John 11:32-44
When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
The original, pre-Coronavirus, plan for today was for the high school youth and I to use the sermon time to share our experiences about our mission trip to North Carolina. We would have arrived home yesterday; but, of course, we never went on the trip.
I imagine that by this point in our collective social distancing experience you are well aware of the things you have been missing out on. Some of you, like me, are lamenting missing out on long-awaited travel experiences. Some are missing work (or at least work as you knew it). Others are missing out on physical proximity and relationships. And most of us miss living in a world where the thought of being subjected to a deadly disease was not at the forefront of our mind whenever we venture to the grocery store.
All of these things that we miss are legitimate. There’s nothing wrong for wishing things could have turned out differently, for wishing that our lives look more like they did a couple weeks ago before everything changed.
Much of what we feel today is what’s behind Mary’s words to Jesus following the death of her brother Lazarus. Recall that when Jesus arrives in Judea from Jerusalem Mary tells him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
This is simultaneously a confession of great faith and a confession of great frustration. Mary believes Jesus has the power to prevent death. What an extraordinary claim...an extraordinary claim rooted in the many times she witnessed him healing others. Mary also feels let down that Jesus did not arrive in time to help her brother. Mary laments that her life has changed completely in the course of one week, and she feels like Jesus did nothing to prevent it.
This dynamic is the core question that has frustrated God’s people throughout history. If God can heal people, why didn’t God heal that person?
Sit with that question for a moment. I think it’s a universal concern that will bring up very specific examples in your mind. Maybe you are drawn to one particular person in your life who suffered in such a way that it seemed like God was not present. Who is it in your life that causes you to march up to Jesus and demand an explanation? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
“Lord, if you had been here, my spouse would not have died.”
“Lord, if you had been here, my child would not have died.”
“Lord, if you had been here, my friend would not have died.”
“Lord, if you had been here, thousands of people would not have died from this disease.”
All these thoughts and questions are perfectly acceptable. It is perfectly acceptable to be disturbed by the pain, injustice, suffering, and death that is in our world. It is perfectly acceptable because God, too, is greatly disturbed by these things.
Notice how Jesus responds to Mary. He doesn’t disregard her concerns as unfaithful or short-sighted. He doesn’t get defensive or argue that it’s all part of God’s plan. Instead, we read that Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. Jesus, the Son of God, had a friend who died. This made him feel greatly disturbed and deeply moved.
This demonstrates that God is not far off, detached, or watching the events of our world play out while sitting safely on the sideline. Rather, God is here in the thick of it, in the pain and devastation and fear and suffering and loss and death and grief. God doesn’t want any of that for any of us. It’s not the way things were meant to be. I simply have to believe that because I’m not about to worship a God who stands apart from all the pain and suffering and either says, “Not my problem” or “Get over it” or “At least she’s in a better place now.”
It is comforting to know that God is with us in our suffering; but we are still left with a giant “why.” Why? Why is there pain and devastation and fear and suffering and loss and death and grief?
I have no answers to that question. It’s one of the great unanswerable questions. To be clear, volumes have been written in an attempt to explain the problem of suffering. But in my experience they all eventually fall short of providing a satisfactory answer.
But we can still ask the question. We have to ask the question. Otherwise we resign our faith to one of two false extremes: either a God who causes these things to happen or a God who is completely powerless to stop them. Asking the question keeps us in the paradox and uncertainty, which is a perfectly safe place for your faith to reside. Faith, after all, is only possible in the absence of certainty.
Now, what happens next in the story does not answer the question of suffering, but it is incredible and important nonetheless.
What happens next is that Jesus, greatly disturbed in spirit, commands Lazarus to come out from his tomb. And he does! This dead man’s lungs take in oxygen, his heart beats and pumps blood throughout his body, the neurons in his brain fire. The dead man walks out from his tomb and into the presence of God. As impressive as the raising of Lazarus is, it is only a taste of what is to come; for, shortly, Jesus will go to even greater lengths to defeat death and fully resurrect. And even that is just a taste; for, in due time, all of God’s creation will be resurrected. All of God’s creation will live again. Your friend, your sibling, your parents, your child, you, and I...all will live again.
So, when you experience suffering and death, go ahead and ask “why?” It is a perfectly healthy and natural thing to do. But please also take courage in the good news that though we cannot explain why there is suffering and death, we know that it is not our ultimate destination. God has the last word, and that word is life!
Amen.
