Maybe your husband just lost his job. Maybe you just lost yours. Maybe you’re struggling with discipline problems with your children. Maybe you’ve recently lost someone you love.
Whatever the details of the circumstances that are dragging you down, you know how it feels to feel like you just might go under.
Martha of Bethany would have identified with you. In John 11, we find out that Martha’s beloved brother has died. Worse than that, Jesus—whom Martha believed loved them all—had for some inexplicable reason shown up too late to be of any help. Too late for even the funeral.
When Jesus finally arrives, Martha confronts Him about this: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” she says (v. 21). Then she goes on to plead with Him in v. 22, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” In other words, she’s saying, “You could have done something, but you didn’t. Yet even now, I know you can still do something about this if you’ll just do it!”
Have you ever felt that way? That Jesus showed up too late? That He could easily have fixed your circumstances if He had just decided to? I think we all have. That’s why we identify with Martha’s desperate words.
As far as we know, Jesus never does tell Martha why He didn’t prevent her brother from dying, just as He doesn’t always tell us why He allowed things to happen to us that grieve us. But He does tell her that her brother will rise again.
“I know he’ll rise again eventually,” she says (my paraphrase). Then Jesus goes on to reassure her that yes, Lazarus will eventually rise at the resurrection of the dead that Jesus will perform at the last day. But He offers her far more than that as comfort. Listen to His words: “I am the resurrection and the life,” he says (emphasis mine).
It’s the same answer He gives us. “Yes, you have hope in the future that things will be better,” He tells us. “But for now, in the in-between time, I am your life.” In other words, Jesus is telling us that our life consists not in the perfection of our circumstances, but in the fact that Jesus Himself is our life, and He is always available no matter what else is going on.
It’s beautiful, and a better answer than we could have ever hoped for. You see, sometimes—perhaps even often—circumstances will not be to our liking. We will be dissatisfied. Discontent. Maybe even grieved. And in those times—in the times before Jesus comes back to take us to heaven and make everything perfect—we need hope. We need to know that we have life now, that there is more to life than just struggling through disappointment or tragedy. Life can be abundant, even in the midst of tragic circumstances.
That’s because even when we’re suffering—perhaps especially when we’re suffering—we can know Jesus. We can be in intimate relationship with Him despite, or perhaps because of, whatever else is going on. He is our life, and He will see us through.
Circumstances won’t do it. They can’t. They were never meant for that job. So when circumstances are going well, we should rejoice even as we remember that Jesus is still the one carrying us through. And when they’re not—when tragedy or disillusionment has struck—we must remember that our life consists of far more than praying desperately for circumstances to be perfect.
He is our life, and knowing Him is possible even in the midst of circumstances we never wanted.
John 11:17-44—Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” (verse 25)