My brother died, and one thing I have always relied on for comfort is the Bible. In Psalms it says the LORD is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. How? I wondered. How do you feel Him when he is not physically present? And how does He save us when our spirits are crushed by grief?
There are so many questions in the midst of a tragedy. I wonder why God lets it happen. Does He love me? Does it mean someone has done something wrong? Are we being punished? Are things out of His control? Does He care about me? How could something so terrible possibly be good? Is He good?
These are all questions that I know, cognitively, the correct answers to. So I think my deep underlying question is more transcendent. Death shows me that I am not in control of almost anything, and my looking for answers is really looking for affirmation that life is not ultimately about me, about humanity; my looking for answers is really looking for hope in something greater.
We know that we all die in the end, and if life centers around humanity and we all end up cold, silent, empty, separated from each other, then we can feel only despair. When we experience a death, we experience that cold, silent, lifeless separation. We miss the person; we grieve their absence and the end of their potential. So I turn to God and I start asking Him my questions, and I feel sadness and anger. Death is the Great Enemy, and it comes for all of us. The only hope we have in the end is to be rescued from this Great Enemy. And all my hope and the answers to my underlying questions, I found in Jesus, in a story about Him in John 11. In John 11, there is the story of some of Jesus’s friends: a family who lost somebody.
John 11 starts out: ”Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.... So the sisters sent to Him, saying, 'Lord, he whom you love is ill.’” They recognized that Jesus is God’s Son, so they thought to ask Him for help. “But when Jesus heard it He said, 'This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.'
"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was."
The first time I really thought about this verse, I felt almost sick to my stomach, because it is terrifying. The part that stuck out to me is where it says “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So… He stayed two days longer.” This is scary because it contradicts everything we think in our American Christianity, that if Jesus loves us and we belong to Him, nothing bad will happen to us. Intellectually we know this isn't true, but it's so easy to believe that good things are evidence of His love and favor and bad things are evidence of abandonment. But that explanation is simplistic and not true. It is not that Jesus doesn't care about Martha and Mary and Lazarus. It is because He loves them that He doesn't come right away. He is in control; He could have come and stopped death, but He didn't. God could have prevented Joe's death, but He loves me, and He loves Joe, and He loves my parents and Brian and our other relatives, and so... He didn't. This shows me that there must be a greater good beyond the tragedy.
I think sometimes we think that maybe Jesus loves us, but He doesn't quite have as much power as we'd thought over bad things. But we know that Jesus's decision to wait to go to Lazarus was intentional. After Jesus stayed for two days, "he said to the disciples, 'Let us go to Judea again.' The disciples said to Him, 'Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?' Jesus answered, 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.'" (vv. 7-11)
These verses are metaphorical. Throughout the first half of John, Jesus refers to the fact that His hour has not yet come... that is, it is still His appointed "day time" to work and accomplish His purpose. And then later on in John, Jesus talks about how His hour is at hand; that is, it is time for Him to accomplish His ultimate purpose, which was dying. Jesus has no fear of the religious leaders in Judea because He knows that His Father is in control of every single little detail and every bit of timing. I find this comforting as well, knowing that God is sovereign over every single little detail of our lives. Regardless of our own purposes, God knew, from birth, how long Joe's life would be. He knew every choice Joe would make; He knew what Joe's strengths and weaknesses would be; and He knew exactly the best time to bring him home.
And yet, even knowing that God has a good purpose, is in control, and loves us, we still need a hope for beyond death. If death is our Great Enemy, and it comes for everyone, then how could we have hope? When Jesus gets to Bethany, you can hear the same doubt and a slight accusation of abandonment when He meets the sisters. Verse 17 begins, "Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.... [W]hen Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.'" This was my feeling at first, the first few days. It’s a question that is also a slight accusation: How could You let this happen? I was the feeling the same way Martha was: I know You are all powerful, so where were You?
Martha needs a resolution, and even in her doubt she expresses hope, saying, "'But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.’ Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said to Him, 'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus said to her, '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.'" This is what we need. We need hope for the future; we need to know that more awaits us than silent, cold, abandonment. It hurts to lose someone you love; it hurts to think that one day your life, your potential, will come to an end. So I have taken great comfort in knowing that Jesus has overcome death, our Great Enemy; that our physical deaths are not the end, that instead of our lives ending in cold, still, silence, we are transitioning to a celebration, eternally fulfilled and in the presence of the One who died for us.
God has used this passage over the last two weeks to answer my questions gently. I know that He loves me, that bad things happen in spite of and even because of His love for me; I know that He has everything planned perfectly in His sovereignty; I know that death is not truly the end for anyone, because He is the resurrection and the life, and anyone who hopes in Him, "though he die, yet shall he live." And later in the story, Jesus goes on to show He has power over death by raising Lazarus from the dead.
And there is one more question that hurts, and that is simply the matter of dealing with how much it hurts and feeling abandoned. Has God left me alone in my pain? This is the most painful part of the "Why?" question. It is easy to know cognitively that God loves me (cause He's God, so that's what He does), and yet still feel as if He is far-off, distant, and is so aware of His own good purposes, that He forgets how much we can hurt while we are still living on this broken earth. So that is the last comfort I find from John 11.
Verse 28 begins, “[Martha] went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, 'The Teacher is here and is calling for you.' And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to Him.... Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet, saying to Him, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled." Jesus feels compassion for the people; His knowledge that He is going to raise Lazarus from the dead shortly thereafter does not make Him distant and unsympathetic. He cares when we are hurting; Jesus knows that God's original design for the world was good, that things are not supposed to be this way, that sin has wreaked havoc on our physical beings, on our inner selves, on our relationships with others, and on our relationship with Him. The Greek words for "deeply moved" and "deeply troubled" denote that Jesus was indignant and angry, agitated and disquieted in His spirit. He knows this is how things are not supposed to be, and when we are so hurt, He feels the same restlessness in His soul that we feel in great grief.
Verses 34 and 35 say, “And He said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to Him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus wept." These verses reminded me that I am not alone. The most comforting thing in this time has been the people who are with us, who call and text and visit and show us by their presence and food and flowers, that we are not alone. And when I go home at night and everyone is asleep and I have to face my sadness and loss alone, this verse reminds me that I am not truly alone. Jesus weeps with me. What I need more than answers is Himself and His presence. He sees sin and knows how it hurts us and how life was not meant to be this way, and He uses a tragedy like this and all my questions and doubts to give me what I ultimately want and need, which is Him.
After Joe died, I felt empty and alone the first few days; I honestly wondered where Jesus was. I kept reminding myself that Jesus wept. One night, He brought to mind verse 5: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was." And then I cried, because I realized that even if it seemed like He was staying away right then, He was actually near me, and knew what was going on, and had a purpose for my family's pain. Jesus stayed away from Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, because He knew that a death would allow them to know Him better. Although Joe had his struggles, he never abandoned his faith, and so I believe that Joe’s death has ultimately allowed him to know Jesus better than any of us who are still on earth. I loved Joe very much, and since Joe died, Jesus has been with me, and I have seen more of His character, and it is good. My life, Joe's life, anyone's life, is ultimately about Him, and He is our hope.
