How Do You Overcome Devastating Tragedy? Jesus Shows the Way

Only a few months ago, she died.   I read remembrances of her in several places, of the impact she had, of the thousands, no, millions of lives she touched.   But when a horrible tragedy struck her life decades before, you would never have guessed the life that was to follow.   In 1956 her husband, Jim Elliot went with four others as missionaries to a hostile tribe in the Amazon, the Aucas.   Shortly after their arrival near Auca territory, the Aucas massacred them.   His death left this woman, Elisabeth, Jim’s widow, alone in Ecuador with a ten month old daughter.  But she didn’t leave Ecuador.  Instead, through a remarkable confluence of circumstances, she herself went to live with the Aucas with her daughter, staying with the very people who had killed her husband.   The book she wrote, chronicling that experience, became one of the most influential books on mission in the 20^th Century.  Over the next fifty years, she would not only serve as a mission worker among the tribes of the Amazon, but write over twenty books, teach at a seminary, speak to tens of thousands, and host a radio show.   When she died, not only did Christian publications note her death, but also the New York Times.   Such was the impact that Elisabeth Elliot had in the world.

But how does that happen?  How does someone face an earthshaking tragedy, and in the face of it not simply survive it, but actually through it become a person of greatness.   It’s not so difficult to live a life of fullness and growth when things are going well, but how do you do it when your life literally falls apart.   How do you not only survive the tragedies of life but through them become not less than you were, but more, even extraordinarily more.   How do you live a full, vibrant life even in the midst of the hardest of times.  How does that happen?   How can that happen in us?

In the tragic and triumphant story of Lazarus, Jesus shows us the way.   Let’s listen and hear what Jesus has to say.

John11:1-6, 20-44

When things are going great, living a life of purpose and meaning, one vibrant and full, can seem not all that difficult.  But what about when things aren’t just going not so great, but when they’ve taken a horrible turn?  How do you find purpose and meaning there?   How do you not only make it through the pain and heartbreak, but come out on the other side of it, greater, with a life fuller and more vibrant than before.   How does that happen?  How do you discover a way to transcend tragedy, even find triumph in the midst of it?   In this story of Lazarus, Jesus shows us the way.  Triumph comes when you get in touch with the only force in the universe that can overcome any heartbreak, any hardship; any evil you face.   What is that force?  The love of God.  For God’s love doesn’t just comfort you in those times, God’s love provides you a power that nothing and no one else can. 

But before we see how that power works, let’s face the hard reality of what God’s love will not do.  It will not protect you from suffering, from the hard things of life.    The very first words that we read tell us that.   Lazarus’ sisters write to Jesus, and what do they say.  “The one whom you love is sick.”   Jesus’ love doesn’t protect Lazarus from tragedy any more than any of us.   And what does Jesus say in response?  He says that this sickness will be used for God’s glory. 

God’s love may not protect us from hard things, even evil things, but God’s love will use it.   It’s easier to see this here because we know the end of the story.   Lazarus does rise.   But in our lives, things may not be so clear.  We can think that the hard thing we face has no purpose.    Yet, again and again, the Bible shows us God is working, even in the hardest things we face.  My favorite piece of scripture says it clearly.  “God works all things together for good (not all good things, all things) for those who love God, and who are called according to his purpose.   In those circumstances, God is using your hard times in countless ways, most of which you will not even see, to weave a tapestry of love and goodness throughout the world.  

Yet here’s the problem with that tapestry.   This side of heaven, we only see the backside of that tapestry.   Have you ever seen the backside of a beautiful tapestry?   It’s a mess or at least, it looks like a mess.   Threads of every color are going everywhere, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.  Yet when you look at the other side, it becomes clear.   All that seeming chaos has created remarkable beauty. 

God is working in our lives, but we do decide how effectively God can use even the dark threads of our lives.   When we face such hard times, we can either become better or bitter.   And the tougher the times, the greater the potential for those two alternatives.  God can grow greatness in us or we can choose a direction that leads to a far lesser life than what God yearns to give.  

So how do we make the right choice?  How do we grow towards greatness in our hard times rather than become bitter and broken people?   We do what Mary and Martha did.   We pray and we wait.   And, in doing those things, we need to look carefully at how Mary and Martha prayed and waited, for their patterns of praying and waiting make all the difference.

Do you see how they approach Jesus?  Do they say?    Jesus, our brother is sick, and you know how much good he has done, what a nice guy he is.  He doesn’t deserve this.  Please help him.   No.  They simply say.   “The one whom you love is sick.”   Too often we come to God, as some supplicant, who has no standing at all.   “Dear God, please help.  I’m doing my best, honest.”   But Mary and Martha don’t do that at all.  They simply say.  “The one whom you love is sick.”    That’s how you pray, because that’s who you are, the one whom Jesus loves.    “God, the one whom you love and adore, whom you gave your life for, who is the apple of your eye needs you.”  That’s how you pray.  Why?  That’s who you are.  That’s your standing before God.   

During the Civil War, a certain soldier was injured during battle.  But because of some bureaucratic snafu, he and his family weren’t receiving the benefits due them.  So the soldier went to Washington to appeal his case.  But he had no luck.    Discouraged, he went to the park across from the White House to think it through.  As he sat there, he started crying.   A young boy was playing in the park.   He saw the soldier crying.  He asked him.   “What’s wrong?”  The soldier was so discouraged, that he told the boy the whole sad story.  After he finished, the boy looked at him.  He said, “Come with me.”   They crossed the street.  They went to the White House entrance.   The guards let them walk right in.  They went down the hall to the President’s outer office.  Everyone let them pass.   They walked straight into the oval office.  President Lincoln was meeting with his generals, but when they walked in, Lincoln told his advisors to be quiet.  He knelt down and asked the boy. “What’s wrong, Tad?”  And Tad,Lincoln’s beloved son, said “Daddy, this soldier needs your help.”   Do you understand that you’re a Tad?   You are God’s child.   You are the One whom God loves.

But Mary and Martha not only prayed, they waited.   And that waiting must have been devastating.  They had heard the message of Jesus that it would not be a sickness unto death.  Yet each day they wait, and Lazarus gets sicker and sicker, and no Jesus.  Then he dies, and still no Jesus.   They enter the period of mourning for four days, and only then Jesus shows up.    And how do they react?   Do they turn Jesus away? Do they lash out at him? “You promise-breaker!  You faithless friend!”   No, they simply say.  “Jesus, we wish you’d been here.”   In their waiting, they make a profound choice.  They decided that they would judge their circumstances by Jesus’ love, rather than judge Jesus’ love by their circumstances (Tim Keller, the Love of Christ).

Here’s the stunning truth of what happened here, one the translation camouflages a bit.   When Jesus hears the news of Lazarus’ illness, the story tells us the following.  “Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus, therefore he stayed where he was for two more days.”   Because Jesus loved them, therefore he stayed?  What’s up with that?   It’s something we see again and again in the Bible when God makes a promise.  God often waits until the human mind cannot comprehend in any way how God could fulfill his promise.   Only then God acts.  Abraham and Sarah have a child, only when such a possibility is literally impossible.   David becomes the King of Israel only after he has to flee for his life and live as an outlaw for years and years.  And Jesus does the same here.   And God continues to work in just such impossible ways.

When Elisabeth Elliot heard about her husband Jim’s death at the hands of the Aucas, she was working as a mission worker with another tribe in the Amazon.   She decided even as a widowed mother of a young child to keep up that work.   Roughly a year after Jim’s death, through a series of strange coincidences, two Auca women came to live with that tribe.   Elisabeth, a trained linguist, reached out to them, and learned their language and culture.  And as she talked with them, she made her remarkable, stunning choice, to go to the Aucas herself.  That choice led not only to the spiritual transformation of the Auca culture, including the conversion of her husband’s killers but for Elisabeth a life of worldwide impact and influence that she never could have imagined.   How did that happen?  It happened because Elizabeth chose to judge her circumstances by Jesus’ love rather than judge Jesus’ love by her circumstances.

When you and I are going through hard times, we have to do the same.   The truth of our situation isn’t the circumstances.  The truth of our situation is always Jesus’ love for us.   And if you doubt just how profound that love is, simply look at what happens here.

When Jesus sees Mary and Martha’s grief, when he approaches the tomb, it devastates him.  Our translations don’t do justice to the extent of his grief, even his anger at the whole scene.  Jesus is not simply shedding a few tears here.   He is overcome with his grief, crying out in pain at the loss.   But get this.   He knows what he is going to do, and still he feels this much pain.   Do you see that when you see Jesus’ pain, you are getting a picture of God?   When you are in pain, the creator of the cosmos feels your loss.  God grieves with you.   No other religion gives such a picture of God, a God who grieves with and over the children God loves.   When you are going through hard times, God is not detached from your pain.  God is right with you in the midst of it.  

And what happens next only confirms the extent of Jesus’ love.   For when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, it forces the religious authorities’ hands.  They decide.  This Jesus has to die.     

Jesus knew that when he raised Lazarus from that tomb, he was putting himself in it.  When he interrupted that funeral, he was causing his own.    When he raised Lazarus to life, he was putting himself to death.    Why did Jesus do it then? Jesus loved.  And he knew that even in the brutality and evil of the cross, his love would have the last word.    There too, his love would overcome, his love would win.   For in that cross, Jesus shows that not even God’s death can defeat God’s love.  

When you see, really see, how much God loves you, do you get what power that gives you?   You can know that the ultimate reality of your situation no matter how bad is God’s love for you.  Even if you die it’s good, because God’s love beats that too.   Nothing you face will ever overcome God’s love, will ever separate you from it.    And the more you rest in that ultimate reality, the more you will see that there is no pit so deep, that Jesus’ love is not deeper still.   In the embrace of that love, even in your hardship and pain, Jesus will grow you, Jesus will give you strength to stand, even to overcome.  Why?  Because you are the one whom he loves.