Perhaps, like me and others, you are in hot of pursuit of #balance: approaching it on tenterhooks and on tippy toes. It seems elusive and sometimes a single event, conversation, programme, book, etc. is the catalyst for understanding that all is not well and that our lives are out of kilter.
Crossroads, forks in the road, stop signs, glaring lights; whatever it may be, it sure has a way of telling us to alter our course. Something that seemed so simple has been thrown off-centre and one finds oneself still trying to pick up the pieces.
Calamity knocked
In just such a way, calamity knocked on Chloe’s door one day while she was attending a ground-breaking conference on journalistic practice in an AI-fuelled world. In rapt attention and completely engrossed, she failed to hear her phone pinging. Yet, hours later, she found herself zipping along through the countryside, the speed of the train mirroring her own frenetic thoughts. Confused, she either lost her train of thought or got derailed completely: nothing made sense.
Glancing at her watch, she found scant comfort in the fact that she was at least on track to get to Carlos on time. Her questioning nature starting to kick in after the initial shock had worn off. Pastoral scenes dotted with the odd homestead along the way had helped to restore some semblance of calm. Why had her athletic son just collapsed? Her only child whose father she had lost years ago through inexplicable circumstances that vexed her still. All her journalistic instinct and skill had failed to bring closure and now this …
The apple of her eye, Carlos, did not seem to want to settle on any career and seemed care-free, too much so for her liking. She had known what she wanted to be in life from a young age – from the day she had clapped her eyes on reporters on television. Something deep inside her had resonated with the work of the journalists in pursuit of truth. Not one to leave a stone unturned on anything, she became determined to get qualified and work towards being the best.
As she settled back in her seat on the train, the now rhythmic, lulling motion started to soothe frazzled nerves. She had to keep calm or she would become a train wreck of a Mom when what was required was level-headedness, something she was known for as a journalist. She was not one to become easily flustered. Unflinching and quiet grit defined her character.
Sipping the steaming coffee while relishing the taste of her favourite comfort food, a pastel de nata, she pondered afresh the happenings of the last few weeks. Carlos had had zero complaints; he maintained his busy schedule and ate well. There was no reason for him to just collapse. The attending physician had mentioned monitoring and mild consequences, but the shock had enveloped her heart and thrown her mind into a quandary. Her concerned elderly parents had been unable to shed any more light on his condition either, only telling her that tests were being carried out and that the young man had been found unresponsive.
Overlooking favourite place
Train
Visiting amazing city
Trained for action
Curled up on the train, something familiar and sinister seemed to grip her heart. It felt eerily similar to the time when her charismatic, driven husband died. His cause of death had always bothered her – like Carlos, he had been healthy and yet one day, out of the blue had collapsed and had simply never woken up again. Could this nightmare be repeating itself?
In the immediate aftermath, when her world had been thrown so utterly into turmoil; shock had clouded her mind. On autopilot, she was released from work for a few months to get her life back on track. Once she had reclaimed her acuity of mind, too long grief-addled and dulled, she was driven to undertake personal research. Worryingly, it seemed as though her late husband had inadvertently taken a potentially lethal medication in the days running up to his death.
To her mind, answers provided at the time lacked substance and it seemed as though there was an inordinate haste to get things signed off and moved along. Additionally, the dearth of information afterwards fuelled her gut feeling that there had been a cover-up of medical malpractice and she suspected that a bogus cause of death had been recorded, but she had never been able to prove otherwise.
Not long after her husband had died that specific medication had been taken off the market while concomitant research had all but been scuttled. However, staying under the radar was starting to pay off. After years of research, a scary picture was starting to emerge, one that she was unwilling to confront yet. In a concerted effort not to go off the rails, she constantly reminded herself not to jump the gun and reach wrong conclusions due to the fact that she was so emotionally invested.
The vast sums of money trading hands led to consternation. To her untrained mind, the science was also not sciencing as they say. For years, she had abandoned the thought that she would ever get to the bottom of it, had believed that the train had left the station for good, but research was pointing somewhere … and some very prominent people were involved.
Back to Carlos, her mother had mentioned that someone had given him some medication hours before he collapsed. They were struggling to find out who had administered it and what he had been injected with. She refused to allow history to repeat itself – she curled up even further as angst became pernicious. Her parents’ updates on the way had been comforting, but she had not received any news for some time. Her heart was racing, palms sweating and all kinds of bad thoughts rushed through her mind, already chockful of worry and concern.
Face to face with the past
An hour later, she sanitised her hands and walked into her son’s hospital room. He looked okay but was hooked up to pipes and she put her bag down behind the door. As she quietly turned, she saw an unexpected figure entering the room; one she vaguely remembered from the past and everything inside of her seemed to motion her to be still. In fact, she had no choice; her body went rigid, cold, and numb. As he turned to pick up something on the floor, she came face to face with a man she recognised from a dreadful moment in her past; the man who had administered the medication to her husband.
His eyes widened in shock. Chloe’s mind, unnaturally calm, kicked into gear. Heightened and on high alert, she motioned for him to talk to her outside the room. Beating a hasty retreat, he dropped something. Continuing to shoo him out, with his back towards her, she surreptitiously picked it up with her gloved hands in lightning-quick speed for safekeeping and joined him outside.
Not wanting to make a scene, she asked him what he was doing in her son’s room. He mumbled something and, in a flash, was gone. Guarding her bag containing the syringe she had retrieved from the floor earlier, she waited for her son to wake up on his own. Her mind was racing – more questions rushed in and the jumbled words that tumbled out of her mouth in response to a question from a nurse did not do her justice as an esteemed journalist. What was going on here? The future of her son, their present predicament and the past had all collided in one fell swoop.
This was literally life or death and she felt that she had to confront it all. What more did she stand to lose? Just then, Carlos woke up and gave her a feeble smile. In that moment, she knew two things instinctively; one, that he was going to be alright, that she got her son back from the dead almost and two, that her gut was right about something being off and that she would die in her quest for the truth.
On track for redemption
The name Chloe means blooming and as she sat understanding dawned of the evidence that she had found, she bloomed in the confidence of knowing that she was a stone’s throw away from a breakthrough in her quest for answers. The doctor’s sheepish demeanour, the excuses he made, the hasty retreat … She was confident that there would be a resurrection of sorts: her son would not die of this and answers about the untimely death of the man she loved were surely on the way.
She felt like she was having a second chance – a resurrection of sorts. Hope returned and what had seemed like a Sisyphean task not too long ago now seemed possible and doable. Perhaps she was on track for #redemption: all the wrongdoing of yesteryear was about to be exposed. At long last, she could look forward to a day when the truth would be uncovered and the agony of not knowing would end.
Shoo, what a ride. Now for a biblical perspective on life, and well, death. It is Easter after all, and it is the exact issue we grapple with this time of the year. We head to John 11 in the Bible, to the time when Lazarus was resurrected from the dead. If you are unfamiliar, let us dig straight in.
First things first, Lazarus was the brother of two sisters called Mary and Martha. We are first introduced to the former who is noted as being the woman who had sat at Jesus’ feet weeping while pouring perfume on them and using her hair to wipe them dry. Exorbitantly expensive perfume I might add. There has been contention over some aspects of this but won’t discuss it as part of today’s podcast.
According to the account in Luke 10:38-42, Martha was the hard-working, organised one even asking Jesus to tell her sister to help her with preparations because, once again, Mary was to be found at Jesus’ feet. I am sure Martha felt justified in her request, but Jesus chided her and told her that Mary had chosen what was better. Hold on, wasn’t she serving others as Jesus had often told them to and wasn’t being a servant the thing to do? Yet Jesus just mentioned what was better. Both are good, but Mary’s choice in that moment was simply better.
Lazarus is ill
We take up the story where Lazarus was ill and the sisters had sent word about it to Jesus. His immediate response was that it wouldn’t end in death but that said; he did not hasten to his friend’s bedside. Let us read verses 4-7 together:
4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
John 11:4-7 (New International Version)
He was a scant three kilometres away, not far even by the standard of that time and Jesus’ delay seems weird. On the way, Jesus also clearly revealed to the disciples that Lazarus had died. Now let’s follow the story from verse 17:
17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
I wonder why Mary stayed home instead of going to meet Jesus with her sister. What is clear though is that Martha loved Jesus, but listen to the first words she utters upon seeing the Lord:
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Did she still believe that Jesus could raise her brother from the dead despite him being embalmed and in a tomb for four days? For all intents and purposes, it would appear that any prospect of a miracle had surely evaporated – that the ship had sailed so to speak. The text seems to infer it. How great was her faith in Jesus to even mention that her brother would have been spared death had Jesus been around. What about him convinced her that this would have been the case? Was he so vitally alive, so pulsating with life? How intriguing? If in her situation, would you have accepted that any hope for your loved one was over? But listen to what Jesus has to say in verse 23:
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha boldly responds in verse 24, 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
I AM the resurrection
Then follows what is regarded as one of the I AM statements in verse 25 and 26. Thereafter Martha’s response to his question in the affirmative in verse 27. Let us read:
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
John 11:26-27
She basically affirms that he is the Saviour. What faith she had. The story proceeds as Jesus continued to the tomb where Lazarus was laid. Verses 30-31 are as follows:
30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
Mary meets with Jesus in verse 32; once again, falling at his feet, she essentially has the same sentiment as her sister:
32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
On what did they base this confidence? Was it on the fact that Jesus said that his illness would not end in death or did they understand that miracles emanated from his physical body? Furthermore, what followed remains highly unexpected to me at least. For a man, God, who knew that Lazarus had died and knew what He was about to do, the next verses appear quite startling:
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept.
Once again, Mary is weeping. Verse 35 is known to be the shortest sentence in the Bible, but how profound. A God who weeps at the plight of mere mortals; who identifies with our pain. People even remarked that Jesus had loved Lazarus. In fact, the sisters had asked Jesus to heal the one he loved. Jesus’ love was never in doubt here. We continue from verse 36-37:
36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
A valid question to be sure and one that most reading the text would be expected to ask. Situations much less grave cause us to raise this very concern. Could Jesus not have done this, that or the other? The climax, however, is evident in the next few verses:
The stone rolled away
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days.” 40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
john 11:38-44
What a miracle to meditate on this Easter. Just like with Jesus, the stone had to be rolled away and the grave clothes taken off. Why, because they were alive. The God who is the way, the truth and the life had clearly shown that he has power over death. A few Bible scholars had also pointed out that had he not mentioned Lazarus by name, a whole bunch of other bones may have rustled that day.
Jesus did it not only for God’s glory and for Lazarus sake, but also for the benefit of those standing there that they should believe that God had sent him. Do you think they did? Would you have believed? But back to today, do you believe that God had sent Jesus? What if your loved one was brought back to life? What do you think people who saw Lazarus said to him? What did he say to Jesus? I sure wish he had written a book about what it felt like to be dead and then what he felt like to be restored to life. Did he smell himself and think a good dip was necessary? Was he hungry? Can you imagine being dead for four days? Did he wonder about when he would die next time for real?
Was this a precursor that only Jesus could understand? When the Rock of Ages, asked for the stone to be moved, did he think of the day, one Easter morning very soon, when the stone would be rolled away and he would walk out of a tomb? Jesus showed us his dominion over death through this event too. Just like Lazarus he, too, would die and be resurrected days later. What was the Messiah thinking?
That night in the Garden of Gethsemane, he sweat blood and asked God that if it were possible, that God would take the cup away from him. The God of the universe understood that he would suffer greatly at the hands of sinners. Unimaginable pain would be unjustly and unfairly inflicted on him, the God and man who had not sinned even once would take on all of our sin.
How does that make you feel? Are you numb to what he did? Yet, I wonder what Jesus thought in those moments when Lazarus walked out of that tomb? This Easter, as we consider all that had come to pass in the hours leading to his death on a cross and the #resurrection to follow, the miracle of Lazarus being raised to life would surely have ignited hope in his disciples as they hashed over all that Jesus had said.
Perhaps, something in your life could do with a resurrection? A situation that seems as dead as a doornail to you. Only a handful of incidents in the #Bible is recorded where someone is resurrected to life. I think though, that the Saviour overcoming sin once for all of us is enough. To this day, medical miracles aside, it is truly final when the death knell rings on something. The faith of these women displayed in this instance is so remarkable. Despite evidence to the contrary, they still believed somehow. Have we become so jaded that our sense of the impossible has been dulled? I agree, as one known to err on the side of caution, I would not just throw caution to the wind.
One of the most exasperating and vexing aspects of my Christian walk is just this. When does one have unwavering faith and when does one accept a situation is over or dead so to speak and resurrection impossible? Is it better to have a #surrendered faith rather than believe willy-nilly?
All I can say is that one day, decades ago, quite new in the faith, I wholehearted believed that someone especially dear to me would survive cancer. There was not a doubt in my mind. But #death came. I was left in a quandary. I had #faith … Years later, I learnt that my #faith was also subject to God. Like Mary and Martha, God was in charge of #life and death as well as the timing. I had to go to him with a surrendered will and #trust God to reveal his perfect will to me. I also had to come to an understanding and accept that it may well be different to my own will. Prayer means I can pour out my heart to God, but a surrendered faith means that ultimately, no matter what I hope for, which should be grounded in the Bible mind you, God is in control of the outcome and knows best. And that remains one of the biggest conundrums of the faith we face. Why didn’t God? I believed that He would … Sometimes, we may or may not even express disappointment in God.
Each one of us has been given a lifespan. God has determined the days of our lives. One day, he has the right to take us away. He is the Master and I am, as you are, the servant and as such should obey him. Like Martha, whom I am sure thought that Jesus would tell her sister to get going, only to have him give her a different perspective, so God can also see beyond the lens of this life and give us a different answer.
Do you struggle with the tension that we find in the Scriptures? If so, you are not alone. I have struggled when it seems as though the Bible implores something while I feel the opposite. For example, when confronted by the real hard truth of a dire situation versus the hope of a better outcome. Is faith the defining factor? Perhaps, but that may be too simple an answer.
After years of trying to understand, and by no means an expert, all that I know is that #discernment is at the heart. I was once privy to a conversation that went something along the lines of the fact that the Bible being written for each and every one of us. There are answers to life’s vexing problems within its pages, but we must discern what is applicable to us in a specific situation and I had an aha moment right there and then.
I hope to shed more light on this in the weeks to come. In the interim, may I kindly ask you to consider the Light of the World as he takes centre stage and illuminates our lives this #Easter. How blessed we are. May we celebrate his resurrection, the hope of our redemption through his blood and victory he assured over death for us. Darkness has not overcome, the Light has come. We have been redeemed, by the blood of the Lamb, we have been redeemed. Finally, are you blooming in the confidence of knowing Jesus? In the knowledge that he has set you free from death and that you, too, will rise again for eternity? On that note, I wish you blessed Easter.
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