When disappointment strikes and discouragement claims my heart, I often face the internal assault of the hard questions. Why doesn’t our all-powerful, always good and loving God stop our pain? Why doesn’t He solve our dilemmas? Why doesn’t He change our circumstances, intervene with a miracle, heal our hurts? Why? Doesn’t He care?
And He takes me back to the Lazarus death passage. I get a glimpse of Mary again.
Mary of Bethany, the woman who sat at Jesus’ feet delighting in His words, while Martha complained that Mary wasn’t helping with the meal. Mary later pours expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet as an act of worship. But in this Lazarus passage, Mary is mourning. She’s also disappointed with Jesus.
And she’s not at His feet.
Picture Mary sitting in a house of mourners after her brother Lazarus’ death. She’s stunned. Numb. Jesus didn’t come when she sent word to Him. He didn’t do what she knew He could do to heal her brother, to remedy her pain, to fix her problem. And it hurt. He chose not to come, and the fact that He chose for her to experience the pain magnified the trauma. She sits with the mourners lining the walls of her home. Empty faces, hollow stares, silent tears, choking sobs, gasping wails, aching hearts… whispered if onlies-if only Jesus had been here.
His arrival is announced. The Mary who delighted in His words during the meal preparation would’ve run to Him. For this moment, though, disappointment reigns in her heart. So she sits.
But not for long. When Martha prompts her-“Jesus is asking for you”-Mary hurries to Him. She doesn’t understand her circumstances nor does she appreciate His unwillingness to intervene, but she takes her grief to Him, the One who hurt her. And she falls at His feet and says, “Lord if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” She worships by yielding her disappointment to Him, while her brother is still in the grave.
She didn’t stay in that place of disappointment. She didn’t wallow in the grief “as those who have no hope.” She got out of her chair, ran to Jesus, and surrendered her discouragement to Him.
(John 11 and 12)
