Scripture Daily

Context No. 2792 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 11:13-22: in context

13Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep. 14So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead. 15I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.” 16Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s also go, that we may die with him.” 17So when Jesus came, he found that he had been in the tomb four days already. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away. 19Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. 20Then when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21Therefore Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”

Jesus tells the disciples plainly, Lazarus is dead, and adds words that must have puzzled them: I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Thomas, gloomy and loyal, says, let us also go, that we may die with him. When Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been four days in the tomb, and Martha comes out to meet him with grief and faith tangled together.

Listen to what she says. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, the raw ache every mourner knows. And in the same breath, even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Her faith is not the absence of grief or of the unanswered why. It holds the disappointment and the hope at once. And Jesus' strange gladness points ahead: the delay that wounded her was making room for a deeper showing of who he is than an on-time healing ever could.

Can I bring God my honest "if you had been here" without letting go of "even now I trust you"?

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