Words from WW Blog

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

As a pastor, one of the results of being involved in people’s lives is to be asked to perform marriage ceremonies and be the presider at funerals. It’s that old “marry and bury” thing. Since I’m a retired pastor now, I don’t get asked to do many weddings, which I’m fine with.

But since my pastoring years have brought me into close relationships with people who have grown older and older, sometimes I am asked to conduct the funeral of a person who has passed on.

It’s a bittersweet experience. Knowing the deceased is a person of faith helps in the telling of the journey, but the abyss of loss is still evident. This past week I officiated at the service for a 57-year-old woman whose pastor I had been for sixteen years. I’ve become accustomed to presiding over funerals of people older than me, but the unexpected passing of this lady was gut-wrenching. After all, she was only 33 when I assumed the role of pastor for her. I felt like a “Martha”, crying to Jesus, that if He hadn’t taken so long to the village of Bethany, her brother, Lazarus, would still be alive.

I found myself struggling with this wonderful woman’s rapid advance of an illness, and wondering what could have changed the result. Why would God not step in? Why would the prayers of His people go unanswered?

I find that the comfort in God’s promise of everlasting life sometimes gets overshadowed by my intimacy with this world. My fondness of a morning cup of Pike Place, while sitting on my stool at Starbucks, becomes my measuring stick, my definition of tranquility, instead of the richness of Glory.

And yet, I know that the telling of the Lazarus event in the Gospel of John is a foreshadowing of a time and a place where there will be no tears, no mourning, no remembrance of loss. It’s like moving from a familiar place where I know all the sounds, the cracks in the walls, and the position of the furniture to a new place that I haven’t seen yet but have heard how marvelous it is.

Familiarity breeds apprehension.

The Lazarus story takes the sting and stench out of death. It calms the tension in my soul and tells me there is a better life and way. At my age, I’ve got one Lazarus-foot in the grave, while the other foot is still firmly planted in the here and now. At some point, I’ll lift the firmly-planted foot up and, because of the God of promises, cross on over.

It sounds a bit morbid, and yet also comforting.

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This entry was posted on October 14, 2023 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.