Day Eighteen: If Only...Jesus
“If only…” Have you said those words before? “If only I would have bought that stock...If only I had asked that person out on a date… If only I had taken that job...” Sometimes our if onlys are more remorseful. “If only we had prioritized our health earlier...If only they knew how much I loved them.” It’s with this great remorse that Martha, the sister of Lazarus, cries out to Jesus, “If only you had been here.”
The words “if only” are always an attempt to rewrite the past. We might think of Back To The Future, Meet The Robinsons, or Disney’s The Kid, where Bruce Willis plays a character who is confronted by a younger version of himself and seeks to guide his young past self toward a better experience in what is now his present.
But, Jesus, instead of looking at the past and dreaming of what could have been, calls Martha to look to the future. Perhaps this is the problem with most of our questions in the midst of suffering today; we regularly spend most of our time asking how God could have allowed something bad to happen when the more important question we should be asking is “What will God do in response to these bad things?”
Jesus points Martha to the future, saying, “Your brother will rise again.” At this time in Israel’s history, the majority of the Jewish people (besides some like the Sadducees) believed in the resurrection of the dead and the eventual new heavens and new earth. Martha believed this, but it wasn’t very comforting. The resurrection is in the future, but she has to live in the present. However, what Jesus says next explodes all of these categories: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
The resurrection is not merely then, it is now! It’s no longer “if only” but “if Jesus! If Jesus is the resurrection, then nothing is impossible, then death is not a period but a comma. “If Jesus” halts our attempts at rewriting the past and fills us with anticipation of what will happen in the future. “If Jesus,” then all will be as it should.
We all have our “if only” dreams and frustrations; perhaps there are a few on your mind as you are reading this devotional. Do not dismiss them, but run with Martha to meet Jesus, tell him your ache, ask him why he did not act as you now wish he would have, and trust that if Jesus is the one you’re going to, God’s future can and will enter the present into your pain and sorrow with hope and possibility. If Jesus, then all will be as it should be.
The words “if only” are always an attempt to rewrite the past. We might think of Back To The Future, Meet The Robinsons, or Disney’s The Kid, where Bruce Willis plays a character who is confronted by a younger version of himself and seeks to guide his young past self toward a better experience in what is now his present.
But, Jesus, instead of looking at the past and dreaming of what could have been, calls Martha to look to the future. Perhaps this is the problem with most of our questions in the midst of suffering today; we regularly spend most of our time asking how God could have allowed something bad to happen when the more important question we should be asking is “What will God do in response to these bad things?”
Jesus points Martha to the future, saying, “Your brother will rise again.” At this time in Israel’s history, the majority of the Jewish people (besides some like the Sadducees) believed in the resurrection of the dead and the eventual new heavens and new earth. Martha believed this, but it wasn’t very comforting. The resurrection is in the future, but she has to live in the present. However, what Jesus says next explodes all of these categories: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
The resurrection is not merely then, it is now! It’s no longer “if only” but “if Jesus! If Jesus is the resurrection, then nothing is impossible, then death is not a period but a comma. “If Jesus” halts our attempts at rewriting the past and fills us with anticipation of what will happen in the future. “If Jesus,” then all will be as it should.
We all have our “if only” dreams and frustrations; perhaps there are a few on your mind as you are reading this devotional. Do not dismiss them, but run with Martha to meet Jesus, tell him your ache, ask him why he did not act as you now wish he would have, and trust that if Jesus is the one you’re going to, God’s future can and will enter the present into your pain and sorrow with hope and possibility. If Jesus, then all will be as it should be.
Posted in Lent
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