Something changed as I entered my late twenties. I can’t pinpoint the first time it happened, and I am not speaking first-hand, merely as an ally. I’m speaking as one who travels this road with you and wants to carry the load when it’s crippling. I speak as one who loves, who does the best she can to lean in to the pain even though it’s foreign. You and I, we look out for each other and that’s what makes the pain of life bearable sometimes. Just knowing that there is someone else who knows.
Friend, there has been a gradual shift over the reason for our heartache.
I don’t remember the last time I consoled a friend over a broken relationship; I don’t remember the first time I cried with a friend over a lost child. But I know that the former doesn’t really happen anymore (even though statistics want to tell me to give it a few more years and those aches will rear their ugliness again), and the latter has happened so many times this year alone that we barely get our heads above water and we are drowning in tears and aches and frustrations all over again.
As we grow older, we don’t cry about lost boyfriends; we cry about lost children. Children who were carried for a few weeks or a few months, but who were held by God before they could be held by us.
Photo credit: Eastlyn Bright
Today I talked to a member of our tribe, someone whom I love dearly (and know you would too) and through the tears she asked an honest and raw question. I know I’m not exempt from pain, but it’s so hard to find hope in it, even with my faith.
This was the second child in three months that went to God’s arms before it went to hers.
Why aren’t I immune?
Why me?
Why again?
In these raw moments I used to give text book answers and say that God has a plan and everything will turn out alright in the end. And though that’s true, the truer truth is that we live in a fallen world and there is death and heartache. And the truest truth is that though God allows our loss, we can’t assume He planned it. But with certainty we know that it breaks His heart, too. As we ache for the babies we will never meet this side of heaven, may we be comforted by the hope we cling to during this first week of Advent.
If you’re a church-goer, this past Sunday you probably lit one of the pink Advent candles that symbolizes hope. At our church the pastor spoke about a hope that feeds, heals, defends, and welcomes.
God fed the hungry and gave His people hope for the next day.
God healed the sick and gave His people hope for a better life.
God defended the weak and gave His people hope for justice.
God welcomed the outcast and gave His people hope for community.
The Gospel of John: Lazarus
John 11:1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
The first part of the verse might as well read, “This Mary, who loved Jesus and poured herself out for Him and lived to please Him and love Him, it was this Mary whose brother was sick and dying.” Once Lazarus dies, it’s this Mary who could sit there and ask, “Why me? I’ve been so faithful. Why aren’t I immune?”
Lazarus is dead for four days before Jesus goes to see him. When Jesus shows up, Martha is there, but not Mary. I can almost taste Mary’s bitterness, thinking the God she loves doesn’t care to enter into her mess and save her brother.
But Jesus goes to her and we see how human our God is. In verse 35, we get the most tender words in the gospel. “Jesus wept.” God, who commanded the planets and stars and grasshoppers into motion, shares our pain. I’ve written that we need to let our hearts break for what breaks God’s, but I never think that God’s heart breaks for ours. But friends, it does.
God entered into our mess so that we would know we are cared for beyond measure.
The Thrill of Hope
And that’s why this is a story of hope. Because we have a God whose heart breaks when our heart aches. And as we see the very human side of Jesus, we also see the divine.
John 11: 43-44 Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Not only does our God weep with us even though He knows how events will play out, He raises us from the dead. He steps into our tombs and gives us life even when all seems hopeless.
Before the chapter is over, people plot to kill Jesus. He lived His life with us knowing that we would crucify Him. But the account doesn’t end on the cross or in the grave. There is hope because He rose. And there is hope because the God who rose holds the children we haven’t held yet. And there is hope because we rise with Him.
The salve for our wounds comes when we bring hope to others. May we feed, heal, defend, welcome, and enter in to each other’s mess.
This morning the hope I cling to is that this isn’t all there is. It gets better. Maybe not in this world, but in the next, it gets better. So maybe we carry with us gaping holes of loss and maybe our world is so blurry because of our tears, but may we find hope knowing that Emmanuel, God with us, entered into our world to give us hope in knowing that our best days are still to come. Even if that means our best day is not in this world, but in the next.
