renew your wonders: 26 March 2023

“Master, the one you love is ill.”

Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that the one whom he loved was ill. That was all they said, and, they trusted, all they needed to say. They believed the love of the master would inexorably draw him to Lazarus as indeed it did, though not immediately.

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So when he heard that he was ill,

he remained for two days in the place where he was.

Here was a difficult and mysterious reality. Jesus knew that Lazarus was ill and yet remained where he was for two days. His plan was that the illness not end in death but be for the glory of God. Yet he waited. He appeared to hesitate. His response seemed to be that of one who was indifferent or who at least had other priorities. And yet we read it it was precisely because of his love for Lazarus and his sisters that he remained. This meant that by the time he had arrived Lazarus had already died. How could this have been an action motivated by love? Certainly neither Martha nor Mary immediately experienced it that way.

Lord, if you had been here,

my brother would not have died.

Both Mary and Martha expressed the faith that if Jesus had been present he could have prevented the death of Lazarus. Neither asked, but we might imagine they wondered why this had been allowed to happen. They believed that Jesus had healing power and the love of Lazarus to motivate him to use that power. Did they blame Jesus for hesitating? Or did they simply lament that he hadn't arrived in time? Both sisters seemed to have resigned themselves to the reality of the situation, at least partially. But both demonstrated a readiness to be led into deeper faith.

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

God will give you.

Martha seemed to say that she didn't understand what had happened, or why it had been allowed to happen, or what could be done about it. But rather than attribute the tragedy to any limitation on the part of Jesus she clung to her faith in his power. Martha believed, along with many Jews of her time, in the resurrection on the last day. But she did not yet realize, could not yet have realized, that Jesus himself was to be the basis and the source of that resurrection. Yet even in the midst of tragedy, with Lazarus dead and buried, she allowed herself to entertain this hope when Jesus proclaimed it to her.

Jesus told her,

“I am the resurrection and the life;

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

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

Do you believe this?”

She said to him, “Yes, Lord.

I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,

the one who is coming into the world.”

She came to believe, her faith growing over time into a full and robust confession of the identity of Jesus. We must imagine that she would not have been able to be moved to this confession if Jesus had come at once and Lazarus had simply been healed. Jesus provided the occasion for those who were present to place their hope in something more than a simple and immediate response to an illness. Even though Lazarus was to be given life again he would eventually succumb to death once more. But now those who came to recognize Jesus as the resurrection and the life would not need to have their faith in him shaken by that or by any death thereafter. In this way death began to lose its hold on them, and the slavery in which it held the entire world through fear and despair began to be broken. Yet without Jesus allowing the initial sorrowful event it seemed unlikely that the confession of faith could have been made. It seemed in some way to require the vulnerability that the event produced. It was as though without the hope for the short term solution being removed they would never have thought or dared to hope for more.

Mary also demonstrated elements of faith that are worthy of imitation. She grieved, but when she heard Jesus had come she did not hesitate but got up quickly and went. When she saw Jesus she did not simply complain or reason with him but fell at his feet. She didn't understand, and she was suffering, but she knew that best place to be at such a time was at the feet of Jesus himself.

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping,

he became perturbed and deeply troubled

Jesus did not allow the circumstances to unfold as they did because of a lack of compassion. On a human level he seemed to be every bit as sorrowful even as Martha or Mary. But on another level he endured and accepted it so that the greater good of the glory of God could be accomplished.

He cried out in a loud voice,

“Lazarus, come out!”

The dead man came out,

tied hand and foot with burial bands,

and his face was wrapped in a cloth.

Jesus continues to be perturbed and moved with compassion for the suffering that fills our world today. Yet rather than simply resolving it for us it appears that he continues to remain where he is for two days, still waits for the third day to come. And we don't readily understand this mystery, still insist that it would be best for him to always and immediately fix everything before it gets any worse. Yet this is not his way, even though his compassion makes him deeply sympathetic. He needs to provide us with a situation in which we can raise our hope, come to deeper faith in him, and to learn to trust in something more and better than mere prolongation of life in this world. He wants us to come to a place where we recognize that, for the one who is both God and man, death is no more of a permanent condition than sleep. If we can come to believe that Jesus truly is the resurrection and the life we may still mourn that brothers and sisters have fallen asleep, because we would prefer their continued presence with us. But we need not mourn like those who have no hope (see First Thessalonians 4:13).

If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,

the one who raised Christ from the dead

will give life to your mortal bodies also,

through his Spirit dwelling in you.

We need not despair in the face of death. The supernatural life of the Spirit that Christians now share is the guarantee that what is now true of our spirits will one day come to characterize our bodies and indeed the entire cosmos. A day is coming when all of the dead will hear the voice of the Son God, and those who hear it will live (see John 5:25). This will be the true resurrection when we will not, like Lazarus, die again. Death, the last enemy will finally be conquered (see First Corinthians 15:26).

None of this comes about without cost to Jesus himself. In exchange for the life of Lazarus he set off the inexorable chain or circumstances that would result in his own death. But it was always his plan to give his life for the world. Let us learn to open ourselves to the fullness of this gift, which is now already his Spirit dwelling within us, who is himself the promise of the life we hope to enjoy with God forever, and already even now a participation therein.

I trust in the LORD;

my soul trusts in his word.

More than sentinels wait for the dawn,

let Israel wait for the LORD.