I ask your prayers for three Sonshine friends who are coping with illness and grief.
Fr. Erick in hospital recovering from surgery struggling with heart problems, Ted surgery for cancer and Denny (Mr Milk) son Chris in heaven.
Jesus never promised us to rescue, be exempt from disease or heart problems, immunity from cancer, or escape from death.
John, the evangelist, tells us the story about Lazarus. Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, sent word to Jesus that "the man you love is ill" with the implied request that Jesus should come and heal him. But Jesus' reaction is curious. He doesn't rush off immediately to try and heal his close friend. Instead, he remains where he is for two days longer while his friend dies. Then, after Lazarus has died, he sets off to visit him. As he approaches the village where Lazarus has died, he is met by Martha and then, later, by Mary. Each, in turn, asks him the question: “Why?” Why, since you loved this man, did you not come to save him from death? Indeed, Mary's question implies even more: “Why?” Why is it that God invariably seems absent when bad things happen to good people? Why doesn't God rescue his loved ones and save them from pain and death?
Jesus doesn't offer any apology in response. Instead, he asks where they have laid the body, lets them take him there, sees the burial site, weeps in sorrow, and then raises his dead friend back to life. So why did he let him die in the first place? Why didn't Jesus rush down to save Lazarus since he loved him?
The answer to that question teaches a very important lesson about Jesus, God, and faith, namely, that God is not one who ordinarily rescues us, but is rather a God who redeems us. God doesn't ordinarily intervene to save us from humiliation, pain, and death; rather he redeems humiliation, pain, and death after the fact.
Simply put, Jesus treats Lazarus exactly the same way as God, the Father, treats Jesus: Jesus is deeply and intimately loved by his Father and yet his Father doesn't rescue him from humiliation, pain, and death. When jesus is humiliated, suffering, and dying on the cross, he is jeered by the crowd with the challenge: “if God is your father, let him rescue you!” But there's no rescue. Instead, Jesus dies inside the humiliation and pain. God raises him up only after his death.
This is one of the key revelations inside the resurrection: we have a redeeming, not a rescuing, God.
Indeed, the story of the raising of Lazarus in John’s Gospel was meant to answer a burning question inside the first generation of Christians: they had known Jesus in the flesh, had been intimate friends with him, had seen him heal people and raise people from the dead, so why was he letting them die? Why wasn't Jesus rescuing them?
It took the early Christians some time to grasp that Jesus doesn't ordinarily give special exemptions to his friends, no more than God gave special exemptions to Jesus. So, like us, they struggled with the fact that someone can have a deep, genuine faith, be deeply loved by God, and still have to suffer humiliation, pain, and death like everyone else. God didn't spare Jesus from suffering and death, and Jesus doesn't spare us from them.
We pray for our moms who stood by our side during times of suffering, who gave us medicine or stayed up all night when we were sick, who prayed for us when our friends had died of a drug overdose or suicide.
This is one key revelation perhaps most misunderstand. We are forever predicating our faith on, and preaching a rescuing God, a God who promises special exemptions who have faith in Jesus, and you will be spared from life's humiliations and pains! Have a genuine faith in Jesus, and prosperity will come your way! Believe in the resurrection, and rainbows will surround your life!
Would it were so! But Jesus never promised us rescue, exemptions, immunity from cancer, or escape from death. He promised rather that, in the end, there will be redemption, vindication, immunity from suffering, and eternal life. That sounds like our mothers who taught us perservance, patience and forgiveness.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends and all nurturing women who we pray for on their special day. During this Easter Season, keep this in mind that the death and resurrection of Jesus reveals a redeeming, not a rescuing, God.
