Living Faith: Learning to Live in 'The Now'

To experience what is about to happen, imminent glory, she must be where Jesus is, in the eternal Now.

BETHPAGE, TN (Catholic Online) - I despise it when I pray desperately for something and God seems to ignore me. I know we're supposed to smile our holy smile and accept God's perfect will with great meekness and faith, but I always throw a tantrum when I feel like He's 'jerking me around' like that. So I sympathize with Mary and Martha in chapter eleven of the Gospel of John. Lazarus was sick, so they send for Jesus. What else would they do?

After the Scriptures carefully point out the closeness of His friendship with this little family, Jesus does what then seems to be the rudest thing. He ignores them for two days. He stays where He is without sending word and only finally reaches their house after Lazarus has been dead for four days.

Martha meets him on the road with what I know is a desperate, but reluctant accusation, yet with vestiges of faith clinging to it: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." Intertwined with suspicion, she lays out the irresistible gauntlet, faith.

I bet it was painful for Him to hold back what He was about to do, what He was going to show her, what He was about to work. I bet the face of His mercy was pressed against the veil of His flesh, straining for release. Yet slowly, deliberately, He takes the time to lead her out of the shadows of death and into a breathtaking Reality. Jesus knows that Martha is living in the past, and she must move beyond that, allow Him to heal it, or she cannot move forward. We know this because He directs her to the present, laying the sentence softly before her, "Your brother will rise again."

"I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day," she says. Faithfully willing to be led out of the past, she nevertheless switches to a contemplation of the future, when it will finally be okay. She understood the greatness of resurrection, but not for herself. Could she have guessed the purpose He had in mind for her from the foundation of the world, the purpose about to break in on all of them in a handful of moments more?

He painstakingly redirects her attention again, for her purpose is not in the future. To experience what is about to happen, imminent glory, she must be where Jesus is, in the eternal Now:

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"I am [right now] the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (Jn. 11:26).

Do YOU believe this? Something of you died, back there in your past, and you wrapped it carefully in preservatives and grave clothes and hid it away behind a stone in your heart. If Jesus had been there it would not have happened. He let it, dear one. He let it happen for this moment. He yearns to show you what He can do with it. Do you believe He can resurrect it so that it will never die again? Do you believe this, most precious one?

Listen to me. Do not look to the future, when "things will be better." It can never be better while it is still dead. It will never be better, then, until you answer Him now. He is I AM. The resurrection is now. The LIFE is right now. If you believe, with Martha and Mary, that He is the Christ, the Son of God come into the world for such, you must remove the stone, open the grave, and allow Him to call it forward in all its deadly odor and trappings. It cannot LIVE otherwise.

A grueling lesson, surely, but I have learned to struggle silently, and wait in the midst of my deepest pain, because I have seen with Martha and Mary, that when the whole thing shakes out, the ignorance, childishness, and unbelief with which I accuse Him to His face will ultimately shame me for its pride when divine Love is revealed under the trappings of requiem. He only does wondrous things, the psalmist says. "Do you believe this?"

What I know now, is that whatever suffering I experience, however late, dark, silent and absent He seems, there is intention in what He allows, and it is necessary for a shrouded end. If I can brave the pain, I might sense Him weeping there beside me, waiting to call something miraculous and beautiful to life at my "yes." When the "Come forth!" has been uttered from the lips of I AM, we must cling in faith till the grave is fully emptied, be patient with the removal of the wrappings, and the unsteady coming forth of LIFE. If we can do this, we will surely see something unheard of and unspeakable.

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Sonja Corbitt is a Catholic Scripture teacher, study author and speaker. Visit her at www.pursuingthesummit.com and www.pursuingthesummit.blogspot.com

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