Mary waits
Sitting with the absence of the divine
See John 11:1-44
It was a slow-moving disaster. When it began, we didn’t think anything of it. My brother, Lazarus, wasn’t feeling too well.
“He’s been working hard,” we all justified.
“It’s been pretty warm, he just needs some time out of the sun,” we said to one another.
“It’ll pass if he gets something to good to eat and a good night’s sleep.”
But it didn’t pass. It got worse. Then came the day when my normally energetic brother simply couldn’t get out of bed. Over his head, my eyes connected with our sister, Martha’s, and I saw the concern I felt written all over her face. I knew that it wasn’t going to get better on its own. My heart dropped.
That’s when we began to pray. But we did more than that – we sprung into action. We found every remedy we knew to try, we asked around about a physician to come look in on him. We applied cool compresses and brewed up nourishing broth to try to tip down his lips.
And we sent for Jesus.
Photo by Wim van 't Einde on Unsplash
To describe Jesus as our friend does not capture all he meant to us. He had spent time at our house. We’d shared our table with him and we’d grown close to him. It seemed impossible, sometimes, that he would spend his time with us – for we knew of his fame. We’d heard the things he taught. We knew the things he’d done. Rumours reached us of how he’d healed the son of a royal official, without even having to set foot into his house. We knew of the trouble that had ensued after he sought out and cured a man who had been laying on a mat, unhealed, for thirty-eight years. We learned how another who had been born blind had found sight after Jesus put mud on his eyes. We found these things out not from Jesus himself, for he didn’t spend a lot of time mentioning them. But there was word everywhere. Everyone, it seemed, knew. Jesus was the talk of town.
And because his name was on everyone’s lips, and everyone’s ears itched to hear the latest word about what Jesus might have done or said, I hoped that my home provided a bit of a refuge for Jesus. When we invited him over, it wasn’t to see the latest sign or wonder, it wasn’t for witty conversation or to hear the latest gossip – it was because we loved his company. I hoped that our friendship provided a place for him to rest. It was mutual – we cared for him, even loved him. And we knew that he loved us.
But when Lazarus didn’t get out of bed, we wanted Jesus to know. And not just to know, to come. We had never asked him for anything before, but we knew that he was our friend – more than our friend. It didn’t feel like it should be a burden for us to ask Jesus to come when the one he loved had taken sick.
So we sent word, and we waited.
As we held cool compresses to my brother’s head to calm the raging fever, my eyes looked to the door, thinking that we might hear Jesus knock any minute. But he didn’t come.
Martha and I took turns holding our brother as he shivered from his illness. We traded off trying to get him to take the broth and the water that we hoped would strengthen his body against it. When Martha was with Lazarus, I would gaze out the window, thinking that at any minute I would catch a glimpse of Jesus coming up the road. But he didn’t come.
Things got worse, and we lost track of time as we tried to keep our brother comfortable. Our fear grew as his illness refused to leave him. He grew weaker. Surely now, as he slept through an entire day, and Martha and I sat vigil, praying desperate prayers, Jesus would turn up and put his hand on Lazarus’s brow.
But he didn’t come.
We were in the room when Lazarus breathed his last. I held one hand, and Martha held the other. Our tears flowed freely, the first thing to wash his body. But still, he didn’t come.
He didn’t come as we applied ointments our brother’s body, tenderly preparing him for the grave in which we would lay him. He didn’t come when we got help from our neighbours to move his body to the cool cave. He didn’t come when the stone rolled in front of the entrance, and I heard the final crack of the stone as it rolled into place. We returned to the house and sat with people who had come from all over to mourn with us. And still he didn’t come.
I’m not sure when I stopped looking for him.
When he did turn up it was far too late. Martha came into the house and tapped me on the shoulder. She said softly, “the teacher is here and is asking for you.”1 I nearly rolled my eyes. What was he doing here now? What good was it for him to turn up after everything that had taken place, after the thing we’d fear most had now happened. Heaven help me, I even had the fleeting thought that I’d rather he’d never come at all. What could he possibly say to us, after we’d waited for him for so very long? What defense could he give? Did he truly love us? Was he really our friend? He was the first one we asked for, and the last to show his face. We knew that if he’d been there, it could have been different.
But he wasn’t there. He waited four long days before finally showing up.
I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see him. But I went out to him anyway. And I hurled the words at him with all the venom and bitterness that had built up in my heart in the days when I had looked for him, longed for him, trusted him that of course he loved us, and of course he would never let us down. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”2
Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano : https://www.pexels.com/photo/grayscale-photography-of-woman-touching-her-eyes-1161268/
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe I expected him to yell back at me. Maybe I expected contrition. Maybe I expected him to admit that he’d stayed away because there wasn’t anything he could possibly do. Maybe I even expected him to show shame. But he didn’t do any of these things. What he did, however, caused my anger to melt, and I gave him my heart once again. What happened spoke louder than any words he could possibly have said.
“Jesus wept.”3
John 11:28.
John 11:32.
John 11:35.