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I want to offer an analogy for today’s gospel that sounds utterly ridiculous and seemingly trite. I promise I am not making light of the profound mysteries of suffering and death presented in the Scriptures. But for my simple mind, it makes perfect sense and I hope it will for you as well! So here is my great theological statement: God sees suffering and death like I see broken lawn mowers. Hold on! Put down your tomatoes! What do I mean? Over the past couple of years I have offered the Lazurus Small Engine Repair Service because I was amazed at how many folks threw away perfectly viable lawn equipment because of some small problem. To them it was ruined, good for nothing, never-gonna-run again trash. In nearly every case it was actually only a dirty carburetor, minor repair, or missing part. If you understand how a small engine works, then almost any problem can be fixed, most of them quickly and easily. If you don’t understand these engines, even the simplest problem seems catastrophic, unfixable and overwhelming. In two years, I have been able to keep almost 100 pieces of law equipment from getting unnecessarily trashed, much to the relief of their owners. Of course this analogy could be used for any area of expertise. Each of you has something you excel in and understand while the rest of us flounder. You see solutions and fixes where others simply see confusion and hopelessness. For example, I am utterly paralyzed when it comes to sewing. When a button falls off a shirt, my first impulse is to buy another one. When pants aren’t the right length, the idea of altering them seems only slightly less daunting than attempting open heart surgery.
Does this rambling make sense? I suppose what I am trying to say is that what seems mysterious or impossible for one person is no problem for another. It’s a matter of training, experience, and perspective. But what about the topic of today’s scriptures? Does anyone have an answer for death, which one day will claim all of us? How do we make sense of suffering which often afflicts the innocent and helpless? How do we square these very real and often painful experiences with what we believe about God, who is revealed as all-powerful and all-good?
The first truth given to us from the author of Wisdom is that death does not come from God. It was not part of his plan for the world and he does not rejoice in our suffering and loss. In fact, it hurts him even more than it hurts us! Let's face it, most of us cannot understand death, so we put it all on God's shoulders. "It's God's will”, we say when a person dies. No it isn't. To say that God wanted someone to die is to say that God does evil things. If God is All Good (and He is), how can He do evil things? Did God have a bad day? God does not have bad days. So how can we understand the existence of sickness and death? How can we understand why good people and innocent children become terribly sick and even die?
Some of these questions cannot be completely understood this side of heaven but we certainly are wrong when we pass the blame off to God. He made everything wholesome and good. He formed man to be imperishable, made in His own image. But through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world. This is something else we don't like to think about. Sickness and death are the result of sin. Most often this is not the result of the sins of the person who gets sick or dies, but is due to the consequences of sin in the world and generational sin that has been gathering momentum over the course of thousands of years of humans hurting each other. It’s also tempting to blame Adam and Eve, but that takes us out of the picture. We are not that innocent. Within every human heart rages a battle between good and evil and the choices we make impact many others, for good or ill.
But as powerful as the tragedies of sin and death truly are, there is something far more mighty and lasting. God did not make death but he knows how to overcome it. God mysteriously allows suffering to continue in our world but he offers a solution to give it meaning. In the person of Jesus, God himself experienced suffering and death so he could rise above it and offer us a path to eternal life.
God has a solution for every problem that affects humanity. However, God’s wisdom doesn’t always line up with human logic. There are things and people we see as completely hopeless, totally broken, and dead forever. God looks at those same problems and says, “I can fix that”, “fear is useless, what is needed here is faith.” What looks like death is only sleep! I can make you new, alive, and beautiful!
Our problems of seemingly impossible suffering and irreversible death are nothing compared to God’s loving power and compassionate heart. He can raise the dead as simply as we wake a child from a nap. He can heal the sick as effortlessly as we get a mower running or a seamstress sews on a button! So what is the primary thing God needs from us to unleash his power in our lives? It is humble faith. In each of the healings in the gospel, we find someone trusting God. Their hearts are open to Jesus and willing to do whatever he asks them. There is a holy boldness that moves the woman to fight through the crowd and touch the Lord. There is an urgency and decisiveness that moves Jairus to ask Jesus to stop what he is doing and come to his house to help his daughter.
Are we like these holy and courageous characters? Or are we like the crowd that jostles Jesus mindlessly? Are we the ones telling the woman there is nothing Jesus can do and certainly touching his garment won’t fix anything? Is it possible we are more like the mourners at Jairus’ house who mock Jesus when he says the girl is not dead but asleep? We become those people every time we put our wisdom before God’s, every time we think we know better and seek to change his laws and ways with our own. We risk dismissing the Lord of life and Solver of sadness whenever we judge a person or problem to be beyond hope and healing, as completely dead and lost.
May God fill us with humble faith and holy boldness that we may go to him first with our problems, sufferings, and losses. Let us trust that he has power over it all and his solutions will always be what is best for us and our loved ones!
