In the Mary and Martha story of Luke 10, I have always identified more with Martha. She was the good girl, the sensible one, the one with all the right answers... I am guessing she was the older sister of the two. (I am making no judgments here on one being better than the other! Just identifying...) And when we meet up with her again in John 11:21ff, we see that not much has changed. She goes out to greet Jesus and while she begins accusing Jesus of not being there when she needed him, she immediately states her confidence in his ability to fix this.
Or at least it seems that way. "I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him," she says. Yet when Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again, all she can imagine is that Lazarus will be resurrected on the last day. Jesus presses further telling her he is the resurrection and the life. She responds confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.
And yet, in the next scene there is no sign that Martha has convinced anyone that Lazarus will be raised from the dead. In fact, when Jesus commands people to open Lazarus' tomb, Martha can't imagine anything other than a dead decaying body lying in there. She had the right words. She even knew who Jesus was. Yet even this faith could not prepare her for the overwhelming thing that was about to happen.
I often feel that way about God's promises in my life. I hear them. I believe in them. I try to trust in them. But my own sense of what is actually being promised by God is so much smaller than what God is actually promising. Even in my best moments, I fall short of understanding the depth of God's love for me, for us, and the true abundance of life that is being offered to us. Despite my faith, I often live as if God will let me down. As if all of the promises are only for the next life.
This Lenten season, may I grow in my faith not only in the resurrection, but in the life that is promised to us here and now. Life abundant in Jesus Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment