John 11: 1 - 43
Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary
and her sister Martha . . . the sisters sent word to (Jesus), saying, “Lord,
behold, he whom you love is sick.” . . . Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister
and Lazarus . . . So when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in
the tomb four days . . . when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw him, and fell
at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not
have died.” . . . Jesus wept . . . he cried out with a loud voice,
“Lazarus, come forth.”
*
I
had prayed every day for Daniel Pearl, the reporter for the Wall Street Journal who had been
kidnapped in 2001 by terrorists in Pakistan; for his wife and his yet to be
born baby. When I heard the news
that he had been brutally murdered and butchered, I felt like my own brother
had been killed. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would
not have died.
A
little girl named Danielle Van Damme was abducted in the 1990s from her bedroom
and her body was found weeks later. Over 3,000 lives were stolen on September
11th, 2001 and many thousands upon thousands of other lives and
hearts were forever broken. Lord, if you
had been here, my brothers and my sisters would not have died.
Why
does our all powerful, all loving God permit such evil to exist? God gives each
of us real freedom to choose goodness over darkness. Some of his children
choose the darkness and, as a result, bad things — terrible things — happen.
The consequences of those bad things are for us a never ending nightmare. But
in God’s reality they are only a nanosecond in time compared to the eternity
that God has waiting for us.
Look
at the above Gospel: Lazarus lay dead for four days in a tomb. His sisters
could not understand how their best friend Jesus, the miracle worker, could have
let it happen. Lord, if you had been here
my brother would not have died. Every minute of those four days was an
eternity of suffering for Martha and Mary. In the end Jesus brings Lazarus back to life; and those four
days of horror become a distant, faded memory compared to the joy of being
reunited.
And
that is how it will be for us. The four days in the tomb are like life here on
earth. The pain felt by Martha and Mary is like the pain we experience in
dealing with the presence of evil in our world. But in God’s eye all of it is
temporary — like the four days that Lazarus lay dead in his tomb. There is so
very much more that God has waiting for us.
But
God isn’t waiting backstage in the wings for us to run the gauntlet of life. He
is here, present with us in the darkness, suffering with us in the face of
unspeakable evil, weeping for us like he wept for Lazarus. And we know this is
true when we look upon the cross.
In the center of the cross, in the center of suffering and evil, we find
God in human form.
With
the cross, God is sending us an answer to the problem of evil. He is telling us
that we are not alone, that he is with us through it all; and someday it will
all make sense. And all the people we have lost in our lives, perhaps our
parents, perhaps our
children; all those who have been so dear to us — all the Daniel Pearls,
all the Danielle Van Dammes, all the victims of hatred and bigotry and war and
terror will share with us in the joy of God’s presence for all eternity.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Readers
of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on
Amazon.com:
Just
to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life
Synchronicity
as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral
Ministry
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