“Totally unexpected”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Friday, November 1, 2024

John 11: 32-44 (Forward, p. 3) CEV p. 1116

Today’s story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead has all the marks of high drama. First, you have the expectations of the two sisters, and indeed, of the crowd itself:

-there was the blaming (like ‘why didn’t you come sooner?) and the

expectation that Jesus could have prevented Lazarus from dying if

only He’d arrived sooner--the famous ‘if only’s’.

-and the belief in the resurrection on the last day, a kind of ‘yes, but

not yet’

Aren’t these two responses so common and pervasive, and don’t they rather ‘get in the way’ at times, ‘if only’ and ‘yes, but not yet’? Blaming and a lack of now, a lack of immediacy, both get in the way of trusting Jesus in the here and now.

Then there is the widespread and deep sorrow, and not just on the part of the sisters and the crowd, but also on the part of Jesus. He too was moved by sorrow and grief, and not just a reflection of their grief, but of His own as well. I think that He was genuinely struck by sorrow over the loss of His friend. Yes, even though He knew what was to unfold momentarily.

Then there was the reality of the tomb and burial. Generally, it was understood that the spirit of the deceased person ‘hung around’ for several days after death, three days to be exact, but then was gone for good. Four days was out of the question. Furthermore, in the hot climate of Palestine by four days putrefaction and decay would have set in, hence Martha’s warning words, ‘Lord, there will be a bad smell, a stench”. But there was one other thing: the rabbis commonly taught that raising someone from death after four days was possible—but only for the Messiah. In fact, they claimed that this was one of the infallible signs that identified the Messiah.

Given that and given Jesus’ own conviction that He was the Messiah, His prayer to His Father, and the words spoken to the dead man, only make sense. He was doing something that no one really ‘expected’, something that was humanly impossible, but demonstrated convincingly who He was. Surely, this should convince all of us, and yet, even so, we are often slow to believe and slow to come to Him in prayer. Somehow, in spite of all He had done, this is quite unexpected.

Forward notes: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (verse 32b).

“How easy it can be to blame someone for tragedy. Mary does it with Jesus. I sometimes do it with my wife, siblings, or parents; sometimes, I even do it with God. Something doesn’t go as I wish, and I lash out in anger and blame.

“In this story, we see the good news that in Jesus, even what we assume to be tragedy can be the beginning of a miracle. Mary assumes Lazarus’s death is the end—and assumes that after death, God has no power to act or intervene. But Jesus is stronger than our imaginings and cannot be stopped even by the power of the grave.

“What end are you grieving prematurely? Might there be a way to invite God into it and witness a miracle?”

MOVING FORWARD: “See signs of God moving all around you—even in places you assumed you were alone.”