Waiting for the miracle

Ps. 130          5 My soul waits for the Lord,

more than watchmen for the morning, *

more than watchmen for the morning.

Sometimes it feels like we wait a long, long time for God. And sometimes it feels like God is waiting too long to help. So there’s the last of our long Lenten gospel readings – and what a powerful one it is. We think of this story as the raising of Lazarus, but that part only happens at the end. Most of the story is about Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ sisters – and about the long wait before the miracle comes.

All three of these siblings were close friends of Jesus, a family with whom he was deeply intimate. Judging by the order in which they are named, Martha is the oldest and Lazarus is the baby brother. And that brother Lazarus falls terribly ill, so his sisters send for Jesus. And Jesus does not come, and Lazarus dies.

And the next day, Jesus does not come. Nor does he come the following day. It is only when four days have passed, when they are fully in their grief and mourning and all hope has been abandoned, that Jesus shows up. Some scholars say it was the belief at the time that for three days, the person’s life force stayed nearby – but by four, the person was truly and completely dead. By four days, the body would be beginning to decay. Yet it is only on the fourth day that Jesus comes.

And it’s not as though he were unavoidably held up, or far away, unable to get there in time. The story says he tarries – Jesus stays where he is two more days on purpose. 

When he finally does come, before he’s even got to the house, Martha comes out to see him. She is confused, outraged, bewildered. Lord, she says, if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died. The question beneath it that I hear is: where the **?#! were you? When Jesus comes nearer to the house, her sister Mary comes to him and says the exact same words: If you had been here, my brother would not have died – and then she collapses, weeping. What must they have been suffering and thinking in those dark days after their little brother had died?

We all have stories like this in our lives, of healing that felt too long in coming. Struggling with long illness or chronic pain; struggling with addiction or with a loved one who is addicted; struggling with our loved ones, with our children, with our sense of hope for the world. We pray for pain to be healed, only to have it return again the next day. We pray for healing and justice and for things to be made whole, and we live with brokenness and disease.

Which is why as I reread the gospel story I was all the more amazed at Martha. Even in what must be total agony, even as she confronts Jesus for not coming in time, she professes faith. Even now, she says, with my brother dead four days, I know that God will give you whatever you ask, Jesus. I know that even though everything looks hopeless, God can act through you. She doesn’t know how – when Jesus tells her Lazarus will rise again, she answers sort of obediently, yes, I know that there will come a time for resurrection at the end of all things. But when Jesus says, no, not just then, I mean now – I am the resurrection, right here in front of you – even though his delay in coming has failed her and her family, she says, I trust you. I believe.

I almost think that Martha’s faith in this moment is the greater miracle in this story. We have heard this story before, and we know that Jesus will indeed raise Lazarus from the dead. But Martha doesn’t know that. All she knows is that her family’s best friend, their best hope, let them down terribly. Her sister can only weep at Jesus’ feet. How can Martha believe that this is not the end?

And yet she does. Martha trusts Jesus because she knows him. She has spent time with him, welcomed him into her home, talked and laughed with him. She knows that somehow this man is so completely aligned with God that through him, something can happen, even when she can’t see how. The God who has acted in dark and desperate times throughout salvation history will act now in her life as well. Because this Messiah is the incarnation of everything God has done up to that point. The God who brought a child to Abraham and Sarah when they were too old to have one; the God who brought the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt and into the promised land; the God who showed Ezekiel the vision of dry bones being raised; who over and over again had opened doors that were shut, turned curses into blessing, breathed life through times of death and devastation. That God has been and is now the God of unlikely salvation. Yes, Martha says, I trust in that God. I believe. And perhaps the most powerful thing about this is that it is not after Lazarus is raised from the dead that Martha professes this faith – it is before Jesus does anything, purely because she trusts him. 

That trust is how we become people of faith. We might come to belief in different ways, entering the door because we have heard tell of God’s goodness, because we have seen something amazing happen in someone else’s life, because we feel so in need of it ourselves. But we grow in faith through our relationship with God – because we spend time with God, we welcome God into our daily lives, we take the time to be in God’s presence through prayer, through scripture, through the community of other faithful people. I’ve been hammering on you this Lent about building disciplines of prayer and scripture in your life because we can’t just pretend when it comes to knowing and trusting God. It is something we have to learn, and lean into, for ourselves.

So the last practice I’m offering you is simple: to set a rule for your life. Take some time this week and assess your walk with God. What are the things you already do that bring you an awareness of God’s presence? What are the things you would like to do? How and when should those things happen, and who should be part of this with you? Just the simple, practical task of setting intentions – of making commitments that can change your life. So that your relationship can grow – so that you will know and trust God when you see him.

Because when we are in those long times between – when we have cried out for God and we are waiting for response – times when the healing or grace has come late, or we think it hasn’t come at all – what we have to go on is our trust. We trust based on others’ stories, we trust based on our own desperate hopes – but most profoundly, we trust because we have spent time enough to know that the God who is dealing with us is the God of life, the God who works out all things for good. Whatever the outcome, we trust him who says, I am resurrection and I am life.

When Lazarus stumbles out of the tomb, hobbled and blinded by the bandages he is tied with, Jesus says to them, Unbind him, and let him go. And Lazarus is unbound from the chains of death. And Mary and Martha too are unbound – Mary unbound and set free in her joy as she sees her brother alive again; and Martha set free in her deep and radical trust in Jesus…before the miracle even happens. How she gets there is a miracle in itself. That miracle unfolds as we center our lives more and more in God, and God’s deep and radical love for us. The miracle of God’s life living in us, through us bringing healing to this world and everyone around us. More than just an answer to our prayers – life and transformation. Resurrection.