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Almighty God, you have knit your people together in one communion in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us grace to follow your blessed saints in lives of faith and commitment, and to know the inexpressible joys you have prepared for those who love you, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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 32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." 35Jesus began to weep. 36So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" 37But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
38Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." 40Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
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REFLECTION
"Lord, if you had been here..."
Every time I read this story I am struck by Mary's words. Sometimes I am right there with Mary saying, "yeah Jesus, why did you take so long to get to Bethany! Mary and Martha sent word days ago!" However, when you really read it carefully, whether or not Jesus waited the two days before leaving or not, he still wouldn't have arrived in time - Lazarus had been dead for four days, not two.
Other times I'm more like Martha, who also confronted Jesus with these words and then twisted the knife a little more, "...even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." As if Jesus could be manipulated into doing something - have you read about his encounters with the Pharisees and Sadducees? Doesn't mean I don't try bargaining with God every now and then, just to see if it works.
Then there were those months that I sat by my father's bedside while he was dying of cancer. I prayed. A lot. I prayed that God would heal my dad. I prayed the doctors would come up with some miracle drug that would destroy the cancer in his body. I prayed that the respiratory therapists would figure out how to help my father breath without laboring for a breath or relying on oxygen. I prayed that God would just make my dad better. Somewhere along the way I also started praying that God's will would be done, not mine, surrendering my wants and hopes for my dad's return to health to God's care; praying that he would experience the promises of this week's Revelation reading sooner, rather than later. That prayer did not come easily and not without some sense of guilt that I was giving up on my dad's strength, but I wasn't. Nor was I giving up on Jesus who promised to be with us to the end of the age.
I can tell you, without a doubt, that God was in my father's hospital and rehab center room every day. As I washed his hands and feet I could feel God's strength and comfort envelop me. And God was with my entire family whether or not we were with my dad. I didn't need to lament and blame like Mary and Martha because God was there. And after a brave five month battle against cancer when my father finally did die, God was there too.
We do not have a God who is distant and uninvolved in our lives. We have a God who is right there with us in the thick of death and pain, grief and loss. Jesus wept right alongside Mary and Martha, feeling the same anger (a better translation of the word disturbed) and overwhelming grief we feel sometimes when faced with the unfairness of death. Some may say Jesus' emotions were connected to a variety of things: his own grief, his pain for Mary and Martha's grief, his frustration that they blamed him, or even that they somehow didn't trust that Jesus really would do something to heal Lazarus. Whatever the reason we do know that in that moment Jesus wept, that in that moment Jesus felt deeply and knows something about what our pain and grief is like.
That's because the home of God really is among mortals.
Throughout the Gospel of John we hear about Jesus abiding in humans and with humans. That wasn't just for the people who lived 2000 years ago. That's the truth for us today. We do not have to wait for the promises in Revelation to come true, even while we still live in the time between the resurrection and Jesus' return when the mourning and pain of this world is still very real. We can trust that God understands that pain and will not abandon us to experience it alone - Jesus abides in us and we in him.
As this All Saints Day approaches and I grieve the death of another man who taught me much and helped to shape the person I am today, I cling to these promises. They are part of what carry me through the hard days of grief and propel me in sharing my love of God with others; because Jesus doesn't just abide with me, Jesus abides with and in all people. That's good news!
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