“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Why hadn’t he been there? Martha and her sister Mary had sent word to Jesus days ago that their brother Lazarus was sick. Really sick. Jesus was their good friend, of course he would come right away. But he didn’t. In fact, when he received the news, he stayed where he was for two days longer. Why? It was bewildering, perplexing, and impossible to wrap her head around.
And then her brother died. She was devastated. For four days his cold, lifeless body lay in the tomb.
That’s why, as soon as she heard he finally was near, she hurried to meet him. She had to understand how this could have happened. Why would he have delayed?
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Lord, if you had been here…
I’ve whispered those very words myself. Sometimes I’ve shouted them, fists clenched, tears streaming. Lord, if you had been here, things would have been different. Where were you Lord?
Where were You when my parents divorced? When I was alone? When I was molested at six years old? When I was bullied in the 4th grade? When people who should have loved me, hurt me? When friends left? When mom died? When parenting got scary? Where were you when marriage got really hard and life seemed to fall apart?
“Lord, if you had been here…” As Martha reached Jesus, the words tumbled out. She didn’t know what Jesus would do, but she knew what Jesus could do:
“But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give you.”
She came heartbroken, but humble. In her grief, she moved towards Jesus, not away. She walked by faith and not by sight.
Jesus assured her that her brother would rise again. Martha acknowledged, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” She looked toward a future hope, not a present one. But Jesus intended on giving her both.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Do YOU believe this? Jesus asks this of me.
I often visualize myself wrestling with God as I pray.
“I won’t let You go until You bless me!”, I cry, echoing the patriarch Jacob’s words from Genesis 32:26. Jacob thought he had to hold on to God, but God had always been holding on to him. Jacob thought he had to force God to stay. But God had never left him.
“Lord, if you had been here…” But God has never left me. Jesus came as Immanuel, God with us. “Where were you Lord?” He was with me. His life, death, burial, and resurrection guarantee that He will always be with me. I, too, have a present and future hope because of the Resurrection.
But what about the painful times? What about the waiting, the delay of the Lord in my life? Of His delay in coming to Lazarus, Jesus tells His disciples, “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
I’ve learned, or rather, I am learning, that I can trust the Lord even with the painful, unanswered, and disappointing circumstances of my life. When Jesus asks of me, as He did of Martha, “Do you believe this?” , I can move towards Jesus and say,
“I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
