29 July 2014 - yes lord, i believe

29 July 2014 - yes lord, i believe

Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

We all experience things like this.  We experience suffering that God allows.  He does not delight in it.  His presence would mean it would be absence.  Yet sometimes he is distant. Sometimes he has timing that is other than we would wish.  Hopefully, like Martha, this doesn't diminish our faith.  When we suffer, let us say,  "even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you."

Jesus may surprise us.  We don't always have to wait until "the resurrection at the last day" for the blessings he wants to give.  Suffering is not an absolute.  He incorporates it into his plan.  Of our suffering he says, "And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him."

Jesus withdraws and draws near so that we might realize that the resurrection is not something that happens near him.  He himself is the life we need.

"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?" 

Do we believe this?  The grace on the readings today is able to strengthen our confession of faith.  This is vital because "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God."  May we bless the LORD at all times with his praise continually in our mouths. Let our souls make their boast in the LORD.  May the Spirit empower us to respond with Saint Martha, "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world."   No one can say that Jesus is LORD except by the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3).   And "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (cf. Rom. 10:9).

"This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles."  Martha experiences exactly this.  The goal of Jesus from the beginning is to draw the deeper profession of faith from her heart.  It isn't the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus that causes it.  It is the presence of Jesus himself, the resurrection and the life, and his words which empower Martha to make the good confession (cf. 1 Tim. 6:12).

The goodness of the LORD which brings about and empowers faith is not just for Martha.  It is for all of us.  The psalmist can't help but invite, "O taste and see that the LORD is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in him!"