AtomJohn 11:32-44: “The Answer to Our Prayers”
When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” John 11:32
It happens from time to time…we’re in a tight ballgame at the gym or on the football field and someone says to me, “Pastor, we could use a prayer right now.” I usually smile and nod without committing myself. At the same time I have been known to whisper a little prayer for a made extra point or an ace serve. But that prayer doesn’t always get answered. And I have a hunch why. How can God decide such things when the players and fans on the other side were probably also praying? With all the other things that God has to watch over…is winning a volleyball or football game as high on God’s agenda as it is on ours? So…as disappointed as the team was and we all were…nobody probably headed home last night after the football game wondering if God really cared because a prayer at the end of the game was not answered as we had hoped.
There are times, however, when we take our prayers to God and when they are not answered as we pray them, we wonder if God really hears or really cares. Just ask Mary in today’s reading from John’s gospel.
Lord knows she had been praying. Ever since Lazarus got sick she had been praying. Night and day – by his bedside while she cooled his feverish brow and as she lay sleepless in the night on the mat beside his bed. But he just kept getting worse. Her best prayer, she knew, was to send for Jesus, but when she had, he hadn’t come. And for the life of her she couldn’t understand why. Jesus, the teacher, was their friend. He had been at their house, and Lazarus had been so taken by his kindness and by his manner of speaking about God. They all had. And Jesus had returned their affection. They had seen him heal others…and begun to believe that he was the One sent from God. So, why hadn’t he come when they sent for him?! Mary felt the tears well up again in her eyes. It seemed like all she had done was cry these four days since death had brought her world crashing down. Why had God not answered her prayers? Why had Jesus not come? Didn’t he care? Her shoulders hunched as she again began to sob into her hands.
Many of us have been there, have we not? Been there as we’ve watched a loved one struggle with death and finally give in to its relentless pull? Been there where we’ve prayed and prayed and still seen them slip away from us. We’ve known those times when our hearts are filled not only with grief, but also with a bit of anger, and…with the fear that perhaps Jesus does not care or cannot really help us. “Where were you, Jesus? Why didn’t you come?”
As I looked over the list of names before us this morning, I could imagine many of those waiting-room scenes as we saw loved ones slip away. The surgery had gone well. We were encouraged. But then the heart couldn’t keep up and organs began to fail. We prayed. The doctors and nurses and technicians did all that they knew how…but our prayers were not answered. The cancer was in remission. The chemo and the prayers had had their effect. But then it was back. And we prayed again. For healing and for longer life…but, our prayers were not answered. Not the way we had hoped…and we found ourselves asking, “Why? Why didn’t God answer? Why didn’t Jesus come?”
Suddenly Mary was aware that there was someone else in the room. It was Martha. She had gone out to meet Jesus when a neighbor came to tell them he had arrived at the edge of the village. Mary had not been able to bring herself to go. He heart was too heavy with sadness and disappointment. She was even afraid of what she might say…perhaps her anger would come out and she would say something she had wished she hadn’t. “He wants you to come,” Martha said quietly. “Why? What’s the use?” Gently, oh, so gently Martha took her elbow and lifted her to her feet. She looked Mary directly in the eye and said, “Come with me…we need to go to him.” Martha’s eyes were clear and dry. Dry didn’t really surprise Mary. She had only caught her crying once since Lazarus’ death and Martha had quickly dried her eyes and went back to fixing supper. Martha was always so strong about these things. But Mary had seen her disappointment in Jesus, too. “Come,” Martha said again, and Mary sensed something new in her eyes and in her voice. Martha had already been to see Jesus. What had he said to her? She pulled her shawl over her head and they slipped quickly out the back of the house—away from the mourners who were still gathered at her door—and down the dusty streets of Bethany to find him.
Her eyes were still misty from her tears when she reached the place at the edge of town, but Mary saw him immediately, seated by the roadside, talking quietly with those who followed him. She slowed her pace, struggling to compose herself. Martha released her elbow and Mary fell to her knees a few feet from Jesus, overcome with her grief, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Upon seeing them approach, Jesus had risen from his place. Now he moved to her. She knelt motionless, head bowed, fighting the impulse to throw her harms around him. Half of her wanted to throw herself into his arms and be comforted. The other half wanted to beat her fists upon his chest and cry out, “Where were you? Where were you when Lazarus needed you? Where were you when I needed you?” Instead, as she saw his feet draw near and stop before her, she said softly and as evenly as she could, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
And then his hand lightly touched her shoulder and he lifted her chin to look into his eyes – those clear and confident eyes, so full of caring, and now also so full of tears that they ran down his cheeks into his beard. Jesus took her hand in his and then, clearing his throat, said in a voice husky with emotion, “Where have you laid him?” And Martha took his other hand and said, “Come and see.”
When they drew near the tomb, Jesus released their hands, and walked directly up to the great stone blocking the entrance to the cave. He placed his hand on it, sighed deeply and then turned to those who were with him. “Take it away,” he said. Mary heard her sister say, “Lord, he’s been dead for four days. The smell…it will be overpowering.”
But they moved the stone and Jesus looked up toward the heavens and prayed – aloud so that they all could hear. And then, in a voice sure to wake the dead, he called into the tomb, “Lazarus, come out.” And…Lazarus came out. The crowd that had gathered gasped. Mary felt her knees go rubbery. If it had not been for Martha’s arm around her waist she would have fallen. Lazarus was alive! He was whole and healthy! And there was no smell of the grave about him, save the smell of the spices with which they had buried him. How could it be? But it was. She looked to Jesus and he was looking at her – looking through her as into her soul. And she heard Martha whispering next to her: “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this? He told me, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”” But now it was as if Jesus were talking to her heart. “I am the resurrection and the life, Mary. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord. I do, Lord. Most certainly I do.”
Today we gather to remember loved ones for whom there was no miraculous healing when we lay their body in the ground, nor four days later, nor the week after that. No miracle save the miracle of faith – the same miracle that began in Mary’s heart the day she met Jesus on the road, the miracle that Jesus intended for all who were there to witness Lazarus’ return to life. Lazarus would again one day return to the tomb and it would one day again contain his body – but now they would know that it could not contain his life. His death, their deaths would not be forever. Jesus – the very Son of God – had come, the One who is “the resurrection and the life.” Their prayers were indeed answered, but in a way they could never have imagined.
It this same Jesus, friends, who meets us here again in this place, who says to us as he said to Mary and Martha: “I am the one sent from God. I am the one who knows the pain you feel when you and those you love struggle with the power of death in your lives.
“I am the one who knows even the hopelessness you feel when you think that God has forsaken you – that God has not heard your prayers. I know…because I have lived your life. And I have died your death. I, the one who called into Lazarus’ tomb am the One who inhabited my own tomb two weeks later. Death’s tomb…your tomb…I know.
“And I want you to know this…
“Death did not hold me and death will not hold you or those you love. I promise. In the times to come between now and then I will come. Sickness and death will visit you, but you will not face it alone. I promise. For I am the answer to your prayers. I may not answer and give you a state football championship, but I will answer your prayers for life. I will give you the one gift that only I can give, the healing and the life that cannot be taken away…ever! Dear one, I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?” Lord, let it be so.
May we continue to answer, “Yes, Lord. We believe.” Let’s pray…
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