Martha’s Whopper

He was gone. Four-days dead. And no amount of begging or pleading was going to put life back into those bones.

She’d tried that already. Sent her friends to get her Jesus, the One she knew could arm wrestle death and come out with a win. But He was eerily silent, choosing to stay where he was rather than belly up to the crisis table. Strange that he delayed, uncharacteristic based on the open love he’d previously shown. Hissing whispers tempted her to question Him, or at least his loyalty. Who would refuse to come at the hour of a friend’s deepest need? Apparently Jesus would. And He did. And Martha struggled to make sense of it.

Grief and confusion are an explosive combination. It’s painful to endure a loss. It’s an exponential pain to endure a loss that could have been prevented. The injustice of unnecessary grief ignites rage like little else. The soul screams, WHY?

For centuries Martha has been getting a bad rap for her childish tattling on a sister who wouldn’t help her clean up the kitchen. And although it’s true she once sounded much like my boys arguing over who folded the most laundry or put away the most dishes, there was another moment when wisdom trumped immaturity. And at that moment, the moment of her profound grief, Martha pulled out a whopper:

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she told him, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.’” ~ John 11:25-26

Wowza. Did you see that? At a crossroads of questions, Martha was confident of her Jesus. She may have been drowning in unknowns, but she chose to hang on to what she knew for a fact. “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Without diminishing his reality or questioning his role, she stood firm in His “I AM”-ness, without understanding a lick about the rest.

That’s a whopper of a lesson for all of us.

September 27, 2009   //   Devotional, Michele   //   No Comments   //