Suffering: Miracles

“Easter cave at sundown” by Bruno van der Kraan

I pray a lot.  I don’t make this claim to draw attention to my religious devotion and discipline.  I don’t pray because I am holy; I pray because I am desperate.  I pray for my children as they negotiate what to believe and how to live in a very confusing and complicated world.  I pray for friends who face acute health needs.  I pray for people around the globe who are suffering from invasions, wars, and violence.  I pray for the revitalization of the church, which seems so compromised, especially in the west.  I pray for people who have faded from faith or never had faith.

I pray because I have no other choice.

But the choice to pray sets me up for disappointment.  Not every prayer is answered.  God often seems silent.  I pray, but God does not respond.  It would be easier to understand if my prayers were selfish and silly, as some prayers are.  But not all of them are.  Some seem truly legitimate.

What do we do when God doesn’t answer our best prayers?

This question is not abstract and speculative.  God’s silence is especially grievous to us because we feel so vulnerable.  We encounter circumstances that expose our need.  We cry out to God.  But God fails us.

The Bible doesn’t avoid the topic.  One story in particular addresses it directly.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  So said Martha when Jesus finally showed up four days after her brother—and Jesus’ dear friend, Lazarus—died.  She wondered why Jesus didn’t rush to meet their need when they summoned him.  Why the delay?  They needed his help, and Jesus didn’t come.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

How many times have those words, or words similar to them, been uttered?  It is a universal cry of despair.  A mother of an infant who just died of starvation cries those words.  A refugee family who is forced to flee its homeland cries those words.  A victim of betrayal, rejection, or abuse cries those words.  A community that suffers the devastation of hurricane, flood, or tornado cries those words.

I have cried those words.  I said them in the wake of the recent death of my great nephew from osteosarcoma.  He was only 19 years old.  “Lord, if you had been here my great nephew would not have died.”

But Jude did die.  And God was nowhere to be found, or so it seemed.

Jesus listened to Martha’s cry of anguish.  He asked to be taken to the tomb of Lazarus, who had been dead four days.  He even wept.  Jesus ordered the stone to be rolled away from the tomb.  Then, after praying to this Father in heaven, he commanded Lazarus to come forth.  Lazarus obeyed the voice of Jesus and came forth, still wrapped in buriel cloths.

It seems Jesus showed up after all and answered their prayer.  Lazarus lived again.  All was well.

But for how long?

We call the raising of Lazarus a “miracle.”  Lazarus was not resurrected, as Jesus was; he was resuscitated.  There is a big difference between the two.

Jesus was resurrected, never to die again.  In his resurrection he defeated death itself and entered into a new kind of life.  He was given a body that was fit for eternity.

Lazarus was resuscitated.  He died again, though we don’t know how.  This is the inconvenient truth about miracles.  They dazzle us, to be sure, and they meet immediate needs.  But they don’t last.  The 5000 people who ate the loaves and fishes got hungry again.  The Samaritan woman who drank water at the well got thirsty again.  The guests who guzzled the best wine at the end of the wedding feast came off the high, perhaps waking up the next morning with hangovers.  And Lazarus died again, perhaps horribly.

The Apostle John calls the miracles of Jesus signs.  Miraculous signs point beyond themselves to the greater reality of God’s kingdom.  Miraculous sign is different from true substance because it is only temporary.  Its impact fades.  But substance never fades; it lasts for eternity.

We want—and often need—miracles.  But our deepest longing is for something more, something permanent and eternal.  Jesus IS that: true bread, living water, and resurrection.

Does that mean we should no longer pray for earthly goods, like the healing of my great nephew from the ravages of cancer?  No, not at all.  Miracles still happen, just not all the time.  Nor should they.  We would become monsters if they did.  Every child would be the star player, every nation would win the war, every candidate would emerge the victor in an election, every salesperson would sell the most.  We would live in constant competition and chaos.

God works miracles.  But miracles are never the solution.  Not ultimately anyway.  Not even the Son of God was able—or better to say, willing—to work miracles for himself.  “Let this cup pass from me,” he uttered in desperation, but then added, “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.”  His accusers derided him as a failure because he suffered crucifixion.  They said they would believe in him if he saved himself.  Ironically, he stayed on the cross to save them.

Before resuscitating Lazarus Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  We long for miracles, and rightly so.  But we need something more, not a postponement of the inevitable (death) or a return to normal (always fleeting and unstable) but real life: BEAUTY, JOY, GOODNESS, TRUTH LOVE.  Now and forever.

We want resurrection, God’s gift to us.

In the meantime, we continue in the face of violence, betrayal, ugliness, sin, disease, and death to pray.  Sometimes our prayers are answered, sometimes not.  Those answers are signs that God is alive in the world, working redemption.  But the substance is Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, and Lord.