Recently I watched a story about an American man in his twenties who\u2019d died in an accident about a year ago. His main organs had been donated for transplantation, and many other parts and tissues of his body had been given for medical use. It was estimated that, thanks to the consent of his bereaved parents, up to a hundred people had had their lives saved. The programme showed the dead man\u2019s parents meeting the female transplant patient who was the recipient of his pancreas. Her daughter, who was only ten, accompanied her. The dead man\u2019s mother shared her grief with them both, grief which was eased by the realisation that her son\u2019s death wasn\u2019t in vain; that someone else had been given the gift of life because of it. The woman responded by sharing her gratitude for the parents\u2019 magnanimity. The story concluded with the little girl sharing her fear that she could have lost<\/i> her Mummy<\/i>, who \u2013 at these words \u2013 wept.<\/p>\n
\u2018If you had been here, my brother wouldn\u2019t have died.\u2019<\/i> With these words, full of grief and pain, in today\u2019s gospel Martha welcomes Jesus on his seemingly belated arrival. These words have echoed across the centuries and across the world every time people have suffered. Similar questions have been asked, loudly or muttered quietly, by those who lost their loved ones; those who suffered illness or debilitating conditions; those who faced insurmountable obstacles; those who couldn\u2019t see any solution to their dire situations\u2026 For many people the very existence of suffering in its many forms is the main argument against God. \u2018If you had been here, my brother wouldn\u2019t have died.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
We might be tempted to think that Jesus didn\u2019t make it easy to believe in his love and compassion. In today\u2019s gospel, upon receiving the news of his friend Lazarus\u2019 grave illness, Jesus remained in the same place for another two days. We would expect him to rush to his friend\u2019s aid, but he didn\u2019t. Some mourners openly made their resentment known: \u2018He opened the eyes of the blind man, could he not have prevented this man\u2019s death?\u2019<\/i> We could argue whether or not their opinions were justified. Lazarus had already been dead for four days when Jesus came to his house. On the other hand, Jesus managed to cure \u2018remotely\u2019 the dying son of a court official, as described by John in chapter 4 of his gospel. Jesus gave us an insight into what motivated him, when he said: \u2018This sickness will not end in death but in God\u2019s glory.\u2019<\/i> And yet, Lazarus\u2019 sickness ended in death. Even after Jesus brought him back to life, he eventually died again. So, what\u2019s the point of the whole story?<\/p>\n
Firstly, Jesus uses this situation to show that physical death is not<\/i> the end of life itself; death is indeed an important step, but it\u2019s one towards eternal life. Secondly, Jesus shows us that this earthly life is made up of a mosaic of events, happenings and occurrences; problems, adversity and suffering are unavoidable parts of it. Some of these are of our own making; some of them are the result of someone else\u2019s actions, and some of them are coincidental. Thirdly, Jesus shows us how to make sense of, and to add value to, unavoidable suffering. He offered himself on the cross so we may have eternal life. The bereaved family of the American young man offered his body to save others. The authenticity of love is tested when life is not plain sailing. The authenticity of love is tested when we are braving the headwinds of adversity and life\u2019s stormy weather. Genuine love always make sense, even of the senseless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently I watched a story about an American man in his twenties who\u2019d died in an accident about a year ago. His main organs had been donated for transplantation, and many other parts and tissues of his body had been given for medical use. It was estimated that, thanks to the consent of his bereaved parents, up to a hundred people had had their lives saved. The programme showed the dead man\u2019s parents meeting the female transplant patient who was the recipient of his pancreas. Her daughter, who was only ten, accompanied her. The dead man\u2019s mother shared her grief with them both, grief which was eased by the realisation that her son\u2019s death wasn\u2019t in vain; that someone else had been given the gift of life because of it. The woman responded by sharing her gratitude for the parents\u2019 magnanimity. The story concluded with the little girl sharing her fear that she could have lost her Mummy, who \u2013 at these words \u2013 wept. \u2018If you had been here, my brother wouldn\u2019t have died.\u2019 With these words, full of grief and pain, in today\u2019s gospel Martha welcomes Jesus on his seemingly belated arrival. These words have echoed across the centuries and across the world every time people have suffered. Similar questions have been asked, loudly or muttered quietly, by those who lost their loved ones; those who suffered illness or debilitating conditions; those who faced insurmountable obstacles; those who couldn\u2019t see any solution to their dire situations\u2026 For many people the very existence of suffering in its many forms is the main argument against God. \u2018If you had been here, my brother wouldn\u2019t have died.\u2019 We might be tempted to think that Jesus didn\u2019t make it easy to believe in his love and compassion. In today\u2019s gospel, upon receiving the news of his friend Lazarus\u2019 grave illness, Jesus remained in the same place for another two days. We would expect him to rush to his friend\u2019s aid, but he didn\u2019t. Some mourners openly made their resentment known: \u2018He opened the eyes of the blind man, could he not have prevented this man\u2019s death?\u2019 We could argue whether or not their opinions were justified. Lazarus had already been dead for four days when Jesus came to his house. On the other hand, Jesus managed to cure \u2018remotely\u2019 the dying son of a court official, as described by John in chapter 4 of his gospel. Jesus gave us an insight into what motivated him, when he said: \u2018This sickness will not end in death but in God\u2019s glory.\u2019 And yet, Lazarus\u2019 sickness ended in death. Even after Jesus brought him back to life, he eventually died again. So, what\u2019s the point of the whole story? Firstly, Jesus uses this situation to show that physical death is not the end of life itself; death is indeed an important step, but it\u2019s one towards eternal life. Secondly, Jesus shows us that this earthly life is made up of a mosaic of events, happenings and occurrences; problems, adversity and suffering are unavoidable parts of it. Some of these are of our own making; some of them are the result of someone else\u2019s actions, and some of them are coincidental. Thirdly, Jesus shows us how to make sense of, and to add value to, unavoidable suffering. He offered himself on the cross so we may have eternal life. The bereaved family of the American young man offered his body to save others. The authenticity of love is tested when life is not plain sailing. The authenticity of love is tested when we are braving the headwinds of adversity and life\u2019s stormy weather. Genuine love always make sense, even of the senseless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-a"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}