There are some passages of Scripture we return to again and again because they keep meeting us in new places. This week, we walked with John into the story of Lazarus. It’s a familiar story, but one that still carries weight. Certain truths rise to the surface when we need them most.
One of those moments comes in the words both Martha and Mary speak to Jesus:
“Lord, if you had been here…”
It’s a sentence many of us have spoken in one form or another.
Where were you?
Why didn’t you act?
Why is this happening?
The story doesn’t dismiss those questions. In fact, it honors them. Jesus doesn’t stand at a distance and offer explanations, but stands at the tomb and weeps. As we reflected together, this is God who has entered into human pain—who feels it from the inside.
And yet, even there, the story turns.
Jesus doesn’t erase the grief or undo the past. Rather, he reveals something deeper: death, pain, and loss do not have the final word. As we heard, “He doesn’t take away our pain, but he doesn’t abandon us. He is here with us.”
There’s also a lesson for us, but it may different from, let’s say, “the usual.”
When Jesus raises Lazarus, notice he doesn’t do everything himself with the wave of his hand. He tells the people standing there to roll away the stone. He tells them to unbind Lazarus and let him go. They cannot do what Jesus does—but what they can do still matters.
We may look at the world, or at our own lives, and wonder why God doesn’t do something. But part of the answer is this: God is already at work—and invites us to take part in what he is doing.
We cannot do what God can do, but we can do what God empowers us to do.
That may not feel like enough. But it matters. Through it all, we are reminded of something just as important: we are not alone. The same Jesus who calls life out of death is the one who stands with us in our grief.
If you’d like to sit with this story more, I invite you to listen to the sermon and read through the passage again. Pay attention to where you hear yourself in it, and where you hear Jesus calling. Again, you can’t do what God can do, but what you can do matters.
Note: the song we reference in the sanctuary is Matthew West’s “Do Something.”
We’d love to see you in person at Lincoln Park-Lynnwood United Methodist Church, 3120 Pershing Street, Knoxville, TN. Come as you are. We’re not in the judging business. We’re in the welcoming business.
