Above the Sea of Clouds

Despite my intense discomfort when flying, one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen is a sea of clouds that stretches to the horizon, where the sun sits just above, spilling yellow, orange, pink, and purple hues across the rolling scene. It's a sight that mesmerizes me, and one that -- when I'm able to put aside my paralyzing fear of being in the sky for a few moments -- keeps my attention glued to the panorama of unobscured beauty.

I know very well that when the plane descends a little farther, we enter that cloud bank, and the windows blank out in a filmy whiteness through which I can see nothing, and where my perspective turns inward, because outward focus is obliterated.

Descending still farther, while I can see the landscape once again, my view of the sun is gone, and iron gray covering is the extent of my vision.

When we land, I carry the memory of soaring above the cloud bank with the limitless, vast reaches of the sun on a sea of clouds, and it seems like another world -- one that I can't reach from the ground, but one that I know is real, nonetheless.

You probably see where I'm going with this. I'll forge ahead anyway. ;)

John 11:17-37 picks up where I left off with Gladiator Thomas two days ago and carries forward into Jesus' journey to Bethany, a small town two miles outside of Jerusalem, where Jesus' dear friend Lazarus lives with his sisters Martha and Mary. Jesus has gotten Mary and Martha's message that their brother is deathly ill, and so naturally, instead of speeding with all haste to Bethany, Jesus waits four days to make an appearance, and by the time He approaches Bethany... Lazarus has been dead for four days (he apparently dies soon after the sisters send their message).

Why? Why does Jesus wait?

I ask why so often. Why was 2020 the 2020 that happened? Why does Covid affect some people the way it does and other people hardly at all? Why does it seem like the whole world hates the whole world? Why can't we all just, you know, get along?

The two sisters are in their house, mourning the loss of their brother. According to Jewish custom during that time, when someone dies, the family and friends and paid mourners (people whose day job it is to attend funerals and weep and wail as loudly as possible) will carry out a staggered mourning process. They spend three days doing some very heavy mourning, followed by four days of simply heavy mourning, and then for the remainder of 30 days, they'll carry out a light mourning. So in 11:17, Martha and Mary will have just entered the beginning of the middle stage of mourning.

It's a little difficult to imagine this type of formality for funerals (just how loud are you supposed to wail, anyway, in order to fulfill your paid contract?), but it was an accepted and expected ritual in this scenario.

Why am I spending time on funeral specifics? Jumping ahead to 11:33 and 11:35, look at this contrast. It's beautiful. 11:33 says: "When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping (these would be the professional mourners hired for how loudly they can wail), He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled."

But, in 11:35, we have the shortest verse in the entire Bible, and one of the ones that brings with it the greatest depth of emotion; "Jesus wept."

The Greek word that John uses to describe the weeping in 11:33 and the word he uses in 11:35 to show Jesus' weeping gives us a night and day difference. The 11:33 weeping is loud moaning and groaning and wailing and shrieking and general pandemonium. The 11:35 weeping... is silent tears, the overflow of His soul's grief that gathers in the corners of His eyes and spills down His cheeks and into His beard, a testimony of His compassion and His love for this family.

Jesus was 100% human. Jesus is 100% divine. 

So anyway, back to Jesus on the road. Someone tells Martha (not Mary, likely because Martha is the oldest and considered the hostess) that Jesus is coming, so she gets up and heads out to meet Him. When she sees Him, she says: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."

Mary, later, repeats this same thing to Jesus when she sees Him. Do you think the sisters have huddled together in their home over the last four days, crying out their if-only's? Wrapping each other in their arms, looking for comfort, but comfort is gone? If only the Master had been here. If only we had gotten the message to Him sooner. If only He had stopped this. All of those if-only's resound through Martha's first words to Jesus: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."

Then she adds this: "But I know that even now, God will give You whatever You ask."

Wow! Girl's got faith! Keep in mind that up to this point, Jesus has been doing miracles and powerful signs, but raising people from the dead is not one of His more common miracles. Only three times are recorded where Jesus pulls a dead person out of the grave, and it is possible that Martha has heard of the son of the widow of Nain -- Jesus' first resurrection miracle.

Jesus confirms what Martha is thinking, putting spoken words to the thought wavering between them. "Your brother will rise again," He says. 

Hope wells up in Martha, but dare she believe He means what she thinks He means? She tests the thought: "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." This is the eternal and glorious hope of every person who trusts Jesus as their Savior. Someday, we will live for eternity in the place He has prepared for us. 

Martha's breath catches; she can hardly move. She knows the end of the story; she has heard Jesus teach. In 11:28, she calls him Teacher, which is significant, because in that culture and time, women do not sit under the teaching of rabbis; such an activity is only for men.

Is it possible? Can it be? Martha clutches at the hope in front of her. Does Jesus mean now?

Jesus says: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"

What a statement! Jesus is Life. In Him, there can be no death. He doesn't just give resurrection, He is the Resurrection. He cannot have final death, because by the very essence of His nature, death cannot overcome Life. And because this is true, He offers Life to whomever believes in Him. It's the only reason He can -- any other circumstance would make this offer impossible, but because He is Life, He can dispense Life to whomever chooses Him.

Martha's response blows me away. Like Doubting Thomas discussed in my blog post two days ago, Martha carries a reputation today, doesn't she? She's the busy one. She's the bustling, harried cook in the kitchen, who snaps at Jesus and demands that He get Mary to help her. This is the Martha we normally remember when we hear her name.

Look at the departure from this character in her 11:27 response: "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, Who was to come into the world."

Wow. Wow!

Martha, buried beneath the cloud of grief she's carried for four days, stands up, rises above her circumstances, looks into the face of the Son, and sees an unhindered, spectacular, clear-sighted view. She gets a glimpse of the Truth through the veil of her physical circumstances, and she makes her declaration above the clouds: "I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, Who was the come into the world."

See... Perfection has come. The Perfect stands before her and delivers Life. He says: "I am the Resurrection and the Life... Do you believe this?"

And her response, the only response there is to make in the face of Perfection... is a declaration of her faith in the Son of God. Clear. Unfettered. Above the clouds, undarkened by any obscurity and ephemeral mists that keep her from seeing.

1 Corinthians 13:10-12 says: "When perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

For this brief, shining moment, Martha sees face to face with the Bridegroom. For this moment, her reasoning is unobscured. For this moment, she says with complete and shining assurance against the background of grief and the darkness of death: "You are the Christ, the Son of God!"

A few chapters later, Jesus tells His disciples: "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!" (John 16:33).

When we are surrounded by a backdrop of death and pain and weeping over a broken world (sound familiar?), take heart. He has overcome the world! Look above the clouds; the Son is glorious. 

"Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). The morning brings the Son, and every person will see Him. "At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).

Jesus, You are the Christ, the Son of God! Amen and amen!