““Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus *said to her, “Your brother will rise from the dead.” Martha *said to Him, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” She *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have come to believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, and He who comes into the world.”””

— John 11:21-27 NASB

Did you hear what was arising out of Martha’s heart? She’s expressing respect mingled with an honest frustration that essential says, “Where were you?”! She believes He could have healed her brother, but why didn’t He? What follows is her teetering between a remarkable faith and a struggle to fully receive who Jesus is revealing Himself to be in the moment. In the midst of grief, Martha is sorting through her theology or her picture of God, which if you’ve ever lost someone, then you probably know what she’s going through right now. And this brings us to the first thing we’re discovering. Jesus responds to families grieving the loss of a loved one by drawing close to…

GIVE THEM ROOM TO SORT OUT WHAT THEY BELIEVE ABOUT GOD.

This is the very dynamic we see playing out in the story of Job. In one day Job looses all of his children, not to mention his estate. And though we tend to give Job’s three friends a hard time in how they treated Job in his grief and their misrepresenting the character of God for most of the book, they initially got it right in supporting Job in his grief. They all dropped whatever they were doing, came together and went to be present with Job in his grief for seven days straight. They wept with him and sat in silence with him. It was shortly after that 7th day that Job starts to have some hard questions for God. He even gets angry with God. He wants to know why? And what did he do wrong to deserve this? He wrestled with his theology or his picture of God, for most of the book. And do you know what God did in response? You may not have considered this before, but God is present with Job in the midst of his suffering and silent in order to give Job space to sort out his picture of God, just like his 3 friends did in the beginning. God doesn’t step in to speak to Job in response to his questions until the very end of the book!

Jesus comes close to the grieving family in Bethany and let’s Martha express her thoughts, her feelings and sort through what she believes about God without interrupting her. He’s not defensive, but He’s present. As a matter of fact, Jesus only responds after Martha makes an incredible statement of faith in verse 22, that invites Jesus to ask the Father to do something even in that moment! It’s not clear if Martha had a resurrection in mind, however Jesus slowly and gently tries to bring her faith to a place where she not only believed that Lazarus would rise again on the last day, but that Jesus, Himself being the Resurrection and the Life, could raise him even now. Martha is like a good Seventh-day Adventist who knows her Bible and knows the doctrine about death and resurrection. But Jesus was trying to move her faith from a what to a Who! The theology she was trying to sort through, the doctrine she believed in and could quote, was standing there in front of her in human flesh. The glory of God being manifested in the Son of God was already present right there with Martha to help her get a clearer picture of God in the midst of her grief! Does she dare believe what Jesus is presently revealing? She could only bring her faith to merely confess that she believed Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God who was to come into the world, which was great, but that’s not specifically what Jesus was inviting her to believe in that moment. And that’s ok, because Jesus was present to give her room.

My friends, as followers of Jesus, we are called to replicate His ways, and in this case, His way of supporting those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. And in their moment of grief, as my friend and colleague Mike Tucker says, our job is to show up and shut up. That is not the time to straighten out their theology, silence their grief or invalidate their pain. Instead just be present to sit with them in their grief and give them room to sort out what they believe about God. And take Jesus’ que to only respond to their expressions of faith in a way that will comfort, encourage and assure their faith in a God of love who is faithful to them even in that present moment of questions, hurt, doubts and grief. Trust me, He can handle it.

So Martha then goes back into the house and discreetly informs Mary that Jesus was there and was calling for her. So Mary quickly gets up and runs to meet Jesus where He was. Now I want you to notice the similarity and the difference between Martha’s encounter with Jesus and Mary’s beginning in verse 30…