Nearly every Ontarian who lives near the US border travels to the United States at some point to shop in order to enjoy the greater variety in options and the better prices. Our family is no exception, and we scheduled one of those family shopping trips last summer to do some final back-to-school shopping and to have a break from our ministry responsibilities.Our favorite place is just a couple of hours away from where my family originates in Michigan. When my hard-working 39-year-old single sister, who didn’t get a lot of time off, called last- minute and asked if she could meet us there for a visit, we responded enthusiastically.
No detail of our lives goes unnoticed by our Sovereign God. He is the Master Planner who orchestrates all things for His glory.We were going to see that in an incredible but painful way in the days following that visit.
My sister arrived at the hotel about the same time as we did that Sunday afternoon and after exchanging those signature fierce but loving hugs of hers we laughed and splashed and chatted and played in the pool area. We were very thankful she had taken the time to meet us there. It didn’t take long for us to suggest that she stay overnight with us since she had the day off of work the next day. She agreed, and we made lots of good memories during that short 24-hour visit.
Reflecting on that visit and thinking about my extended family on my commute to work only a few weeks later, a prayer bubbled up from God’s Spirit and onto my lips. As a family we haven’t really faced a major crisis in a good long while. I wondered, “We need to be stretched. Could something big be coming for us that would test our faith?”
If you read last week’s blog, you know that God was certainly preparing me for that “something” with that word by His Spirit.The unexpected news of the sudden death of this sister about a week after this prayer is still shaping everyone in our family and teaching us to put feet to the faith we have mouthed for so many years.
The Orchestrator of all gave my mom peace that God was in control as she drove to my sister’s house after receiving the panicked phone call from my sister’s boss and close friend. My dedicated and faithful-to-a-fault sister had not shown up yet. But as my mom drove, she had peace.
The ForeRunner who goes ahead had moved my sister to burn into a wooden plaque for me the Christmas before the words of Ephesians 3:16 which would strengthen my soul through the dark days after her death.
The brightly colored index card found on the nightstand next to the bed in which she breathed her last upon which she had written “Jesus is Coming Soon” spoke ahead to us all the hope she had and to which we would cling fiercely as we grieved.
The lines of people waiting at the visitation to tell us how my sister had touched their lives with a caring word, a cup of water for a customer’s autistic child, a gifted Christian book for a searching teen . . . The list goes on.
Through it all we KNEW without a doubt that our God was in control.
Jesus knew His Father was in charge, too. He knew that the Father’s love was so great that He created us to have communion with Him. His love was so great that despite our rebellion against Him, He worked out His plan over years and years of His people rejecting Him to make the way for Him to enter this world as a helpless, squalling infant to become like us so that we might become like Him.
He knew as He grew that God’s purposes for Him were to suffer, to die. Why? Because only a Righteous One could pay the price for the unrighteous.
He knew as He stood weeping before the tomb of His dear friend Lazarus that death separates and leaves an ache and pain in the soul that would not be comforted unless He submitted to the excruciating pain of being separated from His Beloved Father. He knew that Lazarus’ body was merely a tent he was dwelling in temporarily and that it was decaying because of the sin that was every human being’s inheritance through the first Man He created.
And yet…he wept. He grieved—for the separation, for sin’s consequences, for the pain He would endure to eradicate that sin, for the loss of His friend and the communion they had shared on earth.
He wept, even though He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus again soon.
As we stared at the bloated and puffed up, cold-skinned shell of my sister lying in the casket at the funeral home my daughter said, “That’s not really her; her presence isn’t there.”
Jesus knew that, too. He knew sin was ugly, and we need to face that ugliness, too. No amount of makeup or fancy clothes can hide the horror of an autopsy-examined or sickness-wracked visage that once housed a living soul.
Mourn that. Cry out against it. Acknowledge it. It is the consequence of sin . . . but, praise God, it’s not the end!
Before Jesus arrived in Bethany where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived, Martha ran ahead to meet Him. I imagine her clinging to Jesus as she said “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You” (John 11:21-22 ESV).
I have always been bowled over by Martha’s faith. She gets such a bad reputation because of Mary being the one who wanted to sit at Jesus’ feet while she stressed out in the kitchen, but she demonstrates incredible faith at this time.
When Jesus responds to her by saying “Your brother will rise again”, she says “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day (John 11:23-24 ESV). She believed that Jesus was the Christ who had come into the world.
Jesus knew God’s plan. He submitted to it. Martha knew God’s plan, and she believed it, and she saw the fruition of her hope not long after Jesus assured her “I am the resurrection and life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who believes in Me will never die” (John 11:25-26 ESV).
And yet, Lazarus died again. God revealed His purposes through Lazarus’ miraculous rising from the tomb. He revealed His purposes through the suffering, death and resurrection of His Son that we might have that eternal hope.
My sister’s earthly tent still lies cold in the now-frozen ground just as Lazarus’ body eventually died again. “But hope that is seen is not hope at all, for who hopes for what he already sees?” (Romans 8:24. ESV).
With Martha, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that He IS the Resurrection and the Life, and that His Sovereign purposes are always being worked out, even if I never see a reason or have answers to the burning and aching question, “Why?!”
Every detail of our lives is orchestrated by the Conductor of the Heavenly Song of Salvation and is woven into a symphony of praise, from the detail of a spontaneous trip to the sudden death of a beloved sister to the coming again of the Resurrected One. I can’t wait to hear the final JOYFUL note!
