Next Sunday we mark All Saints Day, which to me is more about celebrating the living saints we are than the ones who’ve gone before us into glory. At first glance, the gospel reading appointed has an “All Souls” feel, more focused on death than on sainthood. Or does it?
The story is about Jesus’ raising of Lazarus, who was very dead, and three days buried. Before we get to that big death-into-life moment, though, John brings us right into the very human emotions being experienced by those close to Lazarus – and by Jesus. We start with disappointment
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.”
“If you had been here.” How often do we feel that when someone is hurt or dies? “Lord, where were you?” A theological answer, “Right here, standing with you in the pain and the mess,” doesn’t always satisfy. In the moment, we are with Martha and Mary: “You could have prevented this. Why didn’t you come right away when we called?”
Disappointment always accompanies death. Even when death brings relief, there is disappointment that the person we love came to the point where that was the best outcome. Disappointment comes because we always hope for a better outcome, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. That is faith, isn’t it? Mary and her sister knew that Jesus could have healed Lazarus from his illness if only he’d come sooner.
How can we better balance our faith in what God can do, with greater faith in what God is doing beyond where we can see or imagine? It takes that kind of faith to accept death, which St. Paul called “the final enemy.” We get there, I think, by putting our focus onto life, the life around us, and the Life to come. God-Life is the antidote to all our dashed hopes, broken dreams, unfulfilled expectations.
I once read an article about new approaches to breast cancer. One woman with some early indicators who decided to take a “wait and see” approach rather than medical interventions said, “What I am doing is not foolproof, I know that. I also know life is finite and that death is unavoidable. For me it came down to the quality of life I want to live… And come what may, I think we really hurt ourselves by trying to just not be dead.”
Jesus came that we might have Life, in abundance. God wants so much more for us than just not being dead. Accepting death's inevitability, and the Life with God beyond, can make us more aware of God with us in the times of loss. This side of the grave or the other, as Lazarus discovered, there is Life.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.
No comments:
Post a Comment