April 13, 2014
Where is God?
- John 11:1-45
- Dr. Teri Thomas
“Lord if you had been here our brother would not have died!”
Martha was very sure about that statement.
And I would guess she was more than a bit peeved.
She had sent word to Jesus days earlier, while Lazarus was still alive.
He was in Jerusalem. They lived in the suburb of Bethany.
Come on it was only two miles. Two miles - and it took you three days to get here.
Where in God’s name have you been all this time?
What could have been more important than saving Lazarus?
She took a deep breath and got control of herself.
“But even now Jesus, I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
What a statement of faith! Even now.
We all know the feelings that come, when life’s journey takes us to a place we’d rather not go.
loss of a job, loss of property,
divorce, loss of health,
or the death of someone we love.
Doubt and belief come in waves at such times.
I am not happy about this God, but even now I know you are here.
Even now, God will give me good things!
Even now that I did not get the job
Even now that I didn’t get in the college I wanted
Even now that I have lost the love of my life
Even now that I am sick, or addicted, or depressed
Even now!
The death of Lazarus hurt Martha deeply but grief was not despair.
Yes, if Jesus had come sooner her brother would not have died.
But Jesus was there now, and so there was still hope.
Even now!
When heartbreak comes, or anxiety sweeps over us like a thousand spiny needles,
when we would so much rather have it some other way,
when what we have might not be our first choice, or our second, third, or fourth.
Those are the times for the faith of Martha.
Times for hope, relaying on the promise that even now God is with us.
Comforted by Jesus presence, Martha ran back to the house to get Mary.
Mary got up and brought her own mixture of grief and pain out to meet Jesus.
Like her sister, Mary believed Lazarus would not have died if Jesus had been there.
She blamed him. Even the crowd around them wondered, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" But still Mary kneels at Jesus’ feet.
Jesus allows her to be honest and open with her feelings. She worships him, even in her tears and even in her disappointment she clings to him in devotion and in trust.
Jesus truly felt Mary and Martha’s anger and pain. He loved them.
He stood with them at the tomb of their brother and he wept.
He stood there and cried with them.
As the procession of family and friends and mourners
walked to the cave where Lazarus had been buried,
they saw Jesus, the Messiah, weeping with them.
Some commentators point to this verse as a reminder of Jesus’ humanity.
How very human of him it was to cry.
I prefer to see it as a sign of Jesus’ divinity.
I want to believe that what was true for those gathered at Lazarus' tomb-
is just as true for us today. That Jesus weeps with us.
Just as Jesus wept with Martha and Mary, Jesus also weeps with us.
When we hurt- God hurts. What we are disappointed- so is God.
When our heart is broken- God’s heart bleeds as well.
Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, truly feels the pain of human grief and weeps with us.
Scripture proclaims that whether we live or whether we die, we are in the presence of God, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
God’s presence is constant. It permeates all of existence and every moment of time.
“Lord if you had been here our brother would not have died!” Oh, but he was there.
Not in the way they hoped or doing what they so deeply desired.
But in Lazarus life he was there. In Lazarus death he was there.
In Mary and Martha’s grief and pain and anguish he was there.
The scripture makes it all very clear.
We can never not be near God.
Thanks be to God.