Pastor’s Corner

 

Greetings in the Name of Our Lord Jesus,

 

At Bethany, the pale faced anxious women, sisters actually, kept stealing out of the house to look, again and yet again, looking along the road in which He would come. “He must have received word and heard our message by this time! It cannot be much longer! He must be here any moment now.” And still, He did not come.

 

Christ knew where they were, the location of their home for He was there not long ago. Lazarus, certainly Mary sat at His feet and listen to His teaching and His instruction while Martha was busily preparing for her guest in their home. On that day a most important lesson was learned by them, if only they could remember it; to wait patiently upon the Lord and the life giving words He offered to all who would accept them.

 

The loving hearts Jesus loved were tortured by that futile waiting, and the flickering life of their brother sank lower, and even lower, till it went out. Christ did not come.

 

A.J. Gossip in “The Hero in Thy Soul” writes;

 

The function of religious people, so this tired man heard God saying to his heart in dark and trying days when there was not much to encourage, what is it?  What do I set them in the world to do?  What is it that I ask of them? 

 

Is it not largely this, to keep cool and un-fidgety when other folks are growing flustered about things: to look out upon this confusing life with steady eyes, when those around them, badly scared, have taken to glancing back across their shoulders, and there is that ominous feeling of panic in the air: to trust Me, not only when that is easy and the sun is shining, but when there is most need for faith, yes, and some valor in the offer of it? 

 

Suppose the times are disappointing and disquieting, that I seem to have forgotten, up here not to care: that in spite of all your efforts nothing, so you judge, is happening. 

 

Still, don’t get nervy and irritable, fussy and on edge.  Don’t toss your dream impatiently away, as something that evidently can never come to pass in this dusty work day world of drab realities.  Still hold onto it, work for it, believe in it, and expect it.  If the vision tarries, wait for it: grant Me some loyalty, and some tenacity of purpose, and some common courage.  Give me that - long enough - and we win.

 

F.W. Faber puts it in this manner:

 

We must wait for God, long, meekly, in the wind and wet, in the thunder and lightning, in the cold and in the dark.  Wait and He will come.  He never comes to those that do not wait.  He does not go their road.  When He comes, go with Him: but go slowly, fall a little behind: when He quickens His pace, be sure of it, before you quicken yours.  But when He slackens, slacken at once, and do not be slow only, but silent, very silent, for He is God.

 

In their lamentations, along with the others who came to console them, Martha and Mary waited and watched with expectation for Christ’ arrival.

 

Read now the scripture as taken from John 11:1-45;

 

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 

 

So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 

 

Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. Then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

 

“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.”

 

After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

 

So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

 

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 

 

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

 

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

 

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

 

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 

 

Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

 

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

 

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept.

 

Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

 

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

 

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

 

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” 

 

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

 

So Lazarus came forth. It is a great story, greatly told! Though for us too it will be… if we see it above everything else, a symbol and proof of the spiritual powers that Christ can use on our behalf.

 

Over us too there has rung out that voice of authority saying

“Come Forth”.

 

And some of us have started up to a newness of life and being. But others of us, hearing, have only stirred a little, and dropped off into the sleep of death again; choosing corruption and the cramped darkness of the tomb to the interest, the color and the fullness of life that Christ Jesus offers them.

 

That which the sisters had hoped for, that miracle they believed Jesus could perform was made complete in His presence.

 

You know it does not matter where you are in your life right now, you may be feeling as if you are enclosed within a tomb, cut off from those whom you love. Isolated from reaching out and seeking help for the illness that debilitates you. Perhaps and often times, you feel as if your reaching out has been into thin air and that no one would or could raise you up.

 

As Martha told Mary “The Teacher is here, and is calling for you” so I say to you this very day “The Teacher is here, and is calling for You”.

 

Indeed, Christ Jesus calls unto you to “Come Forth”. Receive the Grace of God as only He can give. Raising all people who would come to Him in Life Everlasting.

 

 

Amen and Amen

 

His Servant,

Pastor Kevin