“...weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5
I woke up this morning to an absolutely beautiful spring-like day. Birds singing. Dewy grass. Blue skies. You can almost hear the green buds of the trees pushing themselves towards the sunlight. There is a fresh clean scent in the air. A scent of renewal. A scent of cleansing. A scent of hope and expectancy. Spring.
Even though the calendar has barely left February, the promise of spring looms large. We seem to get these “teaser” days every once in a while.
It's hard to believe that a few short weeks ago the Pacific Northwest, and much more of our nation, was a veritable skating rink. The ice laid so thickly on the trees that they bowed down to meet the earth, snapping and crashing under the weight of inches of frozen rain. The ice lasted only a few days, but the ramifications are still widespread. Families lost power in homes for days on end. Companies worked around the clock to restore electricity to a quarter-of-a-million individuals without heat in our community alone. Cellular service was a mess. There was no internet to be had, and infrequent coverage left consumers holding their thousand-dollar technology in their hands with regret of its ineffectiveness.
It was only a couple of days, but it felt like it would never end.
Today, the ice is gone, and although there is still a mess of trees and residue across the area, the morning is filled with the freshness of spring and the promise of forward momentum into the next season.
How often do we find ourselves in the middle of a crisis, the middle of a storm, and it feels like it will go on forever? I remember thinking at the beginning of the Covid-pandemic, “Oh, it’s just going to be a couple weeks.” Then, “Oh, we should be back to normal by June.” Then, “This can’t last till Christmas, can it?” And now, “I guess it will end sometime.” I don’t know when we will be “out” of the pandemic, but I have to continue to believe there will be an end.
There is a kind of tunnel-vision we all get in a trial. There is little we can focus on outside of our own suffering. We know, intellectually, that there are others suffering in the same and different ways, but we want to scream from the rooftops in our grief and worry. “Look at me!” “See my suffering!” “Doesn’t anyone care about me?!?” We know it’s selfish. We grope for a handle in the darkness to give to others, selflessly, but we usually come up short and swing back around to ourselves.
In the much loved television (and book) series, Game of Thrones, the noble Stark family motto is “Winter is coming.” In their fictional land, the Starks, and all of the other lands of their realm, have been living in an endless summer. They have prospered and multiplied and loved and learned… But the battle cry of “Winter is coming” is a continual reminder that someday summer will end. Someday there will be strife and trials and uncertainty and even death.
Eventually (spoiler alert), Winter comes to the Starks and heartbreak seems to shadow their fate.
Maybe you feel like the Starks. Winter has come. Literally and figuratively. You have been living in a dark and troubled time. It seems like there is nothing else that can possibly go wrong and then you get hit with a wildfire, or an ice storm, or a diagnosis, or a heartbreak. What else can possibly go wrong? It is the depth of winter. Your soul is cocooned into a protective layer of suspicion, fear and even dread. But you have to remember, the opposite of a truth is also often true. Winter has come, so, that means, spring is coming! Hope is coming! Rest and certainty and peace are coming! Like I said before, when you’re in the middle of things, it feels like it will never end. But nothing is endless. Spring is coming.
Martha and Mary’s experience with their beloved brother Lazarus is a fine example. Lazarus was dead. Sincerely, dead. Four days dead. No pulse. No breath. Mourners. Funeral preparations. The whole nine-yards. Now Lazarus was Jesus’ friend. Lazarus’ sisters petitioned Jesus to help in their brother’s illness, but he did not attend to the situation in a timely manner. One could wonder why Jesus didn’t rush off to heal his friend before his death, but I think it may have been that he knew the impact would be greater when he would raise Lazarus from the dead. Resurrection supersedes deliverance.
When Jesus finally made his way to his friend, it was too late and Lazarus was gone. This event sparks the shortest verse in the Bible. John 11: 35 says “Jesus wept.” Noun. Verb. Such a simple sentence. But it is packed with implications. Jesus knew that he would revive his friend. But still, Jesus wept for the death of his friend. I believe he wept for so much more.
What does the story of Lazarus have to do with ice storms and wildfires, heartbreak and global-pandemics? Nothing and everything.
Lazarus is winter. Lazarus is the power-outage that seems endless. Lazarus is a dark-place in our soul that we just can’t seem to climb out of. No pulse. No breath. Mourners. Funeral preparations. Lazarus is hopelessness. But Jesus. Jesus is hope. Jesus is pulse and breath and joy and love. Jesus is light in the darkness.
Why doesn’t Jesus deliver us from our suffering? Now? He can do it. He can do all things! Why does the suffering need to happen when we can be delivered? Why did Lazarus die when he could have been healed? Again, I say, resurrection supersedes deliverance. Jesus can deliver us from our suffering, and often does. However, he knows that if he resurrects us from our trails, renews us, rebirths us, we will find a newness and a strength that would not come with deliverance. This, simply put, is called learning. We learn in trials. We grow spiritually and emotionally in crisis. If we didn’t have to suffer, there would be no need for growth. No need for change. We would be stagnant in our existence. Jesus would rather resurrect our souls with new found knowledge than deliver us from suffering and leave us ignorant and content.
It’s a hard pill to swallow. That the Savior who loves us would allow us to suffer. That Jesus who loved Lazarus would allow him to die. But he doesn’t do this with some maniacal plot. It breaks his heart to see us suffer. It broke his heart for Lazarus to die. Jesus wept. He is weeping now over your sufferings. He will weep until the day that we are all brought back together in his fold. We are his beloved sheep and he is our Good Shepherd. He knows every challenge, fear, trial and heartbreak that we face. And he longs for the day he can resurrect us.
So, we have to keep our eyes on him. We have to remember that winter will end. Spring is coming. And after that summer. We must experience our current season to appreciate the next. There is always hope. Keep looking for the blue skies. Keep searching for the budding blossoms. Don’t take it for granted. Hold on to it and soak it up. Keep inhaling the fragrance and before you know it, spring will arrive.
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