When faith fails

(To the Sources)

‘… Take off the grave clothes and let him go…’ (John 11:44)

From John 11:1-45 (Year A: Lent 5)

In this story Lazarus was dead: not just asleep. The exchange between Jesus and Martha was about faith understood as complete trust. This trust was the prelude to raising someone from the dead. Nothing is said about the faith of Lazarus. May be he died like his sister Martha – hoping in some resurrection some time in the future. May be not.

Perhaps there is a Lazarus to us some of the time. We find ourselves in tombs of doubt, guilt, anxiety or sadness. Faith seems absent. What is the point? But, the faith and solicitude of someone else is holding us and raising us.  The liberation happens more because of someone else than because of us. It took faith among two or three to precipitate the miracle. The unbinding (some translations use this term) means a lifting of the cloud of death.  A rising is the fruit of shared trust and we can be thankful. When faith seems to fail in us it is then the miracles happen. We just didn't realise a host of angels without wings had us in view all the time.