Lord, the one you love is sick

[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! Every Bible reader knows this story very well. I have read only the first half of the whole narrative, which is about a small family in mourning - the part about Lazarus' illness and death - the saddest part of the whole story. But there is so much comfort in this sad story! Not for nothing is the Gospel called "good news", a message from God. Even mourning, even sickness, is full of much consolation, much rejoicing. If I were to give a title to this passage, I could say something like this: 'A message of joy in the face of death.' Let us try to see some obvious truths in it.First of all, let me draw your attention to the way in which Martha and Mary tell Jesus about the illness of their brother Lazarus. When they say, "Behold, the one you love is sick!" This message alone is a consolation for all sick and suffering people. It expresses the fact that even a person loved by Jesus, a person who is in intimate relationship with Jesus, can be sick. A serious illness, a great trial, suffering, is not at all a sign that Jesus does not love. I would like to emphasise this very strongly because it very often happens that a person who is suffering is approached by a tempter who tries to steal this thought into his heart: 'Well, you see, you still think that God is a loving power? Is that what God's love means to you? Does he love you so much that he does not protect you from this or that trouble or suffering?" But in the hearts of so many suffering people there is the same thought, expressed by the author of one of our hymns, "I did not understand, when you made me suffer, when you made me weep, why, if you love me, you have a rod to strike me." We humans also try to imagine God's love in some human form. We think that if we love someone, we will do our best to save them from suffering - or if we don't, we don't really love them. We also expect God's love, if he really loves us, why doesn't he surround us with his love so that we don't have access to any harm or suffering? He would even have the power to do so, unlike us humans. The most painful thing for us is that when we are faced with suffering, when our friend or loved one is suffering, we are helpless. But God is not helpless, He is omnipotent. Why does He allow someone to suffer? Surely the main lesson we should learn from this story is that even those who are consciously in God's love are sometimes afflicted by all sorts of earthly troubles and miseries. And no suffering soul should ever allow the temptation to come upon him that his suffering, his affliction, is a sign that his love for God has waned.
See with what firm certainty, with unshaken faith, the two brothers say, "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick!" There is no doubting, no arguing, no reckoning: How can the one you love be sick?! Rather, it is a great, confident confession of faith. Jesus does not at all censure the brothers' faith and trust in Him. He does not say: It is not true, I do not love you, you are wrong. Or: "I will punish you for something you have done wrong, Lazarus will repent because you have done something wrong. He does not say anything like that. Later he refers to the relationship between him and Lazarus as "Lazarus, my friend." He confirms to the brothers that he loves Lazarus very much, even so, the sick Lazarus. This sacred relationship that bound them together was well known. What is also very remarkable in the message is that the brothers do not communicate in this way: Lord, he who loves you so much is sick... But they could have said so. Neither do they refer to: 'Lord, you know how much we love you, we have always given you room, look, we are in trouble now' The brothers and sisters are not referring to their own love for Jesus, but to Jesus' love, which is much more than theirs. "The one you love is sick!" Yes, the love of Jesus, that is the surest foundation on which to always appeal. Dare to invoke the love of Jesus, never your own! And if one is certain of this, that Jesus loves him, then all sorrow, all sickness, becomes secondary, all trouble, all misery, loses its edge, its very danger. This is the way to call Jesus to every sickbed! This is the way to take note of all the misfortunes on this earth that befall us, or even those who belong to us. It is the way to be assured, to be strengthened in the consoling knowledge that Jesus loves us, miserable and wretched as we are! Such a saying yes to Jesus' love is what takes away the torment of temptations. Let us learn, for once, very seriously, that it is not, as we used to say, "Health is the greatest treasure! If it were, imagine that one day we would all have to lose our greatest treasure, because one day we would all have to die.
There is something more than health that remains when life is gone, drained away - and that is the certainty of God's redeeming love. When I know this, I am sure of it, then whatever trouble comes, my heart is at peace, my nerves are quieted, I am not consumed by worry, sorrow, despair, then I am overwhelmed by the peace of God. Whoever knows that he is in God's redeeming love, in whatever distress he may be, can say to the Lord, "Thy will be done." Behold, you see, there is so much strength, so much consolation in this little message, "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick." This is what comes out of the message of the brothers, this peace, this calm, this consolation that is already in advance. There is no petty crying in this message: "Oh, Lord, there is trouble, come now, help me now! This is the message of someone who does not only reach out for Jesus' hand in times of sickness, who does not only ask God for help in times of trouble, but also in advance. It is not good to postpone reconciliation with God until the house is on fire, when I may not be able to find it. It is much better to send a message to someone with whom the person in distress has already established an intimate friendship. If one wants to share in the precious consolation of Jesus in times of trial, one must be glad to see Him earlier, in days of prosperity and joy. The best help in trial is to prepare for it in advance, in time. It is not even the most important thing that something should not come to harm, for it will most certainly come. The most important thing is not to be spiritually unprepared for trouble, because it will come.
And then the shocking, unexpected thing that continues the story. We read that when the sister places her brother's fate in Jesus' hands with the message, "Lord, the one you love is sick," hearing the message, Jesus stayed where he was for two more days. He knows he is sick... How can this be? He knows that he is terribly expected. He delays - he stalls. But every minute of delay can be fatal. I can imagine that for the two brothers and Lazarus, the two-day wait was the most difficult ordeal. Let's try to imagine it: all the acquaintances gathered, all waiting for Jesus - and Jesus did not come. Time passes, hours pass, a day, two days pass - Jesus does not come... The illness gets worse, Jesus still doesn't come. Then, suddenly, the patient dies. The brothers' faith is now being put to an unbearable test. Whispered comments are heard here and there: couldn't he have healed the one he loved so much? Something like a whisper, 'Could not Jesus have done so much, that one with whom he had such good friendship should come to him when he was called?
Here again we see the trial of this 'yet-belief', that all your prayers were apparently in vain, that God was silent, that He did not fulfil your hope in Him, that He did not justify your trust in Him, or that He did something quite different from what you expected and asked of Him. Yet the man died, the one for whose survival you prayed so much. The faith of these two sisters still stands strong. They are still waiting for the Lord. Shaking under the weight of grief, they are still waiting for Jesus. You can almost hear something of this in their silent grief: Lord, you did not come, and we waited. You broke our hearts, and we trusted in You. You did not do what we asked... Yet we wait, yet we love You. We don't understand You, yet we believe in You... Can our faith stand this test? For one of the greatest tests of your faith is that you call on Him - He does not come, and yet you wait. Yet you believe in Him. I once saw in a deaconess's apartment somewhere a wall saying hanging above her desk, this one short little word on it, "Yet, Yet!" Just think, when one feels that everything goes against the love of God, it is absolutely incomprehensible what has happened, yet I believe in Him, yet I love Him! If only we all had that inscription in our hearts! At the end of the story, it turns out that such yet-belief is right, because even if Jesus did not come, He did come after two days, and even if great trouble happened during those two days, Jesus came at the right time. What did Mary say to Him? "Lord, if you had been here, she would not have died!" Let not the anguish with which the mourning heart is always tormented be overwhelming: If we had taken him to another doctor... if he could have been taken to hospital in time, if he had received this or that injection in time, he would have lived!
Dear Brothers and Sisters! Every mourner should once and for all erase from his heart the two words "if" and "would have", because this is always a veiled accusation, and not even a conscious accusation against God. Jesus knew very well why he did not come sooner. He says plainly, "Because of you I came not sooner." So it had to be that way. The Lord's ways are different from our ways, his thoughts are different from our thoughts. In the end, it turns out that Jesus was right, it was better the way Jesus acted, not the way Martha or Mary imagined. It always turns out in the end that it is better the way God does it. Sometimes we may not understand it, not the way we can imagine it. Never say, dear Brother, "if" and "would have", erase them from your vocabulary, from your heart. But simply, with childlike faith, accept it as it is. And the mysteries will be revealed, the question marks will be resolved. Just wait for the end!
Finally, just how the word of Jesus already sheds light when he says: "I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, even if he dies, lives." He does not say: I will be, but He says: "I am the resurrection and the life." In Jesus, in His person, the resurrection, the life, is not a future promise to be fulfilled some day, some time, on the last day, but a reality in the here and now. The person of Jesus is the bridge of life that bridges time and eternity, earth and heaven, death and resurrection. Whoever believes in Jesus is not far from the resurrection. He does not have to wait for the last day, he is already in the resurrection, he is already in eternity.
The believers who live here and those who have already gone beyond are all with Jesus here and there. They are with Jesus, all together in Jesus. It's one big family, only one part of it is already over there and the other part is still on the way there, but soon we will all go there together. It's great how Jesus announces to his disciples the death of Lazarus: "Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep." He simply fell asleep. The One who is the resurrection and the life itself says so, because He can say of a dead person that he has "fallen asleep". And if He says He has fallen asleep, let us acknowledge that He has fallen asleep, just as a child tired of playing in the evening falls asleep in his mother's lap. And sleep is good. Sleep is rest. The fresher you'll wake to a dear loving kiss the next day. How right Jesus is, literally, when he says: "He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live," he says, "he shall never die..." only to fall asleep here, only to be awakened by the resurrection kiss of Jesus there.
"Do you believe this?", Jesus asks Martha, you, me, all of us. Spinoza, the great unbelieving philosopher, once said, "I would give my whole philosophical system if I could believe..." But he didn't give it... Give him your whole philosophical system, your whole system of human reasoning, your whole system of human speculations, give him courageously, calmly, and so dare to believe in Jesus Christ, yet to believe in Jesus Christ, who is for you, for our loved ones, the resurrection and the life itself.
Amen.
Who gives all things to his God,
Puts his trust only in him,
He keeps it here below in wonder,
He'll keep it alive in the midst of misfortune.
Who hath put all things in his holy hands,
He hath not built on stubble.
Canto 274, verse 1
Date: 7 July 1968 Old and Sick Sunday