Yes, the subject seems to be the same as the one last time. But the scenario is completely different. Last time it was one of Jesus’ enemies asking the question, trying to trap him. This time it is one of Jesus’ closest friends pleading for some way to make sense of it all.

I think that all followers of Jesus eventually face this question. Things go wrong, then terribly wrong, and we cry out for help to the One that has all the power in the universe and beyond, the One that can fix anything… and there is no answer.

Martha at the tomb of Lazarus

The (disappointed) request: Master, if you had been here my brother would not have died. But even now you could fix it.

The answer: (a) Your brother will rise again.

The rebuttal: (That’s not what I meant. And you know it!) I know he will rise at the resurrection.

The final answer: (b) I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes on me, though he have died, shall live; and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus: are probably the closest friends Jesus had, apart from His mother and his disciples. Apparently, He stayed with them any time His travels took Him to Bethany, near Jerusalem. And in this scene, we can deduce that Jesus had stayed with them recently enough that they knew where He was headed next. The problem is that Lazarus got sick and the sickness took a serious turn for the worse:

John 11:3-4 The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.  But when Jesus heard [it], he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.

In my list of unexpected answers, these two verses above could have earned a place of their own:

The statement in verse 3: Jesus, the friend you love, Lazarus, he is sick.

The answer: Don’t worry about it: This sickness is not pointing the way towards death but toward God, to give Him glory, and with Him, His Son.

Don’t you want to reply: “Wait, wait, wait! I didn’t ask you what the deeper meaning of this sickness was. Frankly, at the moment, I couldn’t care less. We can debate the philosophy of it all later. What we need is help; your help! We wouldn’t interrupt you if this wasn’t an emergency.”

There are moments in the Bible, like this, where the Son’s answers and even the Father’s, tempt us to retort with that old saying: “With friends like this, who needs enemies?” Because, truly, Jesus’ answer seems cold, even callous. But at least He didn’t say that to Martha and Mary’s face.

Still, it would leave us wondering what is going on in His head… except for the next verses:

John 11:5-6 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore he heard, He is sick, he remained two days then in the place where he was.

You see, John, who was there, obviously felt just as confused as we all would be.  But just before saying, “What are you thinking, Jesus?”, John stops and tells himself – and us – what He knows is absolutely True: Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus.

And if this is True, then no matter what my heart is feeling now, regardless of whether I understand Jesus’ reaction (or lack of it) or not, I can Trust that He is choosing to do what is the absolute best for me.

Isn’t this the way Faith works?

Jesus is not ignoring my call for help. What He is doing is reacting to it in a way that I cannot understand.

The infinitely important thing here is to know that that doesn’t mean He has stopped loving me.

And that is what Faith clings to. The writer of Hebrews tells us that ‘faith is the underlying reality of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen’. But how can my faith have such strength? The answer is, that it is not my faith that is so strong that it constitutes an unbreakable foundation… but rather, it is that the object of my faith is the unbreakable foundation.

What is that object? The Love of God. The unbreakable underlying reality is the Love of God. And if my faith is anchored on knowing that Love, in trusting that that God only acts according to that Love for me, then the strength of that foundation is carried upwards through the “pylons” of faith to support the whole “building”. I can cling to the things hoped for, the things He has promised, because that underlying reality is so solid, that it is evidence on which I can stake my future, whether I can see what is coming or not.

Unless we have that foundation to stand on, God’s answer to our prayers can sometimes seem the complete opposite of what we want: Martha and Mary were crying out for immediate help. But Jesus delays going back by another two days. (It appears it took two days for the message to get to Jesus.)

When He finally decides to go, He reveals His plan.

John 11:11-12 …and after this he says to them, Lazarus, our friend, is fallen asleep, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. The disciples therefore said to him, Lord, if he be fallen asleep, he will get well.

You can almost hear the relief in the disciples’ voice: ‘Jesus wasn’t being an unfeeling sod… He knew all along that Lazarus would get better on his own. No wonder He didn’t run to him.’

You see, we too have a tendency to make excuses for God when He doesn’t come through the way we want Him to.  But Faith is not about excuses. It is about trusting God no matter what it looks like. So, Jesus sets them straight:

John 11:13-15 But Jesus spoke of his death, but *they* thought that he spoke of the rest of sleep.  Jesus therefore then said to them plainly, Lazarus has died. And I rejoice on your account that I was not there, in order that ye may believe. But let us go to him.

And now we get a bit more information about His plan:

On purpose, Jesus allowed Lazarus to die because a lesson of Faith is coming that is so important, so far reaching…

…that it can only be taught and learned by going through this kind of pain.

And I have to stop here and recognize that, although Mary and Martha’s story is long past, my story is still going on. God the Father is still working, and so is God the Son… Specifically, He is working in my life through the Holy Spirit. And there is no doubt in my mind that I still have many lessons of faith to learn. Which means that I cannot expect to live a life that is untouched by the kind of pain that Mary and Martha went through.

Why is this fair?

John 11:20-21 Martha then, when she heard Jesus is coming, went to meet him; but Mary sat in the house. Martha therefore said to Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died…

She is not saying it, but she is saying it. Right? Why did you take so long? If You had been here, if You had cared to do anything about it, Lazarus would still be alive. This isn’t fair. We believe in You! We turned to You first.

John 11:22 …but even now I know, that whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee.

It hurts, but I still believe in You. You can fix this, I know.

That is faith. Isn’t it? I mean, the recrimination bit is human; Jesus understands all about being human. So that shouldn’t matter. But Jesus is here for another reason:

John 11:23-26 Jesus says to her, Thy brother shall rise again.

Martha says to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection in the last day.

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes on me, though he have died, shall live; and every one who lives and believes on me shall never die. Believest thou this?

And this was the whole point.

Do you believe this?

Martha who knows Him, Martha who loves Him, who trusts Him, is going to “outlive” Him. Soon Jesus will not be around anymore to tell people the whole reason He came down to Earth.  But she will be. And so will the disciples around Jesus listening to this conversation.

The resurrection from the dead, promised long ago by the prophet Daniel, about which even Job testified (Job 19:25-27), is not about a day far away in the future, it is not about a day that is going to come after we are long dead.

Thinking that way, we humans are tempted to shrug and wish for the best. Thinking that way, my life seems to me to be like just a drop in a very very large bucket. I don’t have to worry too much, I don’t have to hurry. I – so to speak – can hide within the crowd. I am tempted to assume that all I need to do is do the best I can… And then when we are all judged at the end… ‘Hey, I know I am not the worst of the lot. I tried… I mean, compared to some of those other people in this crowd, surely God will let me in.’

Do you see what I am saying?

Out of sight, out of mind, applies here.

But the Truth that Jesus wanted Martha and Mary to understand that day

is that the resurrection from the dead is not a day,

it is a person: Jesus the Messiah.

He is the Resurrection and He is the Life. That means He is Eternal Life. As Jesus declared in John 8, before Abraham was ever born, He already existed as the I AM: the self-existent One who is the Living God. Omniscient, omnipresent, unfettered by time, to Him every single individual exists in the present.

Which means that before Him, every one of us stands alone, and with bared souls, right now. There is no time to wait or waste, because the choice of the kind of resurrection I get is not out there in some hazy day in the future, enshrouded in mystery and doubt about when it will happen or how. As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us: Today is the day of Salvation: (Psalm 95:7,8) Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

This is why Jesus came to us: to usher us now into eternal life in the Kingdom of God. And this future is freely available to any and every one of us if only we are willing to believe right now.

he that believes on me, though he have died, shall live; and every one who lives and believes on me shall never die.

Do you believe this?

This message is so important that for the sake of me learning it, understanding it, taking it to heart, and committing to tell everybody about it, God, my Heavenly Father – who Loves me more than anyone ever could – for its sake – He is willing to let me suffer in this world.

“Why is this fair?” is a question asked by a heart that only sees my life, only sees what I am suffering. And if it were only me, then it would be a fair question to ask.

But it has never been only me.

I am part of a human family that God Loves. And He set a plan in motion: He created a door, through which every single person in this world can enter into His eternal life.  But for them to do it, they need to know about it and believe it.

Who better than me, someone just like them, to tell them that it works: It can be done!

I understand you have suffered in this world because I have too. But even if it hurts, what God has promised on the other side of this door is so much more infinitely greater, that even the tears we shed all those years ago will be washed away… they will not exist… we will not be able to remember a single wound. And that door, that eternal life is available today, right now, if only you choose to believe.