And Lazarus was indeed raised from the dead. It is not some distant time in the future but today, now. What I love about this is that Jesus says, “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Not “I will be” or “on the last day” but I AM. even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.”Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." Martha, who has just lost her brother says to Jesus that, if he had been here, Lazarus would not have died. Because it is Martha and not Mary who sets out to meet Christ who, waiting away from Bethany until Lazarus dies, is now journeying to Bethany. We need to find the gifts that God has given us and use them in the service of others.īut the next time we see Martha is in the Gospel reading we heard today, and it is a very different Martha. Mary’s gift was to serve and, quite frankly, I think literally serving Christ is a pretty noble endeavor. We all have different gifts from God, and I believe that Mary’s gift was the gift of contemplation and prayer and, in sitting at Christ’s feet to listen to His Words, she had chosen HER best part. Now, I think I’m in the minority, here, but I always focus on the fact that Jesus doesn’t tell Martha to stop serving. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” And Jesus replies, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. So, Martha goes to Jesus to have Him ask Mary to serve. Mary takes her seat at Christ’s feet and Martha is running around, trying to get some food on the table for this sudden onrush of guests by herself. We first meet Martha in Luke, chapter 10 when her brother brings home Jesus and his disciples. Because I love the spiritual trajectory and service of Martha which, in some ways, is the same trajectory as Scott. And I smiled when I found out that this refrain comes from today’s Gospel of John where Jesus goes to the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus after Lazarus dies. I knew that I had to find that Gospel reading because that gospel would absolutely be in the funeral liturgy. Whoever believes in me even if he dies, will live.” Over and over again, I heard that refrain and, in those horrible moments, it gave me something to hold onto.Īnd later that night, it dawned on me that, now, I would have to plan my son’s funeral. On Tuesday, February 21 at 2:08 Pacific time, following a wellness check that we initiated, we learned that Scott was finally able to set his crosses down but we picked up a new cross, the cross of loss.Īnd in those first horrible moments when we got the call that Kathy and I both knew was coming, but had prayed that we would never get, I heard a voice in my head saying over and over and over: “I am the resurrection and the life. And with each explosion our family and in many cases, our friends, felt the collateral damage. It is like having explosives in your house that can go off at any minute or, in our case, with the next phone call we received. As Kathy once remarked, it teaches you a lot about unconditional love. Life with someone who is addicted or has mental issues is difficult at best. These crosses may have left him for brief periods of time but, in truth, never really left him. Scott received the twin crosses of addiction and mental health issues early in his life. But we look at our crosses without understanding, sometimes feeling like we are laboring and staggering under their crushing weight without purpose. These crosses are meant to form us into being the person that only God can see. No one wants to embrace pain or suffering but rejecting our crosses is a problem because God sends these crosses both to us and for us. In a conversation that I had with Bishop Knestout, my former boss in DC, about this, Bishop Knestout said that accepting a cross isn’t a natural reaction. Prior to this, Kathy and I had been driving to Cleveland every other weekend and it was all overwhelming. My Father passed away suddenly and then in short order, so did my and Kathy’s mother. Kathy and I, and indeed our families, went through a really trying time a couple of years ago.
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