“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26
The story of Lazarus is so intriguing. Many times I’ve tried to picture myself as one of Mary’s friends, rushing to her side as soon as news came of her brother’s death, staying through the burial, supporting her as she grieved. Questions would have flowed through my mind now that Lazarus was gone. How would the sisters survive in the world without him? Could anything have been done to prevent Lazarus from dying? What should we do to comfort Mary?
As her friend, I would have been one of those in the house with her, thinking Mary was on her way to the tomb to weep when she suddenly got up and left. All of her friends would have come along so that we might be of some help to her.
But Mary didn’t go to the tomb. She hastened along the road until falling at the feet of Jesus. The first words anyone would have heard her say for a very long time were to him. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus, expressing his own deep emotion, goes with Mary and her companions to the grave.
It’s a scene of deep grief, of honest feeling, and of compassion tinged with frustration. The great destroyer, death, has snatched away from Mary and her sister someone they loved deeply. Jesus enters into their sorrow and identifies with it, weeping and groaning in his spirit. He feels the frustration too.
Death is the great interrupter to his father’s perfect design. His children, created in his image, were never meant for decay or separation from him. We were designed to love him, mirror and glorify him, and enjoy him like he enjoys us.
The sadness at Lazarus’s grave is far, far removed from God’s original intent. That’s why Jesus came, to restore our connection to God, and to eliminate the interruption of death to that intimate communion.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus declared to Martha. “The one who believes in me will live.”
Our part in restoring communion is to believe. That’s how it’s done. Jesus does everything else. He provides the complete escape from death through his own death on the cross. Through him, we live and enter into an unbroken relationship with the Father.
The story involving Lazarus took place on Jesus’ way to Jerusalem. When he arrived riding a donkey under the waving of palm branches, the events of Holy Week began to unfold. Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, the atonement for our sin, moved a little closer each day to the horrible yet necessary realities of crucifixion. He went through it for our sake. He dies in our place, giving his life so that we can live too. All we have to do is believe.
This week, as we approach Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, enter into the honest feelings of Mary and her sister Martha. Their deep griefs, their frustrations, and their trust in Jesus is ours as well.
Jesus felt great compassion for them just as he does for each of us. Mary and Martha looked to him as their source of comfort and of intervention.
“But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask,” Martha said to Jesus. She didn’t know how God would meet her need, only that he would.
Allow him to grow your faith this Easter season. He can enter into your sorrow, your frustration, and your need. Trust that he can do something about it, and then watch to see how he works.
