When someone close to us dies, they rarely fade from our lives, allowing us to grieve in manageable increments. Instead, it’s often a violent tearing, for death knows nothing of gentleness, nothing of grace, and nothing of our desperate bargaining. And like Martha we say, “Lord, if only you had been here…”
If only the Healer had been there, her brother wouldn’t have died, and she and her sister wouldn’t feel as if they were dying as well. And into their anguish Jesus speaks, “Your brother will rise again.”
A grander narrative of scripture culminated in a resurrection of the dead. Martha knew this. It lingered in the consciousness of many Jews, but Jesus was speaking of something a bit more imminent and much more revealing, as He states, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
The point is inescapable. There are depths of understanding achieved only when pain and grief are brought to bear on the human heart, for the deepest truths of Christ’s identity are never more relevant than when death is present.
Jesus explains, “The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.” The Lord applies his identity directly to Martha’s grief over the physical death of her brother, but then Jesus reveals truth deeper still. “Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die—ever.”
Just as physical death is a shadow of the greater reality of spiritual separation from the living God, Jesus’ raising of Lazarus would foreshadow a greater resurrection to a life that would span eternity.
The concept of forever-ness brings profound considerations, for when the pebble of momentary experience is dropped into the ocean of eternity, one’s perspective gains alarming clarity. Yet, despite these philosophically daunting themes, the question posed by Jesus is simply, “Do you believe this?” The act of believing is relational. For the One offering life without death could only have love as a motivation, and Martha’s act of believing moves the relationship forward.
Martha was feeling the pain of loss, and Jesus’ offer was simply more of Himself, for she no longer knew Jesus as a mere healer, but as the Son of God. She learned this as she hurt, and I wonder if she whispered Job 42:5, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.”
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