{"id":5932,"date":"2023-03-27T14:44:48","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T18:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/?p=5932"},"modified":"2023-03-27T14:46:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T18:46:35","slug":"martha-and-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/martha-and-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Martha and Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

March 26, 2023; John 11:1-45; The 5th Sunday of Lent<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were close friends of Jesus. When Jesus visits Martha and Mary after the death of Lazarus in today\u2019s gospel, the first words that Martha says to him are important. She says, \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d Now we can be confident that this was not the first time that Martha used these words. During the weeks or months of Lazarus\u2019s sickness, she thought several times, \u201cIf only Jesus were here, he would lay his hands on my brother, as he did to so many other sick people, and Lazarus would be healed.\u201d Martha repeated these words at Lazarus\u2019s death, very possibly with anger. \u201cWhere is Jesus? Why isn\u2019t he here? His presence could have made such a difference.\u201d When Lazarus was buried, and the days afterward, (the gospel says that Jesus arrived four days after the burial), we can be sure that each of those days and perhaps several times during each day, Martha said to herself, \u201cIf only he would have come. If only. My brother would still be alive.\u201d So we should not be surprised that the first words Martha says to Jesus are \u201cLord, if you had been here.\u201d Martha was fixated on the past. This is why the first words that Jesus says to Martha turn her around to the future. He says, \u201cYour brother will rise.\u201d Then Jesus and Martha have a conversation about the resurrection on the Last Day and Jesus being the resurrection. Then Jesus calls Lazarus forth from the tomb. But all of this happened because Jesus was able to turn Martha from her regret about the past towards the good things that still could happen.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now this turning from the past is an essential part of being a disciple of Jesus because there are many times in our lives when the past can dominate us. When we lose someone we love in death, we can be caught up in many questions: \u201cWhy did this have to happen? If only we could have found other medical treatment. Why did Jesus seem absent when my loved one died?\u201d When we make serious mistakes in our lives, those mistakes can control us: \u201cWhy did I ever take this job? If only I had pursued an advanced degree after college. Why did I not see all the signs that my marriage was in trouble?\u201d Hurt has the ability to paralyze us. We end up repeating over and over: \u201cI can\u2019t believe she did that to me. I will never forgive him for what he said that night.\u201d Because it is so difficult to let go of a loss, a mistake, or an offense, we end up holding on to these things, reliving them over and over. But this does not heal us. It only cripples us. We become creatures of the past, concerned about understanding or somehow fixing what had happened. But this is an impossible task because the past is past. It is no more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why when we find ourselves fixated on the past, we, like Martha, must allow Jesus to turn us around. We must draw upon his words and his strength to focus instead upon the blessings of the present and the good things that still may come to us. Making this turn does not answer all of our questions nor does it reveal at once what good things the future may hold. But at least it points us in the right direction. And because Jesus walks with us, we believe that that direction leads to future blessings, that we are moving to resurrection and new life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we find ourselves fixated on the past, like Martha, we must allow Jesus to turn us around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5879,"featured_media":5933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/files\/2023\/03\/lazarus.jpeg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5935,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5932\/revisions\/5935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}