“… he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’” (Jn 11: 28-37)
Sr Vassa Larin comments on the question some were asking:
– And that’s precisely what I am wondering, when, so unexpectedly, I see the Lord “weep.” He could have prevented this from happening in the first place! But instead He took His time, getting to Bethany… And even now, He tarries just outside the village, for some reason, and the story is dragging on and on, described by the Evangelist John in rather excruciating detail. Of course, we know about the light at the end of this story, but imagine the hours, then days, of the human beings involved here; of their waiting, hoping, then running out of time, and hope, – while God stalls.
So God has His schedule, which does not always correspond to mine. At times this can bring frustration, fear, or even intense grief, as in the case of the death of a loved one. Things change, and often not at the precise time, or in the exact way, I would like. Thus God allows for this suffering, great or small, but always inherent to our being in time, that is, in changeability. But note that He does enter into our suffering, with great compassion. How do I know that? Because “Jesus wept” with us. And God subjected His Son to the changeability and changes of our being in time, even unto our death, so that His Son could do for us what none of us could do for ourselves: Transfigure our suffering into light, and transfigure our death into life. This is the ultimate change He makes possible for me, in His cross and resurrection. Let me not fear change today, not the kind my Lord brings me, even if He takes His time. (Reflections with Morning Coffee: 365 Daily Devotions for Busy People, Kindle Location 4104-4117)
While it appears that death is inevitable for all and not avoidable, death isn’t the last word on our lives. Christ transfigures death so that death no longer separates us from God.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)
If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:8-9)
Fraternized 