29 July 2022 - something better

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,

she went to meet him;

but Mary sat at home.

They were both convinced that if only Jesus had come in time he could have done something for their brother Lazarus, who had died. They were both crushed that he did not come. They experienced an emotion to which we too often give voice when Jesus does not come to us in our way and according to our time table, saying, "Lord, if you had been here". And while it was true that Jesus was absent it seemed as though it deeply grieved him to delay, but that he did so that God might be glorified in a more profound way than by merely preventing the death as Lazarus as Mary and Martha had asked.

Mary remained at home in mourning for Lazarus, but the active faith of Martha refused to sit still, or to give up entirely. She did not lose her faith in Jesus because his apparent negligence allowed this tragedy. She still had hope, even though she herself could not define that hope precisely.

But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,

God will give you.

It was as though some part of her realized that Jesus could still fix this situation, could still put the broken pieces back together. But she didn't have a paradigm for how it could be so, and couldn't make the leap on her own. 

“Your brother will rise.”

Martha said to him,

“I know he will rise,

in the resurrection on the last day.”

She knew the resurrection on the last day wasn't the answer she sought, could not answer her present grief. She knew Jesus could somehow do more. But she needed Jesus himself to draw her into the new horizon of life and possibility that existed only in himself.

Jesus told her,

“I am the resurrection and the life;

whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,

and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this?”

She did believe this. In the face of deep tragedy she made a strong profession of faith in "Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world". But she did not yet know how this applied to her grief or to Lazarus. When Jesus called for the stone to be rolled away she was still concerned about a smell. She was willing to give some assent to the fact that Jesus was spiritually the resurrection in the here and now, but that didn't seem to change the literal fact of the death of Lazarus. Initially, her belief that Jesus was the resurrection and the life gave her comfort and spiritual solace about the way the death of Lazarus fit into the divine plan, the fact that he would live again and in some sense still lived in Jesus himself. But the body was cold and the tomb was sealed and Martha did not dare make the leap to conclude that the the power of the resurrection could even now break through and do the seemingly impossible, restoring Lazarus to them. And yet, neither, in the light of Jesus and her faith in him, could she give up. It was precisely this sort of active faith, pressing, but without presumption, that prompted Jesus to give her the desire of her heart.

It is not difficult to merely repeat the profession of faith made by Martha. But what happens when Jesus doesn't respond to us immediately? Do we give up and wallow in grief? Or do we continue to hold out hope and expectation for the surprising ways in which Jesus might act? We should try to be a combination of Mary, who sat it the feet of Jesus, absorbing his teaching, and Martha, going out to meet him in the circumstances of her life. Our time at the feet of Jesus is meant to be the still center point that will fuel our stability in the face of crises, and will allow us to receive the grace to profess our faith even in the face of disappointment as Martha did. The key thing is the proximity to Jesus himself. It was his presence that kept Martha's hope alive, and it can be so for us as well. No matter what happens we will be able to say, "even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you".

Faith in Jesus can allow us to patiently endure difficult circumstances God permits, receiving them as the discipline from a loving Father. If he does not satisfy our immediate desires it is because he longs to give us something better. He wants us to realize that he himself is what our desire for life and fellowship is all about, and that it is in him that those desires find consummation and fulfillment. He doesn't want to let us go down with the sinking ship of desires that are only for this life and the temporary things it contains. His prophetic voice, like that of Jeremiah, calls us to turn more fully to him so that we can be spared his judgment and receive the mercy he desires to give.

Chris Tomlin - Resurrection Power