The Internet Monk Archives

Good Works Week III: Let’s Discuss What the Bible Says

It’s time for day three of “Good Works Week” here at IM. Or as we like to call it, “Who can Chaplain Mike offend today?”

Sunday, I ticked off some of our Lutheran friends. In my naivete I wasn’t aware that just having a discussion about good works equates to promoting works-righteousness. Heck, I’m not even sure now that I’m allowed to say the words “good works” in Lutheran company. Talk about guarding the doctrine! That was the first conversation in which I ever got into trouble for saying that genuine love from God and for God and our neighbors is a good thing and that maybe God might even want us to think about practicing it. I’m expecting a letter of censure from my Lutheran church any day now.

Yesterday I got under the evangelicals’ skin. And all because this evangelical dared to write a simple parable capturing the observation that evangelicals sometimes act like they have priests, and Catholics sometimes act like all believers are priests. Ah, the power of a little story.

I thought about going all Luther on the Catholics today, or dissing mainline Protestants for being as intolerant and legalistic as the conservatives they decry, or . . . well, so many targets, so little time. And anyway, this week is supposed to be about good works, right? So . . .

Today I am going to set you free for a free-range discussion on this topic. I will supply some raw materials for the conversation by listing passages from the New Testament that specifically mention “works” or “good works.” This is not a “Bible study” in the sense that these texts will be analyzed in their contexts so that we might draw hard and fast conclusions about what they teach regarding faith and good works. And of course, the topic of “good works” is bigger than just what we read in verses that use that specific language. However, reading through these texts may help us grasp some of the different aspects of this topic that we must consider when talking about it.

Continue reading “Good Works Week III: Let’s Discuss What the Bible Says”

Good Works Week II: The Work of the People

The Work of the People: A Tale of Two Services

And it came to pass that two men died, and their families requested that their funeral services be held in their respective churches. One man was Roman Catholic, the other a member of an evangelical church committed to reformed Protestant doctrine.

In the Catholic church, the congregation with a priest, the family entered the sanctuary in a procession, accompanied the casket to the front of the sanctuary and assisted the priest and lay ministers with placing the white pall upon it. One of the deceased man’s grandchildren served as cantor, leading the congregation in the singing of many hymns and songs throughout the service. Other grandchildren read the Scriptures for the day and one led in singing the Psalm. A member of the family spoke the eulogy. Family members carried the gifts to the altar for communion. The congregation participated throughout the service by singing, giving verbal responses to the readings and prayers, kneeling, standing, and coming forward for communion. Lay assistants helped the priest with the Eucharist, the incense, and other activities in the service. The priest guided the congregation through the liturgy and gave a homily. At the end, the family gathered around the casket, laid their hands on it as the priest commended their loved one into God’s care, and processed out, followed by the congregation from the sanctuary. The service took about an hour.

At the evangelical church, the church that affirms its faith in the priesthood of all believers, four things happened. A musician played a prelude and postlude. A family member read a eulogy. The congregation said the Lord’s Prayer because the family had requested it. And the rest of the service was made up of the minister talking. He introduced the service, read Scripture, prayed, added a eulogy of his own, and preached a message. Between every element he explained what was going to happen or gave instructions or made personal comments. The congregation sat and listened silently for almost all of the service, which took about an hour.

Now I ask you, which of these churches, in reality, has a professional priest whose job is to mediate God’s blessings to the people?

And which church worships God through the work of the people?

For those who are captive shall be free, and those who are free will find themselves enslaved to human traditions.

Good Works Week I: Faith Working through Love

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

– Galatians 5:2, NRSV

For Christ at the last day will not ask how much you have prayed, fasted, pilgrimaged, done this or that for yourself, but how much good you have done to others, even the very least.

. . . Therefore take heed: our own self-assumed good works lead us to and into ourselves, that we seek only our own benefit and salvation; but God’s commandments drive us to our neighbor, that we may thereby benefit others to their salvation.

– Martin Luther
A Treatise on Good Works

* * *

We will be talking about good works this week on Internet Monk.

As we do, I encourage you, if possible, to read through or at least consult Martin Luther’s A Treatise on Good Works (1520). The link will take you to a Kindle edition which is free on Amazon. You can also download it at CCEL or read it at Project Gutenberg. It is not that I will necessarily be referencing Luther constantly through the week, though it will be our focus today. But Luther’s perspective is formative for most subsequent Protestant teaching on this subject, and it would be good to review what lies at the source of the tradition as we talk. You might also consult an earlier post here on IM, “On Good Works,” which summarizes a few of Luther’s main themes in the treatise.

We should remember, first of all, the contextual nature of Luther’s teaching on faith and good works. For him, this was not only a religious question based on the doctrines and practices of the medieval Roman Catholic church, but also a public question in a society which mingled church and state. Luther was not only accused of being a heretic because of his emphasis on justification by faith, but also a fomenter of societal upheaval. “Good works” was a subject kings and princes cared about for the proper functioning of society, and because the Church played such a key part in ruling society, leaders counted on her to promote morality and order. Luther was being pressed to show that his reforms of Church teaching would provide salutary effects in the real world and not cause havoc.

You will recognize much of what you read in Luther’s Treatise on Good Works, particularly:

God defines what good works are in his commandments.
Faith is the greatest good work, and is not just one good work among the rest, but rather the source of all other genuine good works.

In the Treatise the reformer also emphasized certain aspects of good works that form the foundation of such distinct Lutheran emphases as the doctrine of vocation.

If you ask further, whether they count it also a good work when they work at their trade, walk, stand, eat, drink, sleep, and do all kinds of works for the nourishment of the body or for the common welfare, and whether they believe that God takes pleasure in them because of such works, you will find that they say, “No”; and they define good works so narrowly that they are made to consist only of praying in church, fasting, and almsgiving. Other works they consider to be in vain, and think that God cares nothing for them. So through their damnable unbelief they curtail and lessen the service of God, Who is served by all things whatsoever that are done, spoken or thought in faith.

It is also important to remember that even though he often spoke disparagingly of them, Luther was not opposed to or distrustful of good works. He did not hesitate to talk in terms of their necessity and stated that his goal was to lead people to “to the true, genuine, thoroughly good, believing works.” In fact, Luther says in his Treatise that teaching faith must inevitably lead to teaching and practicing good works. However, Luther was concerned for the health of Christendom in his day, and in a vivid illustration he remarked on what he felt his priorities must be:

Therefore, when some say that good works are forbidden when we preach faith alone, it is as if I said to a sick man: “If you had health, you would have the use of all your limbs; but without health, the works of all your limbs are nothing”; and he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of all his limbs; whereas, on the contrary, I meant that he must first have health, which will work all the works of all the members. So faith also must be in all works the master-workman and captain, or they are nothing at all.

What Luther opposed was a number of false understandings about good works, but always with the intention of helping Christians to follow Christ’s example of self-giving love.

Indeed, in an article in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, Simo Peura argues that Luther was not interested in faith merely as an answer to the question, “How can I find the merciful God?” Instead Pero says, “He was trying to work out a solid answer to the great commandment of Scripture: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself’ (Luke 10:27).”

The “whole intent” of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith was more than the verdict of declared righteousness. He was concerned about how people could be brought into union with God so that they might receive God’s love and so be enabled to fulfill the Law of Love.

Luther’s entire theological work can be viewed as an attempt to solve the problem of self-serving love. Both his view of salvation and his social-ethical writings concern the same problem. . . .

. . . Luther offers several examples of his intention to deal with the problem of pure love. His effort to build a system of social welfare with the city council of Wittenberg, his emphasis on the Golden Rule as the basis for all interhuman relations, his doctrine of two kingdoms, his critique of usury and the legal system, and his instructions for being a righteous and fair sovereign are all attempts to point out the necessity of loving God from one’s whole heart and the neighbor as oneself. He was convinced that the problem of true love can only be solved through faith in God. For individuals cannot find the love that is commanded of them in themselves; it has to be given to them by God. (Union with Christ, p. 78)

Peuro discusses how the Large Catechism teaches us to understand God’s essential nature as that of pure, self-giving love. Through faith, we receive God’s gifts, but these gifts do not come to us in a way that is separate from God himself. Above all God gives himself to us, and this enables us to love.

Faith is important because it alone enables us to receive God’s unselfish love. When God first reveals his pure love and gives himself with all of the gifts of salvation to us, we become partakers of God and of his nature as pure love. Only under the condition of God’s presence and participation do we begin to bring God’s love into existence in our lives. It is actually God himself who extends through our lives his love toward all of those who need his love and want to be saved. We, like all other creatures, are the hands and all of the means of God’s unselfish love.” (Union, p. 95)

Faith is a great gift of God, primarily because it is the essential key which enables us to participate in God’s greatest gift, the gift of love.

Saturday Ramblings, May 17, 2014

Satanic broccoli, baptizing Martians, and Godzilla as a Christ-figure. Welcome to the weekend, fellow imonkers.

pope-francis-would-welcome-martians-to-the-church — Not an actual photo

First, some lighter news. Here in Indiana, we are anxiously awaiting the next round of the NBA playoffs, where the valiant and virtuous Pacers battle the Evil Empire (aka, the Miami Heat) for the Eastern Conference championship. And the Oklahoma City Thunder will face the San Antonio Spurs for the Western crown. I’m rooting for the Pacers to go all the way of course, but it would be intriguing to have our first “Battle of the Weather” if the Thunder take on the Heat.

"Don't mix metaphors, Dan. We're still on the Evil Empire theme". — “Don’t mix metaphors, Dan. We’re still on the Evil Empire theme”.

In other sports news, the NFL completed their draft with more than the usual amount of drama, as questions arose why Johnny Football dropped all the way to the 22^ndspot and got exiled to Cleveland.And Michael Sam, the first openly gay player was drafted in the 259^th spot. Before the draft, Sam said he wanted to simply be a football player. After he was drafted, he let the Rams know the Oprah’s network would be filming a documentary about his experience in training camp and trying to make the team.

Also, some baseball was played. The Cubs went 1-5 since our last Ramblings. Just so you know.

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings, May 17, 2014”

Random Thoughts about New Life, Church Life, the After Life, and the Myo

I have had this stream of consciousness going through my head this week about many of the discussions that have been going on at Internet Monk and elsewhere. Here are some of the things I have been thinking about. Feel free to join the conversation with whatever thought catches your fancy.

1. A recalled a conversation with a non-Christian friend many years ago who was visiting my church. “The people here seem to have something that I am missing in my life. How do I become a member of your church?” What would your answer be? I wonder if anyone will respond as I did? (A hint, it was the wrong answer.) How does someone who expresses an interest in following Jesus become a Christian according to your faith tradition?

2. “Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid and mine.” This was the response to William Carey in 1786, when he asked a gathering of ministers if it was the duty of all Christians to spread the gospel though the world. As a followup to #1, and as I am still smarting a bit from some of the responses I got from last week’s post, and after reading the comments this week, I wonder if several of our readers would have given a similar response? Is perhaps a more scriptural response somewhere between Carey’s question and the response he received?

3. Continuing that train of thought, I have heard some recent conversations about the 80-20 rule. These particular conversations were being applied to life in the church and what needed to be done. The observation was that 20% of the people seemed to doing 80% of the work of ministry. Is that a bad thing? Or is this just what should be expected? Matt Redmond’s post on Wednesday prompted some of these thoughts.

4. Did anyone reference Michael Spencer’s post on Wretched Urgency in our discussions this week? That was the post the came to my mind a few times. If you haven’t read it, read it now. It will be the best thing you do all week.

5. Penultimately, from yesterday’s post… I get the impression that people are thinking of the “New Earth” as a renewed Earth. Having watched the latest Superman movie not that long ago, I was wondering if it might be a different location altogether. Which way do you lean?

6. Totally unrelated to the above points, but check out what my son Josh is going to working on for the next four months. Included because of the “cool” factor, but primarily because I have been thinking a lot about my son this week.

Our Terrestrial Hope

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

– Maltbie D. Babcock

The world into which we shall enter in the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both, however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these cities, these streets, these people that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet accomplished consummation; they they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears the everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brought home.

– Edward Thurneysen
quoted in The Bible and the Future, p. 281

* * *

Long before N.T. Wright caught the attention of so many with his teachings on eschatology in Surprised by Hope, my own views were transformed by the teaching of Anthony Hoekema.

His 1979 work, The Bible and the Future, is on my personal “short list” of the books that have influenced me most in my life and ministry. Hoekema was Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, and his book is a comprehensive treatment of the amillennial perspective on eschatology. When I first read it, my doubts about dispensationalism had been growing for some time, and Hoekema’s clear, intelligent reading of Scripture took me a long way toward abandoning it altogether. After having done so, I’ve come back to The Bible and Future time and again to solidify and refine my own thinking about our Christian hope.

Hoekema’s first and greatest contribution to my understanding of the age to come was his emphasis upon the new earth.

The doctrine of the new earth, as it is taught in Scripture, is an important one. It is important, first, for the proper understanding of the life to come. One gets the impression from certain hymns that glorified believers will spend eternity in some ethereal heaven somewhere off in space, far away from earth. . . . On the contrary, the Bible assures us that God will create a new earth on which we shall live to God’s praise in glorified, resurrected bodies. On that new earth, therefore, we hope to spend eternity, enjoying its beauties, exploring its resources, and using its treasures to the glory of God. Since God will make the new earth his dwelling place, and since where God dwells there heaven is, we shall then continue to be in heaven while we are on the new earth. For heaven and earth will then no longer be separated, as they are now, but will be one (see Rev. 21:1-3). But to leave the new earth out of consideration when we think of the final state of believers is greatly to impoverish biblical teaching about the life to come. (p. 274)

Continue reading “Our Terrestrial Hope”

Matthew B. Redmond: The Apostle Paul or the Person in the Pew?

Note from CM: Matthew B. Redmond is a good friend of Internet Monk. He has written for us on this week’s subject, and we have reviewed his book, which holds up as one of the finest, most needed books in recent years. See the links below for those posts.

Matthew B. Redmond: The God of the Mundane

IM Book Review: Why George Bailey Is My Hero

Today, after a quote that I think sums up Matt’s book well, we hear and discuss a excerpt from a chapter in The God Of The Mundane called, “The Apostle Paul or the Person in the Pew?”

* * *

But I say, be nobody special. Do your job. Take care of your family. Clean your house. Mow your yard. Read your Bible . Attend worship. Pray. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Love your spouse. Love your kids. Be generous. Laugh with your friends . Drink your wine heartily. Eat your meat lustily. Be honest. Be kind to your waitress. Expect no special treatment. And do it all quietly.

– Matthew B. Redmond
The God Of The Mundane: Reflections on Ordinary Life for Ordinary People

The Apostle Paul or the Person in the Pew?
. . . For as long as I can remember I had been reading the letters to the churches in the New Testament and missing something. I missed it as a young man wanting to enter vocational ministry, and I missed it as a seminary student. I sadly missed it as a pastor. Sometimes we may miss things because they are hidden. But we seem to always miss much because we see it every day.

I missed the obvious: the Apostles are writing to normal people.

Continue reading “Matthew B. Redmond: The Apostle Paul or the Person in the Pew?”

What Matters: Baptism and Vocation

Thus they made men believe that the profession of monasticism was far better than Baptism. . . .

. . . Furthermore, the precepts of God and the true service of God are obscured when men hear that only monks are in a state of perfection. For Christian perfection is to fear God from the heart, and yet to conceive great faith, and to trust that for Christ’s sake we have a God who has been reconciled, to ask of God, and assuredly to expect His aid in all things that, according to our calling, are to be done; and meanwhile, to be diligent in outward good works, and to serve our calling.

– Augsburg Confession, Article XXVII

* * *

One of the contributions that Martin Luther and the other Reformers made was to overturn the idea that there are distinctions between Christians; that some are elite and advanced before God while others are simply ordinary, lesser believers.

It was the influence of the monastic institutions in the Church that led to this kind of thinking. Ordinary Christians were called to keep God’s commandments. However, monks and nuns also made vows to observe special counsels such as poverty, chastity, and obedience to their order’s rule of discipline. Separating themselves from ordinary communities, they established their own cloistered centers of prayer, work, study, and ascetic practices. This led to the common perception that those who chose monastic vocations were engaged in a life that was higher than that of ordinary women and men, and that they were on a special path to “perfection,” which was unavailable outside the cloister.

Continue reading “What Matters: Baptism and Vocation”

iMonk Classic: On Being Too God-Centered

Note from CM: This week we will be exploring some themes related to the idea of “ordinary Christianity” or “quiet Christianity” — what Michael called here, “Christian humanism.” This essay will provide a good introduction to the week.

Read also:

Interesting column on the paradoxes of Calvinism.
Udo Middleman on “The Islamization of Christianity.”

* * *

This post is, without a doubt, an experiment in exploration and articulation. Many won’t care for where it goes, but I think a basic question must be answered, not just for the sake of answering atheists, but for understanding our own faith as “Christian humanism.”

A Facebook friend just asked me if I wanted to become a “fan” of Jonathan Edwards.

Too bad there’s isn’t a “NOT a fan” option, because I’m not a fan.

One of my consistent critics- who is also a respected friend- called to mind a statement I’d made in the past about the problem of being “too God-centered.” He was obviously wondering it, with time and reflection, I’d thought better of that phrase and wanted to repent.

Answer: No. It still concerns me. Not whether all things are centered in, related to, dependent on, destined for and exist to glorify God, but whether some expressions of Christianity can become so God-focused that the significance of what is not God- including all things in human experience- are devalued and even distorted to the point of confusion in the minds of God loving/God believing people.

I’ve sensed, as long as I have been around my intensely theological Protestant (mostly reformed and evangelical) brothers and sisters, a kind of clumsiness with the subject of the significance of anything in human experience. By clumsiness I mean that these matters are handled, but the constant pressure to be singularly God centered and God focused makes it difficult to handle both God and human life at once without one overwhelming the other.

I have felt this clumsiness and awkwardness throughout my life. For example, as a young Christian, I found myself at a post-citywide crusade prayer meeting with people involved in a James Robison crusade. Robison was speaking about the kind of prayer needed to bring revival to our city. He used a very dramatic illustration of having a vision of an open grave, where God asked him if he were willing to give the life of his child in order for revival to come. In highly emotional terms, Robison enacted this prayer where he laid his daughter in this grave, thereby signaling his willingness to sacrifice for revival.

I bring this up after reading, just today, an account of a sincere, God-loving Christian processing an incredible tragedy involving the loss of a child, and seeing the significance of the child’s death as a necessary requirement for God to bring the Gospel to many people who would otherwise not hear.

These incidents- and many more that I could tell you- seem to be clumsy, awkward, painful attempts to hold together the glory of God and the realities of human life: love, family, loss.

Regular IM readers will have heard me express my admiration for the book The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism by Louis Bouyer. Bouyer was a Lutheran convert to Catholicism. His assessment of Protestantism is amazingly generous, being founded on the idea that what Protestants value most is best expressed in Catholicism.

Bouyer commends the solas of Protestantism and especially the idea of soli deo gloria, but then he begins a detailed examination of Calvin and Calvinism’s focus on the singular significance of the glory of God as compared to anything else. Bouyer finds that Calvin’s focus on the glory of God reduced worship to a shred of its Catholic self, eliminated the significance of the eucharist, replaced everything in worship with scripture alone and made the significance of human life consisting solely of eternal worship. Following this track, Bouyer suggested, the glory of God becomes the only kind of significance that “weighs” anything in the experience of these Christians.

I was deeply affected by this insight, and I feel its impact in my own experience of evangelicalism.

For example, were it not for the work of N.T. Wright on eschatology (see Surprised by Hope), I would be approaching a point of despair with the evangelical “eternal praise and worship concert” view of the afterlife. Wright’s recovery of the doctrine of the resurrection and the connection of this world with the new world to come has been a sanity saver and a faith expander.

As I listen to evangelicals discuss the significance of the church, I can sense the exact process Bouyer described. More and more churches are now nothing but music and Bible teaching. Discussions of other forms of the church that embody community, encourage incarnational ministry or embrace servanthood are under deep suspicion among the heirs of Calvin. Why? Because the glory of God is at stake, the Bible is not being given enough emphasis and there are too many dangers in these human-level activities.

Many Evangelicals see a frightening and dark world. They are suspicious of art, music, literature and the imagination. Books are dangerous. Culture- be it high or low- is of little value. Those evangelicals who are not of that mindset know full well what the arguments are: How is this serving the glory of God? What is the value of this activity as compared to theology or worship? What is any of this when compared to God?

The reformed doctrines of depravity and corruption are applied to everything, and the only answer is God. But can the world of being human gain and keep its significance in and through the glory of God, or must it give way to the glory of God? That discussion seems to be going on in many different ways and places, with varying levels of helpfulness.

I am sad to say this, but there is a point at which the relentless God-centeredness of some believers makes them into the adversaries and almost the enemies of much that is good in human life. They become the enemies of normal, especially in the lives of young people, creative people and people who feel that life in this world is good and shouldn’t be devalued by religion. My recent experiences regarding the rosary at solamom.net are a perfect example. Soli deo gloria was the only reason anyone can have for anything at all, and that is not to GIVE significance, freedom, liberty and beauty, but to question the purpose for anything other than the constant study of God, God and more God.

Christianity bears a weight in this area, and not all forms of it have handled that challenge equally well. Bouyer would have some questions from me about celibacy and many other aspects of Catholic practice (especially the marriage of Joseph and Mary,) but I get his point.

I see the erosion of significance in endeavor after endeavor, area after area of evangelicalism. I see artists and servants being hounded. Standards becoming meaningless. Beauty and heritage tossed in the trash. Theological abstractions set up higher and higher as the goal of any genuine Christian.

I find myself wondering how Jesus lived a God-centered, God-glorifying life, and was fully, wonderfully, completely, healthily, human?

I see that humanity and love of God in the lives of many people, both past and present, but in the articulation and proclamation of the church, there’s the clumsiness; the disconnect. There is, sometimes, the outright adversarial attitude towards whatever is not God and God Alone.

What Bach was able to sign at the end of each piece of music….can it be signed on all of human life? Even what is not religious? What is ordinary? Normal? Merely human? When Piper says we can drink Orange juice to the glory of God, is he opening the door to finding a way for God-centered theologians and preachers to relax about people who want to do dozens and dozens of other things, in their own simple, human way, to the glory of God?

My thoughts are incomplete, but important to me at this point in my journey. I believe the glory of God preserves and fills human life with meaning and significance. I do not believe that meaning and significance only comes when we overtly, consciously allow our sense of God to make all things meaningless compared to Him.

Is our humanity validated? Or obliterated?

Something is wrong and I feel it. Perhaps my friend is right and I need to repent of what I’ve thought, felt and written. Or perhaps, as is so often true in these pages, I’m far from being the only one who’s noticed.

Sermon: When God Is Late

Note from CM: I was asked to preach at a local Presbyterian church this morning. Their pastor is doing a topical series about our disappointments with God, and he asked if I would focus on John 11, the story of Jesus’ raising Lazarus. The emphasis of the message is on Jesus’ delay in coming to help Lazarus and his family, and the question they asked Jesus, which we too so often ask: “Lord, why weren’t you here to help? If only you had come when we needed you!”

* * *

Today we come to the end of the sermon series your pastor designed about the times in our lives when God doesn’t seem to act like we think God should. We believe in a God who is loving, who cares for us personally, who is active in our lives, and who has our best interests in mind. But sometimes, God seems inattentive, like he can’t hear us, like he’s not listening, like he doesn’t care. At other times, God seems uncooperative. We think our plans and our ideas are good and right, but God doesn’t seem to bless them or help us. He says “No” to our requests. At times it seems he is actually fighting against us and making it impossible for us to do what we think he is calling us to do.

This morning, we want to look at the issue of God’s timing. What about those times in life when we pray and ask God to help us, but that help doesn’t seem to arrive on time? What about when God is late?

John’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus and three of his friends: Lazarus, and his sisters Mary and Martha. From the other Gospels, we know that Lazarus and his family lived in Bethany, a village near Jerusalem, and that Jesus ate in their home and stayed there as a guest. We get the sense that they were close friends, and that this family was devoted to Jesus, believing him to be the Messiah. They may have seen him do signs and wonders; they certainly heard stories about that.

There came a time when this family had a need. Lazarus was sick. He was so sick, in fact, that his sisters sent messengers to Jesus and asked him to come right away to help Lazarus. Lazarus was dying. It is at this point that we have one of the most puzzling texts in the Bible:

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he stayed where he was, to begin with, for two days.

– John 11:5-6 (KNT)

What a curious statement — Jesus loved them, so he decided NOT to go help them right away. What would you think of a friend, a family member, or a pastor who did that? Imagine that you were deathly ill in the hospital and your family called the church and asked the pastor to visit you and pray for you. Now imagine how you would feel if you found out that the minister intentionally decided not to go, but to wait a few days. Furthermore, think how your family would feel if you died in the meantime and no one had showed up!

That is what happened with Lazarus and his family, except it wasn’t just a pastor coming to pray. They sent for Jesus, the One they knew could heal and restore their brother. But Jesus said no, let’s wait. And then Lazarus died.

When Jesus finally did arrive, both Martha and Mary confronted him. “Lord, if only you had been here! You could have saved our brother!” What they were saying was, “Jesus, why did you delay? Why didn’t you come on time? Why are you late? Why didn’t you come when you could have done something to save our family member?” Even some of the folks from the village who were gathered around Lazarus’ grave said the same thing: Some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

As a hospice chaplain, I meet people with questions like this all the time. Just the other day I was in a hospital room, meeting with a family. The patient was an older woman. Her husband, children and grandchildren, and other family members were at her bedside and she was dying. They were sad, but they did not question God about her situation. It is never easy to lose someone, of course, but she had lived a good, long life and people were coming to terms with saying goodbye. They asked me to pray, so we gathered around the bedside and I prayed for comfort and peace and strength for them. Just as I finished, the patient’s husband began to sob. With a broken voice, he cried out, “Can we say a prayer for Johnny?”

Johnny was their son. He had died a tragic death three years earlier. Johnny was a young man with a bright future and the apple of his parents’ eye. Now, this dad could wrap his mind around losing his wife at her age and in her condition, but grief still overwhelmed him at the thought that their son had perished. The timing wasn’t right. God hadn’t shown up to save Johnny in the prime of his life, and this father still couldn’t understand that.

“If only you had been here!”

There are clues throughout this story as to why Jesus waited on this occasion and didn’t come immediately to heal his friend.

First, when Jesus first heard the news that Lazarus was sick, he told his disciples, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” He knew that something was going to happen that would reveal God’s glory and bring honor to Jesus his Son.

Second, when Jesus and the disciples finally did set out to go to Bethany, he said to the disciples, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Jesus told them that what was about to take place would give them further reason to believe in him.

At the time, the disciples found this puzzling; they didn’t grasp what Jesus was saying: Lazarus’ illness would not end with his death, but rather with a display of God’s glory? Hmm. The whole situation would lead them to believe more fully in Jesus? I wonder how? Don’t worry, Jesus said. God will get the glory. You will get a stronger faith.

Let’s pause here. Isn’t it hard to think like that when we are in pain and struggling and longing for God to act? Yet many well-meaning Christians come up and try to comfort us like this all the time. “Oh don’t worry, God will be glorified through this situation.” “It’ll be alright; God’s just testing your faith and he wants you to come out stronger in the end.”

Take it from me, even though Jesus said such things here, I don’t think we should. This was a special situation in Jesus’ ministry and it came at a key point on his way to the cross. He said what he did to his disciples and to Mary and Martha and those who were gathered at Lazarus’ tomb because he knew what was going to happen. He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead!

I, on the other hand, have never officiated a funeral service in which I knew I was going to raise a dead person back to life! Have you ever been to one? Do any of us know what is going to happen in the future? Do we know what God is going to do? Can we guarantee that the hurting person we are trying to console is going to see God manifest his glory? Can we confidently expect that God is always going to give us a visible sign that will strengthen our faith?

I baptized a husband and wife in their home last week. The man is a hospice patient and he told me of his faith and his desire to receive baptism as a sign and seal of his salvation. They also told me about their family. They had five children. Several years ago, their daughter, a vibrant, caring person, found out her husband had been cheating on her habitually. As their marriage fell apart, she fell into despair and committed suicide. Her family couldn’t believe it. They would never have imagined this would happen to someone like her. They were devastated.

Now what if I had been their pastor at that time and had come to them saying, “Now don’t fear. God will be glorified in this. God will strengthen your faith through this. God will do something miraculous in your life through this that will amaze you and reassure you of his love.”?

If I had said that, this family would not have been prepared for what happened next. A couple of years later, their youngest son’s life also fell apart. He too had been a friendly, talented, and positive young man until his life’s circumstances became unbearable. He also took his own life. Then, just a few weeks ago, their oldest daughter died. Strike three. And now the father is a hospice patient, and we all know his life will end soon. I am so grateful they have faith, but it certainly isn’t because they have seen anything in recent years to indicate God has come to help them in times of great need. They haven’t been given tangible signs of God’s glory.

What can we say to people who go through things like this? They don’t want platitudes, I can tell you that. Christian cliches won’t help. None of us knows the future and what will happen. We can’t guarantee what God is going to do or how or when he’s going to do it. Jesus could say those things because he knew. We don’t.

There is one thing Jesus did in this story that can serve as an example to us. The fact is that he came to his friends, he was with them when they were hurting, and he wept with them. And then, let’s not forget that he pointed them to the ultimate hope that we must all cling to even when there’s not one thing in our life that makes sense, when he said: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Now on this occasion Jesus also gave a tangible sign that his promise is true when he raised Lazarus from the dead. That was indeed evidence of the glory of God and it did lead people to believe.

However, it’s actually more complicated than that. You see, when Jesus raised Lazarus it turned out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Christ’s opponents. From that moment on, they looked for every opportunity to put Jesus to death. In other words, this glorious act of resurrection made it certain that Jesus would go to the cross! In the big picture, raising Lazarus actually made things worse, not better. It led to Jesus’ suffering. It didn’t answer all the questions, it raised even more questions, such as when people mocked Jesus on the cross and said, “Where is God now? Why doesn’t he come to deliver him?” And when Jesus himself cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is comforting to know that Jesus faced the same questions you and I faced, and that he shared in our sufferings, our darkness and our pain.

Like it or not, these questions about why God seems absent, uncaring, or tardy are inevitable questions in our lives. I am encouraged that your pastor loves you enough to address them, for they are a very real part of the life of faith. We cannot escape them or avoid them. We see them played out again and again in our lives and in the lives of those around us. As followers of Jesus, it is our calling to rejoice with those who rejoice in the stable and happy times of life and to weep with those who weep in seasons of pain and distress. We may never experience a “Lazarus” moment when everything becomes clear, when God reveals his glory in spectacular fashion, when we can’t help but believe in the love and power of God to overcome sin and death and sadness. Nevertheless, even when he seems absent, Jesus will be with us, weeping with us, speaking the word of ultimate hope.

Frederick Buechner is a Presbyterian minister who writes profound and memorable books. He has also experienced these kinds of questions in his own life. His father committed suicide when Frederick was a young boy, a loss that has haunted him his entire life. His own daughter was seriously ill with anorexia nervosa. Fred Buechner knows what it means to hurt, to question, to doubt, to feel that God is absent, uncaring, or late with help when we need it. But he also knows God’s grace and God’s promises, and here is how he put it:

Here is the world [God says to us]. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.

– Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith

May the Lord bless us and keep us. Amen.