Finding Jesus (a Lenten series): When There is No Hope

John 11:1-45

There is a Christian cartoon series called Veggie Tales. I know my girls are way past the “veggie tales” stage of life, but to tell you the truth, I am actually going back to my sophomore year of college when Veggie Tales was brand new. Their very first video was called, “Where is God when I am scared?” It was about a little asparagus boy, who is frightened by a scary movie he watches, and wants to know where God is when he is scared. So begins what is fairly well done and quite adorable vegetable oriented show.

Although scripture labels this passage, the “Raising of Lazarus,” or “Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead,” I think it is more aptly called, “Where is God when I am sad?” Or perhaps, “Where is God when I am hurting?” Jesus is not there when the sisters need him most. He tarries and delays, explaining that, “This will not end in death.” Jesus equivocates just a little bit here. Although this story does not end with death, Lazarus for sure dies. He dies and is dead for four whole days. There is no coming back from that.

Lazarus is dead and Jesus is nowhere to be found. Where is Jesus when they need him? A two days journey away, making plans to journey in the opposite direction. Choosing to go someplace he is not even wanted, where they are threatening to kill, him instead of going to be with his dear friends in their time of need. These women lose their brother and Jesus is wanting to traveling anywhere but to go see them. Where is Jesus when they are sad? Not there, not with them. These two women NEED Jesus, they want to encounter Jesus, but it seems that Jesus is refusing to be there.

By the time Jesus’ journeying brings him to Bethany, there is no hope. People at this time believed that the “soul” lingered around the body for three days. During these three days it was possible they might be revived. For three days, there is hope, even if it is just a faint one. But after four days, nothing could be done. After four days the person was really and truly and forever gone. These women have come to the place where there is no longer any hope and Jesus is nowhere to be found. Where is he? How can they find him now? What is even point of finding him? There is no hope. All is lost.

The women are in the depths of despair. There is nothing to be done. All hope is lost and Jesus is still not there. Four days and he is finally within reach, they hear that he is coming this way. He is approaching town. Martha, and then later Mary run out to him while he is still outside of town. “Where have you been?” “We needed you!” “If you would have been hear this would not have happened.” “You could have stopped this from happening!”

Their pleas are honest and raw. They are real things that real people say. They are not worried about saying the “right thing” to Jesus. They are not holding back at all. This is not some white washed children's Sunday school story, where all the bad, scary and sad parts are left out. These women come out to see Jesus and lay the hurt, the pain and the betrayal, all the ways they really feel at his feet.

We are these women. We understand their cries. We understand their hurt. We know the place from which their pain, hurt and grief come. How many times have we thought these very words, even when we dared not say them out loud? How many times have we at the very least wanted cry out to God with these very words, even when did not have the courage to do so? “Where were you, God?” “Where are you?” “If you would have been here . . .!” “You could have stopped this from happening!” “Out of the depths I cry to you, Oh Lord!” “My God, My God why have your forsaken me?” Ok, that was not Mary or Martha, that was the Psalmist, but my point is the same. When we feel this way, when we have these questions, when these are the cries of our hearts, we are in good company. Mary and Martha, these women whom, the scripture tell us, Jesus loved, and David, the man declared to be “a man after God’s own heart,” they feel this way. So I think that perhaps it is ok to feel this way. It is ok to question God this way. Their cries, our cries, are not unreasonable.

Jesus was not there when they wanted him. He did not do, or act in the way they thought he could. They felt alone, abandoned by their Savior. He was simply not there for them and something terrible happened, something terrible he had the power to stop. Jesus could have done something; it could have not come to this!

So many things God could have stopped from happening, so many hurts in our lives, so much pain in the lives of those around us, so much injustice in the world. But it happens. God does not stop it. And we live with the consequences, the pain, the sorrow, the grief.

But the story does not end there. Mary and Martha are not left alone where they are. Each woman comes to Jesus in their hurt and their grief and says almost the same thing. We are these women. We know their pain. We know their hurt. They give voice to our thoughts and our feelings.

When Martha speaks, she does not stop. She continues, even though she feels hurt and abandoned by her Lord. She still reaches into herself and continues to express faith in his actions and his abilities, saying, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” She might not know what Jesus is going to ask of God, she might not even dare hope that there is anything to be done, but she still trusts him. This is the hard place to get to. Even when we feel alone, even when we feel abandoned by our Savior and our God, even when we are in the deepest darkest place of grief and sorrow, hurt and pain, to seek and find God. Even as we give voice to the way we feel, to still trust, to still have the tiny shred of faith that says, “I know that God can still act.” “I know that something can still be done.”

Because of her faith, because of her trust, Jesus is able to build on that faith. He talks to her not only about the miracle he is about to perform, but also the truth of the resurrection that is to come. He gives hint to his own, but also gives voice to the resurrection that can be found in him. He gives hope for a life that is to come, a life that one day will be. He reminds her that death will not have the final word, that death will not hold victory; not over him, not over her, not over anyone who find life in him. In fact, we include these words, which Jesus speaks to Martha, in our funeral service, “I am the resurrection and the Life, those who believe in me, even though they die will live.” There is a new kind of hope, which is above and beyond the hope of a healing, a miracle, or being raised, in the here and now, from the dead, only to die again. There is a deeper, more profound hope. And because of Martha’s tiny seed of faith, she is given more, to add to that which she already has.

But we all are not Martha; many times we find that we simply cannot be Martha. We find ourselves to be more like Mary, hurt, torn and overcome with our grief. We turn our hurt filled eyes upon Jesus and cannot find it within us to even dare to trust. There is no hope to be found. We simply are unable to join Martha in her declaration of faith. We cannot see how Jesus can make this better. What can God do now? Our hurt and our grief are real. There are times when we are Mary, raw, hurting, and crying out to God, from a dark place in our lives. Jesus finds Mary in this place of hurt and sorrow.

Scripture says Jesus saw Mary and those who were with her weeping. And what happens next is important. Mary cries out to Jesus in her hurt and pain and then Jesus sees that she is weeping. Jesus does not chastise Mary for not being like her sister. She is not told to hope, or have faith. Jesus sees her grief, her sorrow, the pain which has brought her to his feet. She sits there weeping, those who are with her are likewise distraught, caught up in the pain and sorrow that comes with such deep tragedies as death. Jesus sees her there and hears her cry of pain and he begins to cry with her. Where is Jesus in her grief? Where is Jesus in her pain, in her sorrow? He is right there with her. He is greatly disturbed and deeply moved. She is crying, everyone there is crying and Jesus joins them in their sorrow and their grief.

What he is about to do does not negate their grief. The hope in the resurrection to come does not nullify the pain they now feel. Jesus does not seek to find the right words that will wash away their pain. He does not find a tried and true platitude with which he can erase the sorrow they now know. He joins them. He knows them in their grief. He is there with them. He also loved Lazarus. His friend is dead. His dear sisters are in pain. Jesus feels all this, he knows all this. He is not immune to the pain and sorrow all around. He is not untouched. He grieves too. He hurts with them. This I not a moment for moral platitudes or words to make things better, the only thing to be done, is to stop, to join them, and to grieve alongside them.

Where can you find Jesus when you are sad? In depths of your deepest sorrow, in the middle of your darkest valley, right there beside you, hurting along with you. Grieving. In pain. Crying.

By the time we even get to Lazarus, we have gone 40 verses with Jesus, with Mary and Martha. By the time Jesus says, “Lazarus come out,” we have already seen Jesus in all his humanity. We have seen Jesus at his most theological. Jesus has already given us hope in the resurrection to come and has demonstrated the only truly loving response when met with the grief we find in this world, is to join with the grieving. But Lazarus gets the top billing. The story is called “Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. This is story does end with Lazarus being raised from the dead.

Before this long chapter closes, Jesus demonstrates his power, over even death. Jesus calls to Lazarus beyond the one-way-veil and does the impossible, brings Lazarus back to the land of the living, when such a thing is beyond all hope. In an act of utter compassion, in response to the grief and pain exhibited by these sisters and in what is, quite possibly, the culminating sign of his divinity, Jesus brings Lazarus back from the dead. And we leave with the image of his sisters and his loved ones unbinding him, in what we can only assume is unimaginable joy.

The miracle at the end of this chapter might get top billing  but this passage is not ultimately about him, it is about these two women; two women hurting women. Jesus meets them where they are in their place of loss and despair. When they find Jesus they are beyond hope. There is nothing left to call out for Jesus to do. And Jesus meets them there. Jesus joins them there.

In this passage we not only see the ultimate sign of Jesus' true divinity, but we also see Jesus in all his humanity, standing next to these two women who are his friends, whom he loves very much, outside of the tomb of their brother Lazarus who is so very dear not only to them but also to him. We see him there with them weeping.

“Jesus wept,” it is one of those verses we memorize, as a child in Sunday School, but it is also an important verse in scripture, a verse that reminds us, throughout our lives, that when we find ourselves, like these women, hurting beyond all hurt, that no matter what it seems, no matter how we feel, when we begin to ask ourselves, “where is Jesus now,” we can know that Jesus is right there with us in our sorrow. Jesus is right there with us in our grief. Where is Jesus when I am sad? He is outside the tomb of our lost hope, weeping with us.