’t planning on giving up quite this
much for Lent.” Before all this began, I
was looking at a sermon series called, “What Not to Give Up for Lent (or
Ever)”. This week’s title was to be
“Don’t Give Up on Jesus”. It still is.
It feels just a little bit more
pointed, though. Usually when we read
the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave, we focus on that moment when
Jesus
“cried with
a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and
feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.” [John 11:44]
Or maybe, as we approach Easter, we hear the stirring promise
“I am the
resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will
live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” [John 11:25-26]
If
the Christian Church says nothing else distinctive, it has to be this: that
there is life in Jesus Christ that goes beyond the seeming finality of death –
and we will get to that.
In the meantime, though, we’re
cooped up inside, some of us with coughs that indicate the presence of an
infection that, while mild to most, has been fatal to thousands. The rhythms of daily life are gone. Education and jobs are shaky, with all that
that means. Every day brings out the
best in some people and the worst in others.
People are sick. The economy is
sick. Society is sick. We see everything around us possibly going
away, dying. You have to wonder
sometimes, don’t you, why the Lord doesn’t just step in?
“Now a
certain man was ill, Lazarus of 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; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a
message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard
it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s
glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’” [John 11:1-4]
Jesus was friends with Lazarus and his sisters. Don’t you think he’d cut them a break?
Lazarus’ sister Martha was
plainspoken about that. She was the one
we see in another story where her sister Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet one
day, soaking in all the wisdom of his teaching, when Martha barges in and says
to Jesus, “Send her out here to the kitchen.
I need help making supper.” In
the stained glass window we have showing the two of them, Martha is holding a
broom. When I look at it, I get the
feeling that if you pushed her too far, she might use it for something other
than sweeping.
Her brother Lazarus is sick and
dying with a fever and she sends for help.
Jesus dawdles two more days and by the time he gets there Lazarus is
dead, dead and buried for four days.
“When
Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at
home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would
not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask
of him.’” [John 11:21-22]
The
raising of Lazarus wasn’t Jesus’ idea; it was Martha’s. Yes, he saw it coming, but he knew her. She didn’t get what she asked of him the
first time, but it didn’t stop her from asking again.
The two of them had a real
give-and-take kind of relationship. It
was different from how he related to her sister Mary. Mary would be one of the women who would be
outside his own empty tomb not long afterward.
He would find her crying because she thought that his body had been
moved or stolen, his grave desecrated.
She was someone who could be crushed by the weight of the world.
Martha, the gruff and down-to-earth
one, ironically, was the one who held on even against appearances. Even though she was angry with Jesus,
accusing him of being careless and unkind toward her dying brother and toward
herself, Martha kept looking to him for help.
She even saw in him a person whose importance went beyond what he could
do for them alone.
“Lord, I
believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the
world.” [John 11:27]
A real relationship isn’t about what someone can do for you or
what anybody can get out of anybody else.
A real relationship is an appreciation for who they are.
That doctor,
that respiratory therapist, that nurse, that aide – they will not be able to
cure every patient. But there they are,
in the middle of the crowded hallways, doing what they can. That shows who they are. The neighbor who goes to the grocery store
for someone, the teacher who does her best in a situation she’s never faced,
either – they demonstrate reliability.
So does someone who knows enough to say, “I want to help, but I cannot
do what you ask, because it might put you in danger.”
In any
situation, we may know what we want. We want
the sick to be healed. We want the
jobless to be employed. We want the kids
to go back to school. We want people to
stop hoarding toilet paper. We want this
whole business to go away. You know
what? Jesus didn’t want to face his own
trials, either, which were a whole lot more difficult than ours. In the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed that
God would spare him from his suffering, yet added,
“Nevertheless,
not my will, but yours, be done.” [Luke 22:42]
What comes of all this, we don’t know now, but hold on tight,
and we will find out on the other side.
He knows what is for the best, whether we do or not. He gets us where we need to be, one way or
another.
He is the way;
he is the truth; and he is the life.
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